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 Nation’s 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 Nation’s 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