NAEP: The Current Results and Implications for Educators
The National Assessment of Educational Progress provides both a main assessment every two years and a long term trend assessment every four years of students across the nation in Mathematics and Reading. Interestingly, the results for the long term trend assessment of 2008 will be posted April 28th. To explain further, NAEP is an organization that tracks student progress at the federal level. Samples of students in each state, as well as the District of Columbia and several urban areas are painstakingly taken for each assessment (NCES). One question that many educators and laypeople have is, with all of the states having their own separate assessment, what is the need for NAEP assessments?
Dr. Dugan shared a document with our class about the wide discrepancies between various state assessments and the NAEP. It is obvious why states would want to inflate their scores to make themselves look better with the strong push for accountability at the federal level. Looking at the Time article from June 4th 2007, the question that remains is - why have state assessments at all?
To answer this question, we must determine the key differences between state assessments and the NAEP assessments. First, all students are required to take state assessments. Schools must show Adequate Yearly Progress under the No Child Left Behind Act in order to receive Title I funding. As such, all students in a given state answer the same questions, under the same standardization. Students are expected to achieve based on a specific criteria, which allows teachers to “teach to the test”. On the other hand, NAEP assessment samples are gathered based on demographics of a specific region. A large sample, but not the entire population, takes the test and not all students answer the same questions. The NAEP assessment does contribute to our information about each state’s progress, but not with the same ties to funding as the state assessments. With that said, it would seem that the NAEP is less of a “high stakes” test than state assessments and may be a more reliable, big picture type vision of our nation’s academic achievement (Pallas, 2009).
So what do the results show? NAEP compiles a vast amount of data with their two separate types of tests. The long term trend assessment, for example, has been completed since 1971 for Reading, and 1973 for Mathematics. These assessments, which are conducted with nine, 13, and 17 year old students from around the country, generally show improvement over time. The most clear cut improvement is with nine year olds, specifically in the past assessment period. Unfortunately, the trends for 13 and 19 year old students are not up to snuff with the younger students. These subgroups have shown minimal progress since the 1970’s; for 2004, neither group had a statistically significant increase in Math or Reading (NAEP).
According to the main assessment, conducted every two years, the progress is consistent with the long term trends. Furthermore, the latest assessment yielded results consistent with stereotypes of students: Asian American students outperformed all other groups, with Whites closely behind. Black, Latino, and Native American groups consistently rank under Asian and Caucasian students. There is also a large discrepancy between the average and students with disabilities as well as English Language Learners. These trends have not changed much over time, but it appears that the gap is beginning to narrow for some groups. For example, there is a smaller discrepancy between Caucasian and African American students in Mathematics at the nine year old level (NAEP).
What does all of the data tell us? Along with the actual test to students, demographic questions regarding classroom structure and instructional content are asked of participating teachers. Some of the indicators found on the 2007 main assessment for Reading are as follows:
· Asking students to make generalizations about what they read
· Give students time to read independently
· Vocabulary instruction
· Asking students to give multiple interpretations of what they have read
· Reading for Fun
· Group discussions and journaling
Hypotheses can also be made regarding Mathematics instruction. Teachers on the 2007 NAEP study described the following of their classrooms:
Hours of instruction (5.5-7/week)
Heavy emphasis on numbers and operations
No overreliance on calculators (rarely used, and if so, basic 4 function)
Access to computers
While these data do not demonstrate causality, it seems that there may be a correlation between these classroom characteristics and improved scores on the NAEP. With the many differences between state testing and the NAEP assessments, I believe that more data will yield better data in the future.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress provides both a main assessment every two years and a long term trend assessment every four years of students across the nation in Mathematics and Reading. Interestingly, the results for the long term trend assessment of 2008 will be posted April 28th. To explain further, NAEP is an organization that tracks student progress at the federal level. Samples of students in each state, as well as the District of Columbia and several urban areas are painstakingly taken for each assessment (NCES). One question that many educators and laypeople have is, with all of the states having their own separate assessment, what is the need for NAEP assessments?
Dr. Dugan shared a document with our class about the wide discrepancies between various state assessments and the NAEP. It is obvious why states would want to inflate their scores to make themselves look better with the strong push for accountability at the federal level. Looking at the Time article from June 4th 2007, the question that remains is - why have state assessments at all?
To answer this question, we must determine the key differences between state assessments and the NAEP assessments. First, all students are required to take state assessments. Schools must show Adequate Yearly Progress under the No Child Left Behind Act in order to receive Title I funding. As such, all students in a given state answer the same questions, under the same standardization. Students are expected to achieve based on a specific criteria, which allows teachers to “teach to the test”. On the other hand, NAEP assessment samples are gathered based on demographics of a specific region. A large sample, but not the entire population, takes the test and not all students answer the same questions. The NAEP assessment does contribute to our information about each state’s progress, but not with the same ties to funding as the state assessments. With that said, it would seem that the NAEP is less of a “high stakes” test than state assessments and may be a more reliable, big picture type vision of our nation’s academic achievement (Pallas, 2009).
So what do the results show? NAEP compiles a vast amount of data with their two separate types of tests. The long term trend assessment, for example, has been completed since 1971 for Reading, and 1973 for Mathematics. These assessments, which are conducted with nine, 13, and 17 year old students from around the country, generally show improvement over time. The most clear cut improvement is with nine year olds, specifically in the past assessment period. Unfortunately, the trends for 13 and 19 year old students are not up to snuff with the younger students. These subgroups have shown minimal progress since the 1970’s; for 2004, neither group had a statistically significant increase in Math or Reading (NAEP).
According to the main assessment, conducted every two years, the progress is consistent with the long term trends. Furthermore, the latest assessment yielded results consistent with stereotypes of students: Asian American students outperformed all other groups, with Whites closely behind. Black, Latino, and Native American groups consistently rank under Asian and Caucasian students. There is also a large discrepancy between the average and students with disabilities as well as English Language Learners. These trends have not changed much over time, but it appears that the gap is beginning to narrow for some groups. For example, there is a smaller discrepancy between Caucasian and African American students in Mathematics at the nine year old level (NAEP).
What does all of the data tell us? Along with the actual test to students, demographic questions regarding classroom structure and instructional content are asked of participating teachers. Some of the indicators found on the 2007 main assessment for Reading are as follows:
· Asking students to make generalizations about what they read
· Give students time to read independently
· Vocabulary instruction
· Asking students to give multiple interpretations of what they have read
· Reading for Fun
· Group discussions and journaling
Hypotheses can also be made regarding Mathematics instruction. Teachers on the 2007 NAEP study described the following of their classrooms:
Hours of instruction (5.5-7/week)
Heavy emphasis on numbers and operations
No overreliance on calculators (rarely used, and if so, basic 4 function)
Access to computers
While these data do not demonstrate causality, it seems that there may be a correlation between these classroom characteristics and improved scores on the NAEP. With the many differences between state testing and the NAEP assessments, I believe that more data will yield better data in the future.
Resources
NAEP - http://nationsreportcard.gov/
The National Center for Educational Statistics - http://nces.ed.gov/
Pallas, A. (2009) Why NAEP matters. Retrieved on April 15, 2009 from http://gothamschools.org/author/aaron-pallas/.
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