How States Join

States receiving Title I funding must participate in the state component of NAEP in mathematics and reading at grades 4 and 8 every two years beginning in 2003. States and jurisdictions can volunteer to participate in the other state NAEP subjects, science and writing. The Commissioner of Education Statistics sends a letter describing the upcoming subjects and grades for national and state NAEP to the chief state school officers or appropriate official each fall.

The state assumes responsibility for:

• designating a coordinator to act as a liaison with NCES and the NAEP contractors;¹
• securing the cooperation of the public schools sampled by the contractor and obtaining lists of fourth- and/or eighth-grade students from each participating school;
• securing the cooperation of the students to be assessed and notifying parents as necessary;
• agreeing that the state shall not disclose any NAEP assessment data in such a way that any individual student or individual school is identified;
and
• reviewing the assessment results and giving permission for results to be published.

NCES assumes responsibility for and cost of the following activities:

• funding the state coordinator position;
• providing to the state full information about the process for developing objectives to be tested before entering into the agreement;
• providing to the state full information about the standards for sampling, test administration, test security, data collection, validation, and reporting;
• providing a state-representative sample of schools and students (usually, this is approximately 2,500 students from about 100 public schools per grade/per subject);
• providing test development, test materials, and scoring and reporting results;
• providing trained assessment administrators to administer the assessments and other questionnaires; and
• handling all materials and quality control connected with the NAEP administration.

¹This position is eligible for federal funding.