NAEP 2025 Amendment 1 Change Memo v35

June 3, 2024

MEMORANDUM

To: Bev M. Pratt, OMB

From: Pat Etienne, NCES

Through: Carrie Clarady, NCES

Re: National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2025 Long-Term Trend Revision
(OMB# 1850-0928 v.35)

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), is a federally authorized survey of student achievement at grades 4, 8, and 12 in various subject areas, such as mathematics, reading, writing, science, U.S. history, and civics. The National Assessment of Educational Progress Authorization Act (Public Law 107-279 Title III, section 303) requires the assessment to collect data on specified student groups and characteristics, including information organized by race/ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, disability, and limited English proficiency. It requires fair and accurate presentation of achievement data and permits the collection of background, noncognitive, or descriptive information that is related to academic achievement and aids in fair reporting of results. The intent of the law is to provide representative sample data on student achievement for the nation, the states, and subpopulations of students and to monitor progress over time.

NAEP consists of two assessment programs: the NAEP long-term trend (LTT) assessment and the main NAEP assessment. The LTT assessments are given at the national level only and are administered to students at ages 9, 13, and 17 in a manner that is very different from that used for the main NAEP assessments. LTT reports mathematics and reading results that present trend data since the 1970s. In addition, the timing of the LTT assessments differs: October through December for 13-year-olds, January through March for 9-year-olds, and March through May for 17-year-olds. The long-term trend evaluations for ages 9 and 13 were last administered in 2022, and the LTT Age 17 evaluation was scheduled to take place in March 2020. When schools closed in the spring of 2020 in response to the global coronavirus pandemic, the LTT Age 17 was delayed indefinitely. Of note, NCES and NAGB decided to administer LTT Age 9 again as part of NAEP 2022; although it would delay the age 17 collection further, repeating the age 9 collection in 2022 had the advantage of enabling more direct pre- and post-pandemic comparisons for age 9 students. Similarly, NAGB decided in November 2021 that NAEP would re-administer LTT Age 13 in the fall of 2022, further allowing pre- and post-pandemic comparisons for the age 13 students. The last administration of LTT Age 17 occurred in 2012. This submission covers the administration of the 2025 NAEP LTT assessments at Ages 9, 13, and 17.

This Amendment to the NAEP 2025 Long-Term Trend Clearance package updates several documents since the approval of the primary package for NAEP 2025 LTT (OMB# 1850-0928 v.32) in April 2024: 1) updated committee members in Appendix A, 2) updated sampling design memo in Appendix C, 3) final communication materials in Appendix D, 4) updated Assessment Management Screens (AMS) in Appendix F1, and 5) small updates to Parts A and B. See Summary of All Changes table below. These changes required no additional increases to burden since the Clearance Package (21,536 hours).

The following table and pages below provide a summary of the changes that were made to Part A, Part B, Appendix A, Appendix C, Appendix D, and Appendix F1 documents included in this submission. There were increases in costs to the federal government in this Amendment #1 ($13,148,725 to $13,190,327).

Summary of All Changes

Document	Changes
Part A	Updates to Costs to the Federal Government Updates to references about documents and materials to be included in Amendment #1
Part B	Updates to references about documents and materials to be included in Amendment #1
Appendix A	Updated committee members
Appendix C	Updated sampling design memo
Appendix D – Communication and Recruitment Materials	Revision to Appendix D-6 (added new NAEP 2025 Facts for Teachers in Private Schools) Revisions to Appendix D-11 (revised Age 13 school rostering and enrollment materials, added similar materials for Ages 9 & 17) New 2025 version of Appendix D-12 New Appendix D-19 (Private School Recruitment Video Storyboards) New Appendix D-20 (Age 17 Instructions for Importing a Student Excel File) New Appendix D-21 (Assessment Day Feedback Form for School Coordinators) New Appendix D-22 (Assessment Day Feedback Form Email)
Appendix F1 – Content of Assessment Management System	Updated AMS screens for the LTT Assessment (F1-F11 are all new)

Part A Changes

A.1.a. Purpose of Submission

The library of possible items to be used in the NAEP LTT 2025 questionnaires is provided in Appendices G and G-S, which includes English and Spanish items. These documents have now been updated to include the final 2025 LTT questionnaires for this 30-day Clearance Package posting. (approved OMB# 1850-0928 v.32). The previously approved placeholder versions of the LTT Age 9, 13, and 17 initial communication and recruitment materials have now been updated, and the final versions are available in Appendix D. Remaining updates to communication materials will be available in Amendment #1 in summer 2024.

