National Assessment Governing Board Approves Strategic Vision

Four-year vision will shape outreach and innovations for The Nation’s Report Card

For Immediate Release: December 2, 2016

WASHINGTON, D.C. — At its quarterly meeting Nov. 17-19, 2016, the National Assessment Governing Board approved a strategic vision for The Nation’s Report Card — also known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The Governing Board’s vision will expand the assessment’s impact by providing information about how our students are doing in the most innovative, informative, and impactful ways.

The Governing Board sets policy for The Nation’s Report Card, which is the largest nationally representative, continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subjects at grades four, eight and 12.

The vision calls for significantly expanding outreach efforts and partnerships with key organizations to spread the word about The Nation’s Report Card. Over the next four years, the Governing Board will promote the use and awareness of NAEP and related resources, including report card results, data trends, assessment questions and tasks, and contextual variables — collected from students, teachers and schools — that capture student demographics and educational experiences. The goal is to make NAEP more accessible and to communicate its meaning to policymakers, educators, researchers, business leaders, media and the general public.

The Governing Board’s strategic vision for NAEP also emphasizes innovation to keep pace with changes in technology and standards to remain at the forefront of measuring and reporting student achievement. The vision lays out steps that will advance the content, design and reporting of NAEP, such as exploring ways to measure the complex skills that students need to transition into postsecondary education and careers.

"Our commitment is to ensure that The Nation’s Report Card remains a relevant and valuable resource in education and assessment," said Governing Board Chair Terry Mazany, who challenged the Governing Board to consider new ways to improve NAEP at the beginning of his chairmanship two years ago. "We hope that greater accessibility to the important findings that NAEP provides will help inform leaders at the local, state and national levels of how students are performing, and will increase NAEP’s value as a resource that can be used to improve academic achievement in our nation’s schools."

To achieve some elements of the strategic vision, the Governing Board will work with the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers NAEP and provides report card data and findings.

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