​​​​​​​​​​​​​NAEP Technical DocumentationSampling Frame for the 2024 Twelfth-Grade Private School National Assessment in Mathematics and Reading

The primary sampling frame for the 2024 twelfth-grade private school sample for the national ​assessments in mathematics and reading was developed from the Private School Universe Survey (PSS) corresponding to the 2021–2022 school year. The PSS file is the Department of Education’s primary database of elementary and secondary private schools in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and it is based on a survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau during the 2021–2022 school year. This sampling frame is referred to as the PSS-based sampling frame.

Nonrespondents to the PSS were also included in the primary sampling frame. Since these schools did not respond to the PSS, their private school affiliations are unknown. Because NAEP response rates differ vastly by affiliation, to better estimate the target sample size of schools for each affiliation, additional work was done to obtain affiliation for these PSS nonrespondents. If a nonresponding school responded to a previous PSS (either two or four years prior), affiliation was obtained from the previous response. For those schools that were nonrespondents for the last three cycles of the PSS, in some cases internet research was used to establish affiliation. There were still schools with unknown affiliation remaining after this process.

A secondary sampling frame was also created for this sample to account for schools that newly opened or became newly eligible between the 2021–2022 and 2023–2024 school years. This frame contains brand-new and newly eligible twelfth-grade schools and is referred to as the new-school sampling frame. Because there are no sources available to identify new schools for non-Catholic private schools, the new-school frame for private schools contains only Catholic schools.

Both sets of sampling frames excluded schools that were ungraded, provided only special education, were part of hospital or treatment center programs, were juvenile correctional institutions, were home-school entities, or were for adult education.

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