This report examines trends in student learning. Using data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the first section reports on current trends in reading and mathematics test scores, highlighting arithmetic and noting that student's computation skills have stagnated or declined in recent years. The second section revisits the previous year's study of high school culture. It replicates the 2001 survey of foreign exchange students with American students who have studied in high schools abroad, asking them to compare U.S. high schools to high schools in thirty-five countries. The American students reaffirmed key impressions of students from abroad, especially on the question of academic rigor; more than half of American students said their regular classes were easier than the classes they attended in foreign countries. By compelling margins, U.S. and foreign students agree that success at sports means much more to U.S. teens than to teens in other countries. However, a study of high schools that are sports powerhouses finds that there is no evidence that schools suffer academically when they excel in athletics. The third section discusses charter schools, examining the test scores of charters from 1999 to 2001 in 10 states. Charter schools performed about one-quarter standard deviation below comparable regular public schools on these 3 years of state tests. The study did not indicate why they performed at this level. The report offers suggestions on how achievement in charters can be evaluated as fairly and accurately as possible. (Contains 37 endnotes.) (SM)