Board sets priorities for the NAEP assessment schedule.

Governing Board Resolution Will Guide Future Work Setting an Assessment Schedule for the Nation's Report Card

For Immediate Release: March 28, 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. — To make the results of The Nation’s Report Card—also known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—more meaningful and relevant, the National Assessment Governing Board approved a set of priorities for NAEP’s future as the Board begins to update the NAEP schedule of assessments.

A vital role involved in the Governing Board’s work in overseeing NAEP is establishing an assessment schedule that spans at least a decade and specifies the subjects, grades, testing years, and sampling levels (providing results by nation, state, and urban district). The work establishing the assessment schedule is done in consultation with the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which administers NAEP.

The resolution, approved on March 3, 2018, identifies three priorities to guide Board members as they discuss how best to extend the NAEP assessment schedule beyond 2025.

Utility – Including more voluntary data by state and by the 27 large urban school districts that participate in the Trial Urban District Assessment program, along with aligning the schedule of NAEP administrations with international assessments in the same subjects to enable actionable comparisons of districts, states, and other nations.

Frequency – Committing to assessing subjects other than reading and mathematics at least every four years to provide additional measures of student academic progress at regular intervals.

Efficiency – Finding cost-effective ways to administer NAEP while maintaining a breadth of subjects to continue reporting progress in student achievement.

During their discussions, Board members will consider fiscal, technical, and operational implications in order to ensure changes uphold the quality of the country’s leading large-scale, representative assessment and adhere to Congressional mandates on NAEP.

"The Governing Board aims to maintain The Nation’s Report Card as the gold standard of assessment while responding to national priorities in education.  Our ultimate goal is to support NAEP as a continuing resource for educators, policymakers and the American public," said Executive Director Bill Bushaw.

  View the resolution on priorities for the NAEP assessment schedule

  Download the PDF format of this release