June 24 -- The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Department of Education, invites the public to comment to OMB by July 26, 2021 regarding National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2022 Materials Update #1.
The NAEP 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.
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 further updates to the materials approved in July and November 2020. Throughout 2020 NCES worked with its contractors and with OMB to find the best way to plan for a data collection in schools in 2021, and as the coronavirus pandemic progressed over the course of the year, plans for NAEP 2020 data collection changed multiple times. In November 2020, the NCES Commissioner announced the delay of NAEP 2021 by one year to early 2022.
Since then, NAEP has continued to work to salvage any pieces of their data collection plans for 2021 and begin planning for NAEP 2022. NCES has used the drawn and notified sample from 2021 for two data collections that don't include the student assessment that is central to the NAEP program, instead using that sample to collect information about basic school operations during the coronavirus pandemic (NAEP 2021 School Survey; OMB# 1850-0957) and a planned data collection seeking more detail about the experiences of teachers and school staff over the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years (NAEP 2021 School and Teacher Questionnaire Special Study).
The request to conduct NAEP operational assessments in 2022, which will follow the traditional NAEP design which assesses each student in 60-minutes for one cognitive subject, was approved in May 2021. The 2022 data collection will consist of operational national/state/TUDA 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. In addition to the regular NAEP operational assessments delayed from 2021, this submission also contains materials for the LTT, which will be administered for at least one age group in 2022. This package is the first of two that are being submitted to update materials. An additional 30-day package will be submitted in August 2021 in order to finalize all materials in time for the data collection in early 2022.
NAEP 2022 Materials Update #1 submitted to OMB:
https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=202106-1850-005 Click IC List for forms, View Supporting Statement for technical documentation
FR notice inviting public comment:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/06/24/2021-13318/agency-information-collection-activities-submission-to-the-office-of-management-and-budget-for
Point of contact: Peggy Carr, Associate Commissioner, Assessments Division, NCES Peggy.Carr@ed.gov (202) 245-6168
For AEA members wishing to submit comments to OMB, "A Primer on How to Respond to Calls for Comment on Federal Data Collections" is available at
https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=5806