The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the largest continuing and nationally representative assessment of what American students know and can do in core subjects. NAEP is a congressionally mandated project administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education. The National Assessment Governing Board, appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Education but independent of the Department, sets policy for NAEP and is responsible for developing the framework and test specifications. The Governing Board is a bipartisan group whose members include governors, state legislators, local and state school officials, educators, business representatives, and members of the general public. Congress created the 26-member Governing Board in 1988.
NAEP results are designed to provide data on student achievement in various subjects, and are released as The Nation’s Report Card. There are no results for individual students, classrooms, or schools. NAEP reports results for different demographic groups, including gender, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity. Assessments are given most frequently in mathematics, reading, science and writing. Other subjects such as the arts, civics, economics, geography, and U.S. history are assessed periodically.
In addition to assessing student achievement in various subjects, NAEP also collects information from students, teachers, and schools to help provide contextual information about the assessments and factors that may be related to students’ learning.
Teachers, principals, parents, policymakers, and researchers all use NAEP results to assess student progress across the country and develop ways to improve education in the United States. NAEP is a trusted resource and has been providing valid and reliable data on student performance since 1969.
NAEP uses a carefully designed sampling procedure that allows the assessment to be representative of the geographical, racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity of the schools and students in the United States. Since NAEP assessments are administered uniformly to all participating students using the same test booklets and identical procedures across the nation, NAEP results serve as a common metric for states and the urban districts that participate in the assessment.
There are two NAEP websites: the NCES NAEP website and The Nation’s Report Card website. The first site details NAEP program holistically, while the second focuses primarily on the individual releases of data.
Read more about National Assessment Of Educational Progress: History, NAEP Assessments, New Technology-Based Assessments, Special Studies, Criticism
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