NAEP 2019-20 LTT Update Emergency Memo

Memorandum United States Department of Education

Institute of Education Sciences

National Center for Education Statistics

DATE: February 27, 2019

TO: Robert Sivinski, Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

FROM: James Lynn Woodworth, Commissioner, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)

SUBJECT: Emergency Clearance for National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2019 and 2020 Long-Term Trend (LTT) Update (OMB# 1850-0928 v.14)

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, civics, geography, economics, technology and engineering literacy (TEL), and the arts. 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. The nature of NAEP is that burden alternates from a relatively low burden in national-level administration years to a substantial burden increase in state-level administration years when the sample has to allow for estimates for individual states and some of the large urban districts. The request to conduct NAEP 2019 and 2020 was approved in September 2018 with the latest change request approved in February 2019 (OMB# 1850-0928 v.10-13). That request included operational assessments, pilot tests, and special studies, and all final procedures and materials for NAEP 2019, which comprise operational, national-level, Digitally Based Assessments (DBA) in mathematics, reading, and science at grades 4, 8, and 12; operational, state-level DBA in mathematics and reading at grades 4 and 8; pilot DBA for 2021 reading and mathematics at grades 4 and 8; a paper-based assessment (PBA) to DBA bridge studies in mathematics and reading at grade 12, and science at grades 4, 8, and 12; National Indian Education Study (NIES); Computer Access and Familiarity Study (CAFS); Socioeconomic Status (SES) Questionnaire Study; High School Transcript Study (HSTS); and Middle School Transcript Study (MSTS). NAEP 2019 is currently underway.

This request is to update the approved NAEP 2020 plan with: 1) the cancellation of all of the NAEP pilot and special studies originally planned for the 2019-20 school year (NAEP 2020), and 2) based on a Congressional request, the administration of Long Term Trend (LTT) assessment during the 2019-20 school year.

The removal of pilot and special studies is related to changes in the timeline for the NAEP contract re-competition. Given the current nine-month sole-source NAEP contract extension, and the award of the new NAEP contracts now scheduled for May 2019, it will be more efficient if the new NAEP contractors carry out all of the pilot and special studies activities initially planned for the 2019-20 school year within the new contracts rather than as transitional activities across contracts.

With regards to LTT, which is legislatively mandated, Congress requested for NCES to administer LTT earlier than its originally planned next administration scheduled for the 2023-24 school year, and passed a bill for FY 2019 (P.L. 115-245, signed on 9/28/2018) that increased NAEP FY19 funding to allow for administration of the LTT NAEP assessment during the 2019-20 school year (https://www.nagb.gov/content/nagb/assets/documents/what-we-do/quarterly-board-meeting-materials/2018-11/04-executive-committee.pdf). The LTT assessments are based on nationally representative samples of 9-, 13-, and 17-year olds, and have been used by NAEP since the early 1970s to provide measures of students’ educational progress over long time periods to allow for analyses of national trends in students’ performance in mathematics and reading. LTT periodicity has varied over time, but generally has been at least every 4 years. LTT was last administered in 2012.

In order to be able to comply with the Congressional request to conduct LTT during the 2019-20 school year and to meet the study’s timeline while maintaining compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), due to this unanticipated event, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and NCES are requesting under 44 U.S.C. 3507(j)(1) (“emergency clearance”) to begin participant recruitment and study materials printing for LTT 2020 by May 2019. Therefore, NCES is submitting this Information Collection Request (ICR) to OMB utilizing emergency review procedures in accordance with the PRA (P.L. 104-13, 44 U.S.C. Chapter 35) and 5 C.F.R. §1320.13 to announce revisions to the NAEP 2020 study plans and to provide for review the LTT 2020 plans, procedures, and materials.

With the submission of this ICR to OMB and a publication of an affiliated Federal Register Notice (FRN) announcing a public comment period on the content of this emergency clearance ICR, NCES is simultaneously initiating a regular clearance process for this request, including a 60-day followed by a 30-day public comment periods.

NCES hopes that any comments on the plans, procedures, and materials proposed in this ICR will be submitted via Regulations.gov by April 16, 2019, as part of the public comment period affiliated with this emergency clearance, so as to allow NCES to timely consider and address all comments related to this submission, so that upon approval of the ICR by OMB in April 2019, NCES can begin all participant recruitment activities and printing of study materials necessary to conduct LTT 2020.

NCES requests OMB approval of this emergency request by April 24, 2019.

The table below provides a summary of revisions made to the OMB approved NAEP 2019 and 2020 clearance documents (OMB#1850-0928 v.10-13).

Document	Content	Revisions
Part A	Supporting Statement Study Justification	Added LTT 2020 and removed the cancelled NAEP pilots and special studies originally planned for 2020. Respondent burden estimates and costs were adjusted accordingly.
Part B	Supporting Statement Statistical Methodology	Added LTT 2020 and removed the cancelled NAEP pilots and special studies originally planned for 2020.
Part C	Justification for the Content of the Assessments and Surveys	No change.
Appendix A	External Advisory Committees	No change.
Appendix B1	NAEP 2013 Weighting Procedures	Renamed Appendix B to B1, with no other changes.
Appendix B2	LTT 2012 Weighting Procedures	Newly added Appendix.
Appendix C1	2019 Sampling Memo	Renamed Appendix C to C1, with no other changes.
Appendix C2	2020 Sampling Memo	Newly added Appendix.
Appendix D1	NAEP 2019 Communications and Recruitment Materials (part 1)	No change.
Appendix D2	NAEP 2019 Communications and Recruitment Materials (part 2)	No change.
Appendix D3	LTT 2020 Communications and Recruitment Materials	Newly added Appendix.
Appendix E1	NAEP 2019 Assessment Feedback Forms	Renamed Appendix E to E1, with no other changes.
Appendix E2	LTT 2020 Assessment Feedback Forms	Newly added Appendix.
Appendix F	Item Library for NAEP 2019 & 2020 Questionnaires	No change.
Appendix G1	NAEP 2013 Sampling Design	Renamed Appendix G to G1, with no other changes.
Appendix G2	LTT 2012 Sampling Design	Newly added Appendix.
Appendix H1	Instructions for Entering Student Information	Renamed Appendix H to H1, with no other changes.
Appendix H2	LTT Instructions for Entering Student Information	Newly added Appendix.
Appendix I	High School Transcript Study (HSTS) and Middle School Transcript Study (MSTS) Data Collection Instruments	No change.
Appendix J1	Content of MyNAEP System	No change.
Appendix J2	Spanish Content of MyNAEP System for Puerto Rico	No change.
Appendix J3	2019 High School Transcript Study (HSTS) Content of the HSTS Website	No change.
Appendix J4	2019 Middle School Transcript Study (MSTS) Content of the MSTS Activities	No change.
Appendix J5	LTT 2020 Content of MyNAEP System	Newly added Appendix.
Appendix K1	NAEP 2019 Student Questionnaires	No change.
Appendix K2	NAEP 2019 Teacher Questionnaires	No change.
Appendix K3	NAEP 2019 School Questionnaires	No change.
Appendix K4	LTT 2020 Student Questionnaires	Newly added Appendix.
Appendix K-S	NAEP 2019 Spanish Translations of Survey Questionnaires	No change.
Appendix L	Findings and Recommendations from NAEP 2017 Pilot Study of the Middle School Transcript Study (MSTS)	No change.