Educators' Update

• NAEP 101: Learning More about the 2011 Reading Results
• Thank you, NAEP 2012 participants!
• Returning for 2012: the long-term trend assessment
• NAEP in the news: NAEP mapping and the Common Core State Standards Initiative
• NAEP-TIMSS linking study
• Using NAEP questions in your classroom
• A typical NAEP testing session
• How do I find...?

In conjunction with the release of The Nation's Report Card: 2011 Reading, NCES staff delivered a special presentation about the results to members of the International Reading Association (IRA). They were joined by IRA's Director of Government Relations, Richard Long, who commented on the findings from a policy perspective.

Watch NAEP 101: Learning More about the 2011 Reading Results to see the full webinar presentation and hear the extensive Q&A session with IRA members that followed!

Back to the Top

Thank you to all schools that are participating in NAEP 2012 and helping to make it a success. Learn more about the subjects assessed in 2012: computer-based writing at grade 4 economics at grade 12; and the long-term trend assessment, administered to 9, 13, and 17 year olds.

Look for the results of these assessments in 2013.

Can't wait that long? The results of the computer-based writing assessment administered to eighth- and twelfth-graders will be released later in 2012. Read more about the writing computer-based assessment, and take a look at the tutorials.

Back to the Top

The NAEP 2012 assessments actually began in October 2011, with the long-term trend assessment, a special NAEP assessment in reading and mathematics that is administered every four years to 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old students throughout the nation.

The existence of the two national assessment programs—long-term trend NAEP and main NAEP—makes it possible to

• measure student progress over time, and also
• develop new assessment instruments that reflect current educational content and assessment methodology as educational priorities change.

The NAEP long-term trend assessments were first administered in reading in 1971 and in mathematics in 1973.

Although long-term trend and main NAEP both assess mathematics and reading, there are several important differences—in particular, the content assessed, the students selected (sampled), how often the assessment is administered, and the results reported. These differences mean that results from long-term trend and main NAEP cannot be compared directly, although comparisons of the patterns over time of the two assessments, especially for student demographic groups, may be informative, keeping in mind the content differences.

The last long-term trend assessment was administered during the 2007-2008 school year. The resulting trend data showed higher average scores in mathematics for 9- and 13-year-olds in 2008 than in any previous assessment year.  What will the results show for 2012?

The assessment of 13-year-olds began on October 10 and ended on December 16, 2011. Students who are 9 years old were assessed from January 9 to March 16, 2012, and 17-year-olds will be assessed from March 19 to May 25, 2012.

Back to the Top

In June 2010, the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) launched the Common Core State Standards Initiative to provide learning objectives in English Language Arts and Mathematics for students in grades K-12. Common standards will help ensure that students are receiving a high quality education consistently, from school to school and state to state. Visit the Common Core State Standards Initiative website to read more and to see that most states and territories have now adopted the standards.

At present, states develop their own standards for student proficiency and administer annual assessments to measure this; of course, these standards and assessments differ from state to state, and so the results from state assessments are not comparable among states.

Since 2003, the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) has been administered in mathematics and reading in all states, using identical procedures across the nation. Because of this uniformity, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) studies can compare state standards for proficient performance in reading and mathematics by placing each state’s standards onto the NAEP scales. This procedure, called "mapping," allows the level of achievement required for proficient performance in one state to be compared with the level of achievement required in another state. The mapping procedure offers a way to assess the relative rigor of the states’ performance standards in mathematics and reading.

The most recent report in the series Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto NAEP Scales was released in 2011. This and earlier studies show that there is wide variation in where states set the bar for student achievement and how they define "proficient academic achievement."

Back to the Top

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) provides reliable and timely data on the mathematics and science achievements of U.S. students at grades 4 and 8 compared to that of students in other countries. In 2011, NCES conducted a special research and development study to link the mathematics and science results of NAEP and TIMSS to provide comparisons between states and over 60 participating countries. NAEP and TIMSS both administered assessments in grade 8 in 2011 that will enable the link between the two assessments to occur. See more in the brochure, NAEP-TIMSS Linking Study (901K PDF).

The national and state NAEP mathematics results were released in November 2011; science results will be in the spring of 2012. The international linking study results are planned for release following the TIMSS release in late 2012. States will receive both mathematics and science projected TIMSS scores at this time, and selected urban districts will receive projected mathematics scores. Read more about the linking study on the TIMSS website.

Back to the Top

Using NAEP questions in your classroom 

With the publication of NAEP results, select items from each assessment are released. You can access the items, answer keys and scoring guides, sample student responses, and national performance results for students at all three grades by using the NAEP Questions Tool (NQT). Take a look at the short video demonstrating its features. The Questions Tool includes both multiple-choice and constructed-response items for all NAEP subjects and grades, which you can use to create unique activities for your class. There are over 3,000 questions covering all NAEP subjects. Also, your students may enjoy using Test Yourself, with which they can test their knowledge on a small set of questions on any subject, and compare their performance with that of the nation's students.

Back to the Top

Every year, NAEP assessments are given in multiple subjects in the same classroom. The diagram below shows a typical classroom, with the teacher’s desk at the top and 30 student desks. The diagram shows the distribution of the test booklets during an assessment covering three subjects--other assessments use similar distributions of the test booklets.

Note that students sitting next to each other do not take the same subject. In addition to this safeguard, there are many different versions of the booklets for each assessment--each version will have a different arrangement of the cognitive questions, which have been placed in sets of questions called blocks. This arrangement in blocks is needed because there are many more questions covering the subject than a student could be expected to finish in the time allotted, and because individual student scores are not reported, each student will answer only a small portion of the questions for a subject. The blocks are positioned differently in the several versions of the booklets so that each block is paired with each of the other blocks in the pool for measurement accuracy. This ensures both test security and that there are sufficient numbers of responses to each item.

Find more information about NAEP administration in the NAEP Frequently Asked Questions.

Back to the Top

Back to the Top