National Assessment Redesign: Implications for Reauthorization

The Governing Board's redesign policy is directed at the operation of the National Assessment program. It does not address governance of the National Assessment. While there are a number of areas in the current NAEP legislation for which change should be considered, the NAEP redesign policy can, with two exceptions, be implemented within the current NAEP legislation.

The first exception has to do with the subjects to assess. Current law ties the subjects covered by NAEP to reading, writing, and the other subjects listed in the national education goals. The Governing Board agrees that these subjects should be assessed by the National Assessment and, accordingly, has adopted the schedule displayed in Table 1 above. The Governing Board recommends that, with respect to subjects to assess, the reauthorization of the National Assessment should be consistent with the schedule of assessments adopted by the Governing Board.

The second issue has to do with long-term trend assessments. Current law requires that assessments using age-based samples be conducted at least once every two years. Since the only assessments using age-based samples are the reading, science and mathematics long-term trend assessments, this provision is interpreted as requiring long-term trend assessments once every two years. In accordance with the schedule of assessments, the Governing Board recommends that the NAEP legislation be modified so that the frequency of the long-term trend assessments is changed to at least once every four years.