What is the canceled NAEP long-term trend test?
The long-term trend tests date to the 1970s, longer than the main Nation’s Report Card test, providing important long-term data. The LTT exam is assessed to 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old students, typically every four years.
The tests do not include state-level data, but they do report data by race, gender, and region, among other categories, and are a measurement of the country’s educational progress.
The canceled test is only for 17-year-olds, and was due to be administered from March to May. The assessment of 9-year-olds currently in the field will be completed, Education Week reported. (The last test for 13-year-olds was in 2023, so the next one would not be expected until 2026.)
The department “decided not to fund” the test, according to an email to state officials reported by the education news site The 74. A department spokeswoman said the cancelation is not unprecedented and other NAEP assessments continue as normal.
When has the test been canceled before?
The nation’s 17-year-olds have not actually been tested since 2012. The 2016 and 2020 tests were canceled in 2016 due to budget cuts.
Younger students were assessed in 2022 and 2023, but this spring’s test of high schoolers would have been the first national data on that age group in well over a decade.
Thomas Kane, a Harvard economist who is part of a team that uses NAEP exams to make state-level tests comparable over time, said in an email if any tests were to be cut, the 17-year-old long-term trend “would be the one.”
“The 17-year-old [test]s have always been problematic because high school graduation rates were changing and the composition of 17-year-olds that were still enrolled in school was changing,” Kane said.
High school dropout rates have fallen dramatically, meaning many 17-year-olds are tested who in prior decades would have already dropped out of school, making the data less reliable.
Still, the main NAEP tests began only in the 1990s, meaning the long-term trend data is necessary for comparisons further back. With fewer tests, researchers lose the ability to answer important questions, said Andrew Ho, a Harvard education professor and former member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the test.
“Losing this longer trend line, a helpful ‘audit’ of Grade 12 trends, sends a sad signal: our assessment infrastructure is getting weaker,“ Ho said. ”Has proficiency changed? Have gaps grown? We are losing the chance to answer these questions.”
What does this mean for the main NAEP?
The Department of Education’s communications office said the agency continues to support the NAEP and transparency around measuring achievement.
Other NAEP assessments, including the main tests administered every two years to students in Grades 4 and 8, are continuing as normal, the spokesperson said.
The NAEP is congressionally mandated, but the Education Department has canceled at least one other related contract, “for conducting background checks on field staff who administer NAEP tests in schools,” the 74 reported. That contract will be re-evaluated and potentially rebid, Biedermann said.
Why does the National Assessment of Educational Progress matter?
Despite federal promises that the main exam won’t be compromised, some researchers question whether the cancelation of the LTT at all foreshadows what may come.
“The NAEP LTT is one of NAEP’s smaller assessments, but NAEP law requires it explicitly,” Ho noted. “Where are the congressional advocates for measuring educational progress?”
Federal law requires states conduct their own assessments, like the MCAS in Massachusetts, but the NAEP serves as a shared baseline to compare states and over time. The tests have provided important evidence of the dramatic learning loss experienced by America’s students during the COVID-19, and the very limited recovery in the years since.
The tests are particularly useful, Kane noted, for allowing comparison over time — particularly as some states have relaxed their standards, making recent results look stronger than they are.
“My concern is the main NAEP — the one that is the source of state level estimates every two years,” Kane said. “If we want states to be able to design and administer their own tests (and update those tests when necessary), we need the NAEP in order to preserve comparability across states and over time. ”
Christopher Huffaker can be reached at christopher.huffaker@globe.com. Follow him @huffakingit.