How NAEP Is Administered

The 2001 "No Child Left Behind" legislation that mandated participation in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for any state receiving Title I funds dramatically increased state participation in the assessment. As a result, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) faced the challenge of administering NAEP across an expanded participation base within a small testing window. To meet this goal, NCES assigned NAEP assessment activities to Westat, its data collection contractor, so that the burden on schools would be greatly reduced.

Since NAEP is conducted in partnership with states, each state has employed a NAEP State Coordinator to serve as the connection between the state education agency and schools selected for the sample. In general, the NAEP State Coordinator works with the schools, Westat, and NCES to ensure the quality of the state’s NAEP results.

Individual schools participating in NAEP designate an in-school staff member to be the school coordinator. The school coordinator collaborates on assessment activities with the professional field staff trained by Westat. School coordinators achieve the following tasks with the help of Westat field staff and the NAEP State Coordinator:

• schedule the assessment date;
• upon request of the NAEP representative, provide a list of all eligible students;
• inform teachers and students about the assessment;
• inform parents about the assessment;
• provide space for the assessment;
• receive the school preassessment packet and conduct final preparations for the assessment; and
• distribute background questionnaires to the appropriate school staff and collect completed questionnaires.

The Westat field staff, who are responsible for all assessment day activities, are a national network of educators trained to collect and safeguard NAEP assessment data to guarantee its accuracy and integrity and provide support for the schools throughout the assessment process. In addition to assisting the school coordinator with his or her assigned tasks, the NAEP State Coordinator and Westat field staff are responsible for the following duties:

• work with schools to set up the assessment dates;
• provide the MySchool website to facilitate communications with schools and make available the NAEP Help Desk at 1-800-283-NAEP to respond to schools' questions;
• from the list of all eligible students, draw a random sample of students to be assessed;
• provide schools with information about notifying parents/guardians;
• prepare School, Teacher, Students with Disabilities (SD), and English Language Learners (ELL) Questionnaires for distribution;
• send preassessment packets to the school coordinator;
• provide all materials, including pencils and ancillary materials, for each assessment session;
• conduct the assessment; and
• send materials to the scoring facility.

View materials for NAEP administrators to learn more about the administration process.

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Last updated 12 September 2008 (EP)