Explore the history of the NAEP program, the major technical innovations introduced to support its success, and its leadership.
Begins planning for the first assessments after the idea of a national assessment gains national attention.
Administers first trial national assessments in citizenship, science, and writing to 9-, 13-, and 17-year-olds. See a chronology of NAEP assessments administered since 1969
Develops new assessments and long-term trend assessments in reading, mathematics, and science designed to continue the original NAEP trend lines. NAEP split into two strands - main NAEP, which use the new design, and long-term trend NAEP, which continued the past methodology to maintain the long-term trend lines.
Begins partnership with the National Assessment Governing Board: a 26-member, independent, bipartisan group appointed by the Secretary of Education to oversee the development of the NAEP framework. Read a short history of NAEP and the Governing Board.
Administers first trial assessments to each state. See history of state participation in NAEP.
Assesses nonpublic (private) schools in the state assessments. After 1998, results for nonpublic (private) schools are only reported at the national level.
Authorizes state assessments as fully operational assessments that are no longer "trial."
Begins trial of allowing testing accommodations to a designated sample of special-needs students for the national assessments in science and mathematics. Learn more about history of inclusion.
Allows testing accommodations for all students in subjects in which new trend lines are being introduced (writing and civics) and continue trial testing in reading. Learn more about the history of inclusion.
Begins testing mathematics and reading for grades 4 and 8 every other year in all states, and on a nationally representative basis at grade 12 at least as often as it has been done in the past or every 4 years per a congressionally mandated education act passed in 2001.
Offers accommodations to all students who need them to demonstrate their knowledge and ability on all assessments. NAEP no longer assesses non-accommodated samples. Learn more about history of inclusion.
Includes select urban districts in state-level assessments. This program continues as the Trial Urban District Assessment.
Begins moving to a computer-based assessment for science, where part of the student sample completes interactive computer tasks. See interactive science tasks.
Administers the writing assessment for grades 8 and 12 entirely on a computer.
Administers new technology and engineering literacy assessment entirely on computer.
Administers digitally based assessment pilot in mathematics, reading, and science.
Transitions to digitally based assessments.
Develops first assessment sampling plan to ensure all students in U.S. schools have a knowable probability of being sampled and introduce the concept of matrix sampling so that a large pool of test items could be administered to a sample without overwhelming the students participating.
Reports assessment results with standard errors along with estimates to give readers an idea of the accuracy of its estimates of student performance. Learn more about early assessment design and reporting.
Alters sampling plan for both ages and grades to support distinct reporting, and for completion of a short questionnaire explaining the reasons for excluding students with disabilities.
Assembles booklets using Balanced Incomplete Block (BIB) spiraling to ensure that the assessment item pool covers broad areas.
Adds major design feature of scaling the assessment data using Item Response Theory (IRT)–an alternative to computing the percent of items answered correctly which allows the placing of results for students given different booklets on a common scale.
Implements plausible values as a technical solution to avoid biased population estimates when using only estimated scores.
Develops scale anchoring - a way of presenting the assessment results to the general public where anchor points along the scale describe what most students at each anchor point know and could do.
Implements new framework for the 1990 mathematics assessment and creates new trend line, which uses the "Main NAEP Trend" (MT) sample; a separate "Long-Term Trend (LTT)" sample is taken using the same procedures and items as previous LTT assessments.
Restructures NAEP sampling plan so that participating states will not have students assessed twice and so that a separate sample of nonparticipating states will ensure a good national estimate of student performance.
Introduces achievement levels for each subject area assessed (Basic, Proficient, and Advanced) which replace the scale anchoring approach to reporting results.
Institutes new way of handling graded or partial credit responses. This method opens the door for more complicated open–ended items in all NAEP subject areas
Initiates split–sample design efforts to study the effect of assessment accommodations on NAEP results. Begin a transition in which NAEP official reporting samples would come to include students assessed with accommodations.
Conducts research on using technology to assess mathematics, writing, and problem solving. The project was designed to explore the use of technology, especially the use of the computer, as a tool to enhance the quality and efficiency of educational assessments.
Supports the introduction of the Trial Urban District Assessment by increasing and adjusting the NAEP sample so that the national estimates are retained and students are not tested more than once.
Creates methodology for comparing each state's standard for proficient performance in reading and mathematics by placing the state standards onto a common scale defined by NAEP scores. This process of "state mapping" shows where each state's standards lie on the NAEP scale, providing important contributions to analysis.
Begins and continues process of transitioning assessments to digitally based content and delivery.
Transitions to digitally based assessments.
Assistant Commissioner Alexander M. Mood
Assistant Commissioner Dorothy M. Gilford
Assistant Commissioner Francis C. Nassetta (Acting)
Assistant Commissioner Marie D. Eldridge
Commissioner Emerson J. Elliott
Commissioner Jeanne E. Griffith (Acting)
Commissioner Pascal D. Forgione
Gary W. Phillips (Acting)
Commissioner Robert Lerner
Commissioner Mark Schneider
Commissioner Stuart Kerachsky (Acting)
Commissioner Sean P. "Jack" Buckley
Commissioner Peggy G. Carr (Acting)
Commissioner James Lynn Woodworth