Because the specific communications and systems materials are not all available at this time, examples from LTT Ages 9 and 13 in 2022 and LTT Age 17 in 2020 are provided in this Clearance Request package as placeholders. The final version of the 2025 materials will be very similar to 2020 and 2022 (OMB# 1850-0928 [v.17 for Age 17] [v.22 for Ages 9 and 13]) and will be updated accordingly in Amendment #1 (see Amendment schedule table on the following page). At the time of this submission, the Assessment Management System (AMS) was not complete. The AMS will be submitted as materials have also been updated accordingly in this Amendment #1 submission (see Appendix F in the upcoming Amendment #1 to be submitted during the summer of 2024. Appendices F1 (2024 AMS) and F2 (2022 LTT MyNAEP) have been included to show examples of the current AMS process and the previously used MyNAEP for LTT in 2022. The AMS system will be a combination and modification of these 2 processes. The future Amendment #1 will be a new revision request, with a 30-day public comment period notice published in the Federal Register. A summary of the Amendment schedule for NAEP LTT 2025 is detailed in the table on the following page.).

Some of the assessment, questionnaire, and recruitment materials are translated into Spanish. Specifically, Spanish versions of the student assessments and questionnaires are used for qualified English learner (EL) students when a bilingual accommodation is offered for ages 9 and 13 for LTT (note that no LTT bilingual accommodation is offered for reading or Age 17 mathematics). In addition, every year, Spanish versions of parent/guardian communication materials are used nationwide for Spanish-speaking parents/guardians.

2025 NAEP LTT Amendment Schedule Table
Amendment #1 (June 2024)	Part A: Updates to the 2025 NAEP LTT administration (if needed) Part B: Updates to the 2025 NAEP LTT administration (if needed) Appendix A: Updated committee members Appendix C: 2025 Sampling Memo Appendix D: Remaining LTT communication materials, including the Spanish translations Appendix F: Final 2025 NAEP LTT AMS screens

A.1.c.3. Survey Items

In addition to assessing subject-area achievement, NAEP collects information that serves to fulfill the reporting requirements of the federal legislation and to provide context for the reporting of student performance. The legislation requires that, whenever feasible, NAEP includes information on special groups (e.g., information reported by race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender, disability, and limited English proficiency). As part of most NAEP assessments, three types of questionnaires are used to collect information: student, teacher, and school. An overview of the questionnaires is presented below, and the survey questionnaires are now available in Appendix G and G-S in this Clearance Package 30-day posting.

Previously approved versions of the LTT Age 9, 13, and 17 questionnaires are provided in Appendix G and G-S (OMB# 1850-0928 [v.16 for Age 17] [v.22 for Ages 9 and 13]). Slight updates have been were made to the school core items for Ages 9, 13, and 17, and all items (including the revisions) were approved in OMB# 1850-0928 v.32.

A.8. Consultations Outside the Agency

The current contract expires on June 30October 31, 2024. As such, the vast majority of the work associated with conducting the 2025 NAEP LTT assessments will occur after this current contract expires.

For the 2025 LTT Clearance package, a 60 day notice was published in the Federal Register on January 18, 2024. There were no public comments. A 30 day notice will bewas also published, which did not result in any public comments.

A.10. Assurance of Confidentiality

OMB No. 1850-0928   APPROVAL EXPIRES 6/302/28/2027

In addition, parents/legal guardians are notified of the assessment. See Appendix D for the updated communication materials which provide a parental notification letter (note: Appendix D will be updated with any remaining materials in Amendment #1).. The letter is adapted for each grade or age/subject combination and the school principal may edit it. However, the information regarding confidentiality and the appropriate law reference will remain unchanged. Please note that parents/guardians are required to receive notification of student participation but NAEP does not require explicit parental consent (by law, parents/guardians of students selected to participate in NAEP must be notified in writing of their child’s selection prior to the administration of the assessment).

Assessment Feedback Survey—As part of the on-going quality control of the assessment process, schoolsschool coordinators will be asked to respond to an additional follow-up survey. Survey questions solicit pre-assessment feedback, assessment day feedback, and observer feedback.. The sample post-assessment follow-up survey is included in the AMS systemconducted via Survey Monkey (see Appendix F, which will be updated in Amendment #1).D-21). It is estimated that this interview will take on average 2 minutes.

