One out of every six public school students in the U.S. is African American. The achievement of African American students as a group will have a significant impact on the nation's economic strength and social well-being. This brief looks at the performance of African American students on state reading and mathematics tests and considers the policy implications of these achievement trends. Part 1 of this brief summarizes key results for African Americans on the state tests used for accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Included in the review are trends since 2002 in the percentages of African American students reaching various achievement levels on state tests; trends since 2002 in the black-white achievement gap; and 2008 state test results for African American students and other racial/ethnic groups. The information in part 1 is drawn from an immense set of test data from all 50 states that was gathered by the Center on Education Policy (CEP) with technical support from the Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO) and was verified by state officials. For the past three years, CEP has used these data to do an ongoing study of state test score trends. Part 2 of this brief considers policies that could be undertaken at the local, state, and federal level to raise achievement for African American students. The authors arrived at these policy implications after reviewing studies by other researchers about possible factors underlying the black-white achievement gap and possible strategies to address this gap. Tables showing the 2008 percentages proficient in reading and math at grades 4, 8, and high school for the major racial/ethnic subgroups in each of the 50 states are appended. (Contains 7 tables and 6 footnotes.) [This policy brief was written with assistance from Victor Chudowsky, Naomi Chudowsky, and Shelby Dietz.]