The National Academy of Education Panel is providing the intellectual leadership and coordination for an independent evaluation of the 1990 and 1992 Trial State Assessments (TSA) of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). These instruments provide state-by-state comparisons of educational achievement, which is the first such use of NAEP data. A portfolio is being constructed of studies of the TSA using a range of methodological approaches. In the 1992 TSA eighth-grade students were again tested in mathematics and fourth-grade students were assessed in mathematics and reading. Approximately 8,700 schools and 330,000 students participated in the 1992 TSA. Issues examined were the technical feasibility, content validity, utility of results, who should be assessed, and how results should be reported. The Panel believes that the full potential of the NAEP is not being realized because of funding constraints. Conducting both national and state assessments may be prohibitively expensive, but the Panel recommends that Congress provide adequate funding to allow the continuation of the national assessment while at the same time assessing at least one subject at three grade levels in state assessments. A number of recommendations are made for improvement of both types of assessment. Ten figures and 26 tables present findings. (Contains 63 references.) (SLD)