Quality Assurance of the National Assessment of Educational Progress
With enactment of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has assumed an even more important place in the national movement toward educational accountability. Known as the 'Nation's Report Card,' NAEP is the only nationally representative and continuing assessment of what American students know and can do in various subject areas.
The new legislation defines NAEP's purpose as the improvement of our nation's schools by making objective information about student performance in selective subjects available to policymakers at the local, state, and national levels. States are required to implement rigorous school accountability systems and to participate in biennial NAEP assessments in reading and mathematics for grades 4 and 8. The legislation also shifts the cost of state NAEP participation to the federal government, and increases security, public access, and review of NAEP's assessment instruments.
In conjunction with the National Assessment Governing Board, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has responsibility to implement and monitor the NAEP aspects of NCLB. This involves a new approach to the development, administration, and reporting of NAEP assessments. Six contracts were awarded to cover core NAEP operations:
- design, analysis, and reporting of NAEP assessments,
- item development,
- sampling and data collection,
- assessment materials preparation, distribution, and scoring,
- web operations and maintenance, and
- overall NAEP process coordination.
A seventh contract was awarded to HumRRO to provide a formative evaluation of NAEP. HumRRO is assisting NCES in identifying weaknesses or flaws in the NAEP process, and making recommendations to strengthen the NAEP assessment system. In particular, HumRRO has
- reviewed past NAEP problems for lessons learned about quality control processes,
- analyzed the new procurement model and the resulting contractor procedures,
- developed a process model showing handoffs among contractors,
- conduced site visits to monitor operational NAEP activities, and
- conducted targeted studies of NAEP processes.
