TThe National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP), conducted by the National Center for
Education Statistics (NCES), is a federally authorized survey of
student achievement at grades 4, 8, and 12 in various subject
areas, such as mathematics, reading, writing, science, U.S.
history, civics, geography, economics, technology and engineering
literacy (TEL), and the arts. The National Assessment of
Educational Progress Authorization Act (Public Law 107-279 Title
III, section 303) requires the assessment to collect data on
specified student groups and characteristics, including information
organized by race/ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status,
disability, and limited English proficiency. It requires fair and
accurate presentation of achievement data and permits the
collection of background, noncognitive, or descriptive information
that is related to academic achievement and aids in fair reporting
of results. The intent of the law is to provide representative
sample data on student achievement for the nation, the states, and
subpopulations of students and to monitor progress over time. The
request to conduct NAEP 2021, including operational assessments and
pilot tests: operational national/state/TUDA Digitally Based
Assessments (DBA) in mathematics and reading at grades 4 and 8, and
Puerto Rico in mathematics at grades 4 and 8; and operational
national DBA in U.S. history and civics at grade 8 was approved in
April 2020, with a further update to the materials approved in July
2020. This request is to conduct NAEP operational assessments in
2021 and will follow the traditional NAEP design which assesses
each student in 60-minutes for one cognitive subject. Given the
COVID-19 outbreak, NAEP requires personal protective equipment for
field staff and must plan for additional sessions given that
students may attend school on a staggered schedule. NAEP was not
able to secure additional funding from Congress to cover the
additional costs for personal protective equipment, necessary
increases in field staff, and other operational costs that would be
required to assess the full sample. As such, this Amendment
reflects the elimination of the national-only assessments (grade 8
U.S. History and Civics, and age 17 Long-Term Trend), a smaller
sample of students within each state for reading and mathematics,
and the elimination of TUDAs from the 2021 sample. This Amendment
also includes the addition of an online version of the student
questionnaires that will be available to sampled students who are
remote and not able to be assessed in-person, as well as the
addition of some questionnaire items on teacher, student, and
school experiences conditioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. The final
Materials Update #3 is scheduled for October of 2020. The NAEP
results will be reported to the public through the Nation’s Report
Card as well as other online NAEP tools.
PL:
Pub.L. 107 - 279 303 Name of Law: National Assessment of
Educational Progress Authorization Act
In 2021 some students were
originally scheduled to take additional cognitive section(s) but
the decision was made not to overload the schools with additional
burden by eliminating LTT Age 17, U.S. History, and Civics in
consideration of the COVID-19 outbreak impact on schools.
Furthermore, questions related to the COVID-19 outbreak will be
added to the student, teacher, and school questionnaires,
increasing the burden for each of these respondents by 5-minutes
for students and teachers and 10-minutes for schools. Finally, the
overall student sample size is reduced as compared with previous
administrations (approximately 198,000 students compared to
approximately 750,000 for similar assessments in 2019). The
decrease in student sample size is also reflected in fewer schools
and associated burden. In 2021, there will now be an offering of
the online version of the student survey questionnaires to the
sampled students who are remote and not able to be assessed
in-person.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
Appendix J5 LTT 2020 MyNAEP System Content Update 3.docx
Appendix G NAEP 2013 Sampling Design.pdf
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2021