The National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) results are released as “the nation’s report card.” MHS was one of the several Missouri high schools chosen to provide the test at random to students. On Wednesday, Feb. 22, 40 randomly selected seniors participated in the assessment.
Arnold Goldstein, program director for NAEP’s Design, Analysis and Reporting, said picking the most elite schools and students would make the nation’s report card artificially high; instead, the randomness of selection represents the nation as a whole more faithfully.
“Students were randomly selected to appropriately represent the geographic, racial/ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity of MHS’s population,” Julia Rust, testing coordinator, said.
NAEP is administered by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. It is a nationally representative assessment of what America’s students’ know and can do. It provides information that is useful to educators, parents and policy makers, and makes students’ achievement a public issue.
Goldstein said the NAEP is a useful measuring stick of the development of states and urban districts because the same test is issued across the nation. Not only does it compare the educational achievements of different regions, but it also allows for comparison of past and present achievements because the test stays essentially the same level of difficulty from year to year.
Goldsten said the test “allows analyzers to see evidence of growth or decline over a span of time.”
“Typically the northern states perform better than the southern,” Goldstein said. “Massachusetts, North Dakota and New England states always perform very well.”
The U.S. Department of Education uses the testing results to compare the national scores to state scores since the state-issued assessments differ from the national ones.
Goldstein said for example, if one state’s test was easier, students would perform better on it. The NAEP, on the other hand, offers an honest comparison.
“There has been a noticeable improvement in math the past few decades, but reading has stayed flat,” Goldstein said. “There have been major improvement in math and reading for African Americans and Hispanics.”
There are 5,000 people in the field staff of the U.S. Department of Education that go into schools and conduct the tests. This time, MHS was tested in reading, economics and math.
Ashish Patel, senior, was one of the 40 selected MHS students. A month ago, letter informed him that he was chosen to represent the school.
“I thought it was really easy,” Patel said. “I was expecting it to be harder. It was like any other test I’ve taken at school.”
The test consists of three main types of questions. The multiple choice portion, short constructed response and extended constructed response.
“A new addition to NAEP is a component where students conduct experiments at their desks with mini lab kits and can come to their own conclusions,” Goldstein said. “We are also starting science experiments through the computer. That allows kids to use chemicals or other materials that would be dangerous to actually use.”
Rust said she thinks this test is important because it shows the nation how current students are performing academically. She said the long-term research is a great tool when used by policy makers, parents and educators to continuously make advances in the country’s schools.
“We are very grateful to the schools and students who participate in NAEP,” Goldstein said.