The 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. 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, given additional costs associated with COVID-19. 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. A previous version of this Emergency Clearance Package Amendment #2 was withdrawn from public comment when it became clear that it was necessary to have all the materials ready, in order to meet the appropriate timelines for administering the 2021 assessments. The final Materials Update #3 is scheduled for December of 2020. NAEP are usually reported to the public through the Nationâs Report Card as well as other online NAEP tools. Depending on consistency of data quality with past assessment years, NCES may opt to report the results in a format other than The Nationâs Report Card. This alternative report would be a research and development report focused on within-year results comparisons, rather than comparisons with prior years.
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 Update #2