NAEP

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) was created in 1969 with two goals in mind; to assess student performance reflecting current educational and assessment practices, and to measure change in student performance reliably over time. NAEP is the only assessment that measures what Grades 4, 8, and 12 students know and can do in several content areas. NAEP is a mandated assessment and acts as an integral part of our nation's evaluation system. This national assessment is conducted in all 50 states.

NAEP assessments are used for the a number of different reasons including:

• · measuring student achievement
• gauging educational progress
• tracking and reporting changes in achievement over time
• making comparisons across states
• making subgroup comparisons within a state, across states and regions, and within the Nation
• generating important discussions about education
• evaluating the condition and progress of education
• providing a “second opinion” of achievement on state assessments
• analyzing data, such as determining if the gaps in achievement among various subgroups are narrowing, growing, or remaining the same

NAEP is mandated under The No Child Left Behind Act. NCLB therefore dictates a schedule that is required to be followed both nationally and at the state level. The schedule states that NAEP must be completed every two years in reading and math in grades 4 and 8. Additional assessments are scheduled at regular intervals to the extent that time and money allows in 12^th grade and in other subject areas such as writing, science, history, geography, civics, economics, foreign language, and arts.

NAEP does not test all students. Each state selects a representative sample of students to participate. Each state’s department of education staff along with a national board of testing staff distributes and administers the test. NAEP tests in reading and mathematics are approximately 30-60 questions long. Items on the test are usually spiraled, which means, no one student takes the complete test or even the same set of items that another student may receive. Sampling and test development techniques make individual results as well as individual district and school results impossible. In fact, a current law forbids NAEP from producing individual student results.

The content and design of each NAEP subject area assessment is guided by an assessment framework, which describes what students should know and be able to do at grades 4, 8 and 12. The frameworks are not meant to be a national curriculum. Each framework is developed through a national consensus approach involving hundreds of teachers, curriculum experts, policy makers, business representatives and members of the general public. The frameworks include common core elements of each content area, but do not take into account state core curriculum standards.

Results of the assessment are reported for the nation and states in terms of achievement levels as seen in this chart below:

Some argue that NAEP is simply a measure of federal accountability. An assessment utilized to see if the NCLB is progressing toward its goal. While others argue that the U.S. Department of Education relies on NAEP as the primary measure of trends in the performance of American schoolchildren over time. Either way it is an assessment that is mandated. The government provides schools with funding they need and it return they must administer yet another test, a test that like many others will come and go, until the next one rolls along.