In his 1997 State of the Union address, President Clinton announced a federal initiative to develop tests of 4th-grade reading and 8th-grade mathematics that could be administered on a voluntary basis by states and school districts beginning in spring 1999. The principal purpose of the Voluntary National Tests (VNT) is to provide parents and teachers with systematic and reliable information about the verbal and quantitative skills that students have achieved at two key points in their educational careers. The U.S. Department of Education anticipated that this information would serve as a catalyst for continued school improvement, by focusing parental and community attention on achievement and by providing an additional tool to hold school systems accountable for their students' performance in relation to nationwide standards. Shortly after initial development work on the VNT, Congress transferred responsibility for VNT policies, direction, and guidelines from the department to the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB, the governing body for the National Assessment of Educational Progress). Test development activities were to continue, but Congress prohibited pilot and field testing and operational use of the VNT pending further consideration. At the same time, Congress called on the National Research Council (NRC) to assess the VNT development activities. Since the evaluation began, the NRC has issued three reports on VNT development: an interim and final report on the first year's work and an interim report earlier on this second year's work. This final report includes the findings and recommendations from the interim report, modified by new information and analysis, and presents our overall conclusions and recommendations regarding the VNT.
In his 1997 State of the Union address, President Clinton announced a federal initiative to develop tests of 4th-grade reading and 8th-grade mathematics that would provide reliable information about student performance at two key points in their educational careers. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the Voluntary National Tests (VNT) would create a catalyst for continued school improvement by focusing parental and community-wide attention on achievement and would become new tools to hold school systems accountable for their students' performance. The National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) has responsibility for development of the VNT. Congress recognized that a testing program of the scale and magnitude of the VNT initiative raises many important technical questions and requires quality control throughout development and implementation. In P.L. 105-78, Congress called on the National Research Council (NRC) to evaluate a series of technical issues pertaining to the validity of test items, the validity of proposed links between the VNT and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), plans for the accommodation and inclusion of students with disabilities and English-language learners, plans for reporting test information to parents and the public, and potential uses of the tests. This report covers phase 1 of the evaluation (November 1997-July 1998) and focuses on three principal issues: test specifications and frameworks; preliminary evidence of the quality of test items; and plans for the pilot and field test studies, for inclusion and accommodation, and for reporting VNT results.
Policy makers are caught between two powerful forces in relation to testing in America's schools. One is increased interest on the part of educators, reinforced by federal requirements, in developing tests that accurately reflect local educational standards and goals. The other is a strong push to gather information about the performance of students and schools relative to national and international standards and norms. The difficulty of achieving these two goals simultaneously is exacerbated by both the long-standing American tradition of local control of education and the growing public sentiment that students already take enough tests. Finding a solution to this dilemma has been the focus of numerous debates surrounding the Voluntary National Tests proposed by President Clinton in his 1997 State of the Union address. It was also the topic of a congressionally mandated 1998 National Research Council report (Uncommon Measures: Equivalence and Linkage Among Educational Tests), and was touched upon in a U.S. General Accounting Office report (Student Testing: Issues Related to Voluntary National Mathematics and Reading Tests). More recently, Congress asked the National Research Council to determine the technical feasibility, validity, and reliability of embedding test items from the National Assessment of Educational Progress or other tests in state and district assessments in 4th-grade reading and 8th-grade mathematics for the purpose of developing a valid measure of student achievement within states and districts and in terms of national performance standards or scales. This report is the response to that congressional mandate.
The issues surrounding the comparability of various tests used to assess performance in schools received broad public attention during congressional debate over the Voluntary National Tests proposed by President Clinton in his 1997 State of the Union Address. Proponents of Voluntary National Tests argue that there is no widely understood, challenging benchmark of individual student performance in 