NAEP Technical DocumentationSample Design for the 2019 State Assessment

			Target Population Sampling Frame Stratification of Schools School Sample Selection Ineligible Schools Student Sample Selection  School and Student Participation

The NAEP 2019 state assessment sampled jurisdictions comprising the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) schools, Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools, and in school districts participating in the Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA). Each sample was designed to produce aggregate estimates with approximately equal precision for all the participating jurisdictions, as well as estimates for various student populations of interest. All Bureau of Indian Education schools were included in the sample as part of the NIES study.

The target population for the NAEP 2019 state assessments covered fourth- and eighth-grade students in public schools who were enrolled in grades 4 and 8 at the time of assessment. Operational mathematics and reading assessments were conducted in all jurisdictions, including the TUDA districts, with the exception of Puerto Rico, where only the operational mathematics assessment was conducted.

At both grades, the overall target student sample size for the operational samples in each non-TUDA jurisdiction, with the exception of Puerto Rico, was 5,700. The goal was to obtain 4,900 assessed students after attrition: 2,700 for mathematics and 2,200 for reading. For the operational mathematics assessment in Puerto Rico, the target student sample size was 4,000 at both grades.

The primary  sampling frame for each grade included public schools having the relevant grade in each jurisdiction. The samples were selected based on a two-stage sample design:

• selection of schools within participating jurisdictions; and
• selection of students within schools.

The first-stage samples of schools were selected with probability proportional to a measure of size based on the estimated grade-specific enrollment in the schools.

The sampling of students at the second-stage involved two steps: (1) sampling of students in the targeted grade (fourth or eighth) from each sampled school, and (2) assignment of assessment subject (mathematics or reading) to the sampled students.

For the TUDA samples, schools were sampled from the 27 participating TUDA districts at the same time schools were selected for the non-TUDA jurisdiction samples. The participating TUDA districts are listed below:

• Albuquerque Public Schools, New Mexico;
• Atlanta Public Schools, Georgia;
• Austin Independent School District, Texas;
• Baltimore City Public Schools, Maryland;
• Boston Public Schools, Massachusetts;
• Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, North Carolina;
• Chicago Public Schools, Illinois;
• Clark County School District, Nevada;
• Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Ohio;
• Dallas Independent School District, Texas;
• Denver Public Schools, Colorado;
• Detroit Public Schools, Michigan;
• District of Columbia Public Schools, District of Columbia;
• Duval County Public Schools, Florida;
• Fort Worth Independent School District, Texas;
• Fresno Unified School District, California;
• Guilford County Schools, North Carolina;
• Hillsborough County Public Schools, Florida;
• Houston Independent School District, Texas;
• Jefferson County Public Schools, Kentucky;
• Los Angeles Unified School District, California;
• Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Florida;
• Milwaukee Public Schools, Wisconsin;
• New York City Department of Education, New York;
• San Diego Unified School District, California;
• School District of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and
• Shelby County Schools, Tennessee.

These subsamples affected the design of the state samples in those states where TUDA districts were oversampled. In each of these states, there were distinct sampling rates for each TUDA district and for the balance of the state (i.e., the rest of the state not in a TUDA district). For the six large TUDA districts (i.e., New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami-Dade, Clark County, and Houston) the target assessed student sample size for the operational samples was three-quarters the size of the non-TUDA jurisdictions: 3,675. For the remaining TUDA districts, the target assessed student sample size for the operations samples was half the size of the state sample: 2,450.

Each selected school provided a list of eligible enrolled students from which a systematic sample of students was drawn. The 2019 student sample selection for the state assessment was straightforward since the transition from paper based assessment (PBA) mode to digitally based assessment (DBA) mode had been completed in 2017. In fourth- and eighth-grade schools, 50 students, if possible, were selected from each school: roughly 28 for mathematics and 22 for reading. In some very large schools, multiples of 50 students (i.e., 100, 150, etc.) were selected. Details can be found in the student sample selection page. 

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