A.14. Estimates of Cost to the Federal Government

The total cost to the federal government for the administrations of the 2025 NAEP LTT data collections (contract costs and NCES salaries and expenses) is estimated to be $13,148,725190,327. The 2025 LTT assessment cost estimate is shown in the table below.

NCES salaries and expenses	$1,400,300
Contract costs	$11,748,425 790,027
Printing, packaging, and distribution, and scoring	$2,308,398 350,000
Item Development	$150,000
Sampling, recruiting and training, data collection, and weighting	$7,290,027
Design, analysis and reporting	$2,000,000

A.15. Reasons for Changes in Burden and Budget (from last Clearance submittal and from Clearance to Amendment #1)

The previous package under this number requested burden for the operational NAEP assessment, as opposed to the Long-Term Trend assessment described here. These different programs have different research aims, different populations, and therefore different respondent burdens and budgets. Total burden and responses are 61,360 responses and 21,536 hours respectively.

For this Amendment #1 submission, the costs to the Federal Government increased slightly from $13,148,725 (OMB# 1850-0928 v.32) to $13,190,327.

Part B Changes

B.1.a. Sampling Procedures

NAEP yearly sample design plans are not available until the spring of the year preceding the assessments. The purpose of the sample design memorandum is to detail the specific sampling procedures used for the 2025 LTT assessments. As an example, the 2020 The updated 2025 sample design memorandum is submitted at now included in this time and will be updated in Amendment #1 submission (see Appendix C).

B.2.a. Recruitment of Schools

Once the sample of schools is selected for the 2025 NAEP LTT administration, the NAEP State Coordinator and NAEP field staff typically follow a standard set of procedures for securing the participation of public and private schools. Note: Updated communication and recruitment materials are now available in Appendix D in this Clearance package 30-day posting. Any The remaining materials will be that were not included in the 2025 LTT Clearance Package are provided in the future this Amendment #1 Appendix D. The process includes:

• sending initial contact letters to chief state school and testing officers (will be submitted as part of Amendment 1 in June 2024;

• sending a notice to the district superintendents of which and how many schools were selected for NAEP from their district (see Appendix D-4);

• sending a notice of each school’s selection for NAEP to the principal or other administrative official, along with an assessment information packet containing introductory information and materials (see Appendix D-1);

• sending a notice with each school’s NAEP assessment date to the principal or other administrative official, along with additional assessment information (see Appendix D-8);

• sending a letter to each school’s principal with instructions for assigning a school coordinator and (see Appendix D-2); and,

• sending information to each school coordinator regarding his/her role (see Appendix D-3).

B.2.b School Coordinator Responsibilities

The school coordinators are responsible for preparing for the NAEP assessment in the school using the Assessment Management System (AMS), which is an online secure site that provides participating schools with a convenient way to prepare for the upcoming assessment. AMS serves as the primary resource and action center throughout the assessment process. The secure AMS system is used for all special studies. The site also offers school coordinators an electronic way to prepare for the assessment at their own pace. The NAEP field representative will schedule an initial call to pre-review the major areas of the AMS system with the school coordinator. The 2025 AMS system will be is included in Appendix F F1 in the this Amendment #1 submission. (See p. 5 of Part A for more detail on the Amendment schedule.)

The AMS menu is a virtual checklist of all activities that school coordinators will need to complete throughout the school year. The following describes the different sections and activities that need to be completed, and the purpose and timeframe for each. Note: Remaining communication and recruitment materials, as well as materials that will be part of the AMS system will be submitted in Amendment #1 since they were not available for this submission.

As part of the ongoing quality control of the assessment process, schools will be asked to complete an additional follow-up survey. Survey questions solicit feedback on assessment processes. The Assessment Feedback Survey is updated and can be found in Appendix D-21.

B.5. Consultants on NAEP Design

ETS, HII, Westat, and NCES staff have collaborated on aspects of the design. The primary persons responsible from NCES are: Peggy Carr, Patricia Etienne, Holly Spurlock, Daniel McGrath, and William Tirre; from ETS: Jay Campbell, Amy Dresher, and Yue Jia; and from Westat: Keith Rust, Greg Binzer, Tom Krenzke, Rick RogersJacquie Hogan, Lisa Rodriguez, Kavemuii Murangi, and Marcie Hickman. In addition, the NAEP Design and Analysis Committee, and the NAEP Validity Studies Panel (see Appendices A-1 and A-2) have also contributed to NAEP designs on an on-going basis.