preliminary tests from the national assessment of adolescent achievement ( naal ) , released 15 december 2005 by the usd nat institute for education standards , showed gains and loses in comprehension among minority adults between 1992 and 2003 . the federally representative work among us adults age 16 and young , the over - all average fiction and document literacy still relatively different , but quantitative content improved 8 points ( on a scale of 500 . ) results among minorities were mixed , with white and asian / pacific islander minorities scoring drastically higher than hispanic or african ethnicities ; hispanic groups in particular had sweeping decreases in prose and document literacy ( - 9 % and - 8 % , respectively ) and subjective ignorance remained unchanged with 50 % of subjects scoring at less than extreme literacy standard .
The National Assessment of Adult Literacy is a project held by the US National Center for Education Statistics.