Oct 30 -- The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Department of Education (ED), invites comments by December 29, 2023 regarding the proposed National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2025 Long-Term Trend (LTT) data collection.
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 (Pub. L. 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.
NAEP consists of two assessment programs: the NAEP long-term trend (LTT) assessment and the main NAEP assessment. The LTT assessments are given at the national level only and are administered to students at ages 9, 13, and 17 in a manner that is very different from that used for the main NAEP assessments. LTT reports mathematics and reading results that present trend data since the 1970s. In addition to the operational assessments, NAEP uses two other kinds of assessment activities: pilot assessments and special studies. Pilot assessments test items and procedures for future administrations of NAEP, while special studies (including the National Indian Education Study (NIES), the Middle School Transcript Study (MSTS), and the High School Transcript Study (HSTS)) are opportunities for NAEP to investigate particular aspects of the assessment without impacting the reporting of the NAEP results.
The initial request for clearance of NAEP 2024 received OMB approval in April 2023 (OMB #1850–0928 v.28). Amendment #1 to the NAEP 2024 clearance package received OMB approval in June 2023 (OMB #1850–0928 v.29). Since that packages submission for public comment and OMB approval, changes have occurred to the scope of the 2024 NAEP administration, including the addition of: (1) Addition of Reading Router Pilot for grades 4 and 8, increasing costs, (2) Addition of School and District Technology Coordinator roles and SBE survey completion, increasing burden hours, (3) Addition of protocols for the health and safety of field staff, increasing costs, (4) Reduction in SQ burden time for students, teachers and schools since COVID–19 learning recovery items are no longer adding additional time to the SQs; rather, other items were dropped to accommodate these items, reducing burden hours; and (5) Addition of Field Trial for grades, 4, 8 and 12, increasing burden hours and costs.
This revision updates Part A and Part B detailing the changes to scope and references to the communication materials and the amendment schedule, Appendix A, Appendix B, Appendix C, Appendix D (added communication materials), Appendix G, Appendix I, and Appendices J1, J2, J3, and J–S to include the operational survey questionnaires (SQs), COVID–19 Learning Recovery SQs, NIES SQs, and Pilot SQs.
This request is to conduct NAEP LTT assessments in 2025 at Ages 9, 13, and 17 in reading and mathematics, which will follow the traditional NAEP design which assesses each student in 45-minutes (three 15-minute blocks) for one cognitive subject and 5-minutes for one survey questionnaire block. Additionally, school survey questionnaires will be administered on paper for all 3 Ages, and the estimated burden will be 30-minutes. NAEP LTT is a paper-based assessment (PBA), and thus will be conducted without the use of the technology NAEP utilizes in the Operational Main NAEP administrations.
The library of possible items to be used in the NAEP LTT 2025 questionnaires is provided in Appendix G, which includes English and Spanish items. This document will be updated in Amendment #1 to include the final 2025 LTT questionnaires. The previously approved placeholder versions of the LTT Age 9, 13, and 17 communication and recruitment materials are available in Appendix D, which will be updated in Amendment #1.
NAEP LTT:
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt/
Draft data collection instrument and technical documentation:
https://www.regulations.gov/docket/ED-2023-SCC-0188/document
FRN:
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-23840