​Ask any high school senior coming out of the college application season: "If you could go back to 9th or 10th grade, what would you do differently?" Most people assume the answer is "I'd study harder for the SATs" or "I'd aim for a 4.0." But more often than not, the real answers are far more personal.

​Recent NAEP results highlight a continued decline in reading and math skills among U.S. high school students. While the data itself is not new, the long-term trend raises important questions about how students learn—and how they should prepare for increasingly demanding academic environments.