Governing Board Cites Expert Analysis in Confirming NAEP’s Ongoing Trend

For Immediate Release: April 10, 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today’s release of the 2017 results for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as The Nation’s Report Card, represents a major milestone in the almost 50-year history of NAEP.

Through thoughtful planning, NAEP transitioned from its traditional paper-and-pencil format to a digitally based assessment. After careful analysis, the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees NAEP, supports the conclusion of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) that the trends in the NAEP reading and mathematics assessments, begun in the early 1990s, should be maintained through this transition. 

The National Center for Education Statistics administers NAEP and oversaw the transition from a paper-and-pencil administration to a digital-based platform. In 2015, the majority of students were assessed using the paper-and-pencil format with a small percentage using the digitally based approach in a special pilot study. In 2017, the majority of students took the digital format and a smaller percentage used paper and pencil. This strategy permitted thorough analyses of the data through the transition.

NCES conducted rigorous analyses to understand how the transition affected score changes and changes among subgroup performance. The results of these analyses led the experts to conclude that the findings accurately reflect the performance of fourth- and eighth-graders and can be compared to past assessments.

NCES has continuously updated the Governing Board on the progress of the analyses and transition. Board members, reviewing and understanding the comprehensive process, voiced confidence in the transition and the findings, which broke down reading and mathematics achievement by the nation, states/jurisdictions, and 27 large urban districts.

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