Resolution on Board Priorities for the NAEP Assessment Schedule
Resolution on Board Priorities for the NAEP Assessment Schedule
March 3, 2018
Whereas, The Nation's Report Card—also known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—is mandated by Congress to conduct a national assessment and report data on student academic achievement and trends in public and private elementary schools and secondary schools (P.L. 107-279);
Whereas, the NAEP Authorization Act requires that NAEP be administered in public and private schools in reading and mathematics at least every 2 years in grades 4 and 8 and every 4 years in grade 12 and conduct the Long-Term Trend assessment in reading and mathematics for ages 9, 13, and 17;
Whereas, the NAEP Authorization Act specifies that beyond the requirements listed above, to the extent time and resources allow, NAEP shall assess and report achievement trends in additional subjects in grades 4, 8, and 12;
Whereas, the Every Student Succeeds Act mandates that states participate in the biennial reading and mathematics NAEP assessments in grades 4 and 8;
Whereas, Congress supported the establishment and expansion of the NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) to provide NAEP results for select large urban districts;
Whereas, NAEP provides national, state, and local policymakers and practitioners with consistent, external, independent measures of student achievement through which results across education systems can be compared at points in time and over time;
Whereas, the National Assessment Governing Board and the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) continuously work to enhance NAEP's form (e.g. transitioning to digital-based assessments) and content (e.g. the Technology and Engineering Literacy assessment) to reflect the modern expectations of what students know and can do;
Whereas, Congress authorized the National Assessment Governing Board to determine the NAEP subjects to be assessed;
Whereas, it is the National Assessment Governing Board's policy, in consultation with NCES, to periodically establish a dependable, publicly announced NAEP Schedule of Assessments spanning at least ten years, and specifying the subjects, grades, ages, assessment years, sampling levels (e.g., national, state, TUDA), and introduction of new and revised frameworks for each assessment;
Whereas, on November 18, 2016 the National Assessment Governing Board unanimously adopted its Strategic Vision which included a priority to "Develop policy approaches to revise the NAEP assessment subjects and schedule based on the nation's evolving needs, the Board priorities, and NAEP funding";
Therefore, as the National Assessment Governing Board anticipates extending the NAEP Schedule of Assessments into the future, it will uphold all of the aforementioned requirements and make decisions informed by each of the following priorities to ensure NAEP results are impactful and policy-relevant:
- Utility – include more voluntary state and Trial Urban District Assessments and continue to align the schedule of NAEP administrations with international assessments in the same subjects to enable actionable comparisons of districts, states, and other nations;
- Frequency – commit to assess subjects other than reading and mathematics at least every 4 years to provide additional measures of student academic progress at regular intervals; and
- Efficiency – find cost-effective ways to administer NAEP while to the degree possible maintaining a breadth of subjects on the schedule in order to continue reporting progress in student achievement;
Furthermore, the National Assessment Governing Board recognizes that any change to the NAEP Schedule of Assessments requires consideration of the fiscal, technical, and operational implications.