On this period of utmost partisan divide, there’s little or no that unites conservatives and liberals. However each side have lengthy backed the Nationwide Evaluation of Academic Progress (NAEP), which can also be known as the Nation’s Report Card.
Now even this check, touted because the “gold commonplace” amongst all assessments, is in jeopardy.
Mass layoffs, funding disruptions, and threats of future steep cuts are worrying those that are conscious of the internal workings of the NAEP check. “It’s a really delicate instrument,” stated conservative training commentator Chester Finn, who previously chaired the governing board that oversees the evaluation. “Dangerous issues are occurring. It’s going from dangerous to worse.”
Associated: Our free weekly publication alerts you to what analysis says about faculties and school rooms.
Influential state policymakers are additionally sounding the alarm. “I’m anxious that NAEP will not be going to occur,” stated Maryland Superintendent of Colleges Carey Wright, who ran Mississippi’s training division till 2022 and served on the governing board of the nationwide evaluation. “I’m involved the congressional mandate can be ignored.”
Congress requires that NAEP assess the studying and math skills of fourth and eighth graders each two years, with the subsequent administration scheduled to happen within the first quarter of 2026. It’s the solely nationally consultant evaluation of what American college students know. And due to its design, it’s the solely approach to measure the educational achievement of scholars over time, between wealthy and poor, and throughout states.
With out NAEP, we might not be so painfully conscious of pandemic studying losses and the way youngsters can not learn and multiply almost in addition to they might in 2019, nor would different states be trying to copy the Mississippi miracle wherein the state skyrocketed from forty ninth within the nation in fourth-grade studying to ninth in only a decade. Certainly, the disastrous 2024 NAEP scores had been President Donald Trump’s important justification for closing the Schooling Division in his March 2025 government order. With out NAEP, there can be no proof of failure.
Administering a check would possibly seem to be a easy job from the skin. In any case, academics create and provides assessments every single day. However beneath the hood, NAEP is kind of sophisticated with a sequence of actions that must occur by completely different deadlines to create the questions; overview them for validity, reliability and bias; choose the scholars who can be examined and administer the examination to them, and eventually to research outcomes with statistical precision. Minor delays and cuts can have massive penalties. “It’s like Jenga,” stated one former training official. “If you happen to take out one thing, the entire thing can crumble.”
The menace to NAEP started with Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) in February. DOGE’s price cutters slashed analysis and statistics contracts on the Schooling Division, however a spokeswoman emphasised that no cuts had been made to contracts for NAEP. Whereas it appeared that NAEP had been spared, there have been already warning indicators. Knowledge that the check depends on was cancelled. With out information on scholar demographics and poverty, statisticians can be unable to create nationally consultant samples of scholars to take the NAEP check.
Then, behind the scenes, the Schooling Division started to chip away at NAEP straight.
Rigorous exterior evaluation scrapped
In February, an skilled panel that research the validity of the NAEP examination was instructed to cease working as a result of funding had been lower off by the Schooling Division, based on panel members. This panel maintains the rigorous high quality of the examination by finding out whether or not the questions on the assessments are measuring the talents we care about and if the scores may be trusted. Jack Buckley, a former commissioner of the Nationwide Middle for Schooling Statistics, chaired this NAEP validity research panel and stated it had been assembly weekly till mid-February.
Non-core NAEP assessments beneath menace
NAEP includes a big basket of assessments past the primary assessments in math and studying for fourth and eighth graders, which started within the early Nineteen Nineties. There are additionally older NAEP assessments that date again to 1969, which have been renamed “long-term development” assessments. Days after the DOGE contract cuts, the Schooling Division scrapped the long-term development NAEP for 17-year-olds, which had been scheduled to be administered this yr. The regulation specifies that NAEP’s long-term development assessments should proceed for college students aged 9, 13 and 17 however doesn’t specify how often. Some state training officers and researchers anxious that the cancellation would result in the elimination of different NAEP assessments in historical past, civics and science, which aren’t required by Congress. “These items are all essential for a well-rounded training,” stated one state training official, who requested to stay nameless out of concern of retaliation.
Funding pauses for administering and writing the examination
Exterior contractors carry out many of the work to create and administer the examination. That’s why it was alarming in late winter when state training officers heard that funding was halted for the contract with Westat, a non-public information assortment agency, to pick the consultant pattern of scholars who take the check after which to manage it in faculties. That funding resumed a pair weeks later in March, based on former Schooling Division officers. Westat denied that there was any pause within the funding, and says the work remains to be funded via June. However the rumors alarmed state officers. As of final week, Maryland officers weren’t knowledgeable that this work had resumed and thought it was nonetheless on maintain. “There’s quite a lot of confusion,” stated an evaluation administrator in one other state.
Funding and work additionally quickly stopped on the digital platform that college students use to take the examination and academics and faculty directors use to fill out survey questionnaires, based on 4 individuals with data of the state of affairs who didn’t need to be recognized as a result of they feared repercussions. Like all software program, it wants fixed upkeep, upgrades and safety patches. However the timing was significantly worrisome because the digital check can be administered otherwise in 2026. As a substitute of NAEP bringing units to the colleges, preloaded with the testing software program, college students can be taking the check on faculty computer systems. Additional work have to be accomplished to verify faculties can log in with out glitches.
The contractor constructing this platform, ETS, gave DOGE an illustration of its options final week. However based on former training officers, DOGE staffers are in search of further locations to chop prices and had been lower than impressed.
Associated: Former Trump commissioner blasts DOGE training information cuts
The digital platform can also be wanted to finish behind-the-scenes paperwork for states to take part within the 2026 evaluation. These steps are imagined to be accomplished in Could. Because it stands now, funding for the digital platform runs out once more in June.
The Schooling Division didn’t reply to inquiries to elucidate its plan for NAEP and the rationale for the funding cuts. Based on former training officers, the cuts are partly associated to the finances battles in Washington that left the Schooling Division with solely restricted funding via mid-March, when a shutdown was looming. As soon as Congress funded the federal government via Sept. 30, contemporary funds turned out there, however distributors didn’t obtain the cash instantly. It’s unclear if these delays had been intentional and a tactic to stress distributors to make price concessions or a results of the mass firings on the Schooling Division in March that left inadequate employees to course of the brand new funding.
State coordinator uncertainty
Whereas check administration and expertise was suspended, funding for the NAEP state coordinators threatened to expire on the finish of March. State training officers had been anxious about dropping these important jobs, which coordinate testing in faculties throughout their states and deal with information sharing agreements with Washington. “We had been sweating bullets,” stated one training official in a Republican-controlled state who requested to not be named out of concern of retaliation. The official would have needed to lay off this important staffer. Funds lastly got here via on March 27, however the finances had been lowered: state coordinators will now not meet for information workshops to assist them perceive and clarify the outcomes to training officers and the general public.
Whereas these state jobs had been saved, funding ran out on March 31 for an much more important job: the creation of the NAEP exams, based on 4 individuals who had direct data of this paused contract. That “content material growth” work is carried out by ETS, and the nonprofit testing group instructed its staff who oversee the writing and overview of NAEP check inquiries to take a depart till funding resumes. Questions nonetheless have to be packaged into 30-minute sections for the 2026 NAEP assessments, and contemporary questions have to be written and area examined for future exams on science and twelfth grade math and studying.
Finances cuts on the horizon
Extra drastic finances cuts loom. DOGE is actively in search of to slash the dimensions of all of the Schooling Division contracts that it didn’t terminate in February. There are roughly 10 main contracts for NAEP and all the contractors are being requested to suggest methods to chop prices. DOGE is aggressively negotiating with distributors, based on former Schooling Division staff. Distributors have submitted and resubmitted cost-cutting proposals, however, to this point, DOGE staffers should not glad.
Inside the Schooling Division forms, NAEP is housed inside the Institute of Schooling Sciences (IES), which handles analysis and statistics. Former IES director Mark Schneider, who’s a nonresident fellow on the American Enterprise Institute, stated he had heard that DOGE initially sought a 75 p.c lower, after which a 50 p.c lower to the contracts for NAEP, which prices greater than $190 million a yr. DOGE has questioned why the federal authorities must create an costly, custom-tailored check and why it can not exchange it with a business “off the shelf” examination from one other firm, a number of former Schooling Division staff stated. Testing consultants instructed me that no high-quality business examination exists.
Extra importantly, a brand new check would make it inconceivable to match future outcomes with previous scores. If scores go up, it could possibly be as a result of the brand new check is simpler, not as a result of scholar achievement improved.
Associated: Below Trump, homeschool statistics are disappearing
To make sure, $190 million a yr for a check is some huge cash. And everybody I talked with stated that the method could possibly be extra environment friendly. A 2022 report from the Nationwide Academy of Sciences prompt that efficiencies and up to date expertise may cut back prices, whereas sustaining rigorous high quality requirements. However it might be inconceivable to protect the standard if DOGE will get its means with a sudden 50 p.c price discount, Wright stated.
Oversight
After the mass firings of federal staff on the Schooling Division in March, simply two individuals who had been concerned with NAEP remained. Solely one in all them has expertise managing contracts with outdoors distributors. Earlier than the mass firings, Schooling Division staff would verify in with their distributors each day and spend hours in conferences with them each week, serving to to make choices when issues got here up, resembling not with the ability to recruit sufficient college students for area testing new questions. Now, the only remaining contract overseer is answerable for not simply NAEP however all the contracts for statistical collections. She has not more than 10 minutes every week for every vendor, former training staff stated. “If you don’t have these our bodies, you’ll be able to run into errors,” stated Wright. “It is advisable to monitor this work day in and day trip.”
Not everyone seems to be anxious. Erika Donalds is a detailed ally of Schooling Secretary Linda McMahon. Donalds runs the Middle for Schooling Alternative on the right-wing assume tank America First Coverage Institute. She expressed confidence that McMahon would protect NAEP, which Donalds characterised as “worthwhile.”
“I don’t have the identical degree of heartburn proper now,” stated Donalds. “I’ve confidence within the group and of their understanding of the significance of the continuity of knowledge.”
Lobbying behind the scenes
Nervousness about NAEP was mentioned at an April 2 webinar by the Middle for Evaluation, a nonprofit that advises states on their annual assessments. Based on Juan D’Brot, a senior affiliate on the heart, many state training chiefs and their employees had been in Washington in March for the legislative convention of Council of Chief State Faculty Officers. “From what we discovered, many advocated for each the position of NAEP and the significance of credible, high-stakes assessments on to the Division of Schooling,” he wrote within the webinar chat.
Associated: DOGE’s demise blow to training research
Different supporters of the check are making their case within the media. William Bennett, training secretary beneath former President Ronald Reagan, penned an open letter together with conservative commentator Chester Finn in The 74, urging McMahon to protect NAEP, calling it “the only most essential exercise of the division.” Then Bennett teamed up with Lamar Alexander, the training secretary beneath former President George H.W. Bush, with an opinion piece on the Fox Information web site that stated NAEP was chief among the many three most essential features on the Schooling Division that must be preserved. David Winston, a Republican marketing consultant who labored for former Home Speaker Newt Gingrich, wrote a piece in Roll Name, headlined “We should shield NAEP.”
It’s unclear if anybody within the Schooling Division is listening.
Contact employees author Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Sign, or barshay@hechingerreport.org.
This story in regards to the way forward for NAEP was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, unbiased information group centered on inequality and innovation in training. Join Proof Factors and different Hechinger newsletters.