Gaining School Participation in the 2001 National Main Assessment

The process of gaining cooperation of the schools selected for 2001 national main assessment began in mid-August 2000 with a series of letters and contacts with state and district officials. The National Center for Education Statistics sent each state a letter announcing NAEP plans for the coming year. NAEP staff then contacted the state testing directors or chief state school officers in each sampled state to notify them of the specific districts and schools selected in their states.

After the states' approval and from September through early November 2000, NAEP staff sent lists of schools sampled for the national main assessment and other NAEP materials to district superintendents encouraging their participation. These initial mailings paved the way for telephone contacts by NAEP scheduling supervisors. During a telephone call, scheduling supervisors presented NAEP introductory material to school officials. An in-person meeting was only conducted if specifically requested by the district or school officials, or if a supervisor felt there was necessary. Supervisors were provided a PowerPoint presentation and a script for the in-person meetings.

During these contacts, supervisors used two forms—Results of Contact forms and school control forms—to document schools' cooperation status and to gather information about each school. They also entered the school status in the School Control System installed on their laptop computers. Results of Contact forms were used to document discussions with each administrator concerning the district's and school's willingness to participate and any special circumstances. They provided full documentation of each conversation with respective district or school personnel. The school control form for each school was preprinted with the number and types of assessment sessions assigned to the school in order to share this information with district/school officials. Information gathered during the phone call was recorded on the school control form, including the name of the person designated to be the school coordinator, the number of students in the designated grade, and tentative dates for the sampling visit and assessment.

The scheduling supervisor learned during the introductory contact whether schools required some form of parental notification or permission. A few versions of the standard NAEP letter were offered for the schools' use in English and Spanish. One was for all students in a specified grade and another for students actually selected in the sample. These letters were also available in implied consent form and explicit consent form. Some schools distributed their own letters. Information on the type of letter required and the quantity requested was recorded on the school control form and in the electronic School Control System.

Scheduling supervisors then planned the calendars for several assessment supervisors, each of whom was assigned to work in a specific NAEP region. Regions were used to divide the NAEP workload evenly among the supervisors. Scheduling supervisors worked to coordinate supervisor calendars with school calendars, creating an assessment schedule for each NAEP supervisor region.

In 2001, a new procedure was introduced where schools were sent an e-mail from the NAEP data collection home office when the school agreed to cooperate. This e-mail contained a URL address of a website that held information about individual school assessments—the assigned sessions, the number of sessions, the date of the assessment, the supervisor's name and e-mail address, among other information. The original e-mail was automatically generated by the NAEP data collection  home office through the cooperation codes on the School Control System. The schools received e-mails periodically—one with an introduction to NAEP 2001 after they signed on to the assessment, one with initial visit information about two weeks before the pre-assessment visit, one with assessment day information about one week before the assessment, and the last, with a list of future events within one week after the assessment.

Districts also had the opportunity to access the website. Districts that chose to access the site then had access to information for any of their schools chosen for the assessment.

Last updated 08 May 2008 (MH)

Printer-friendly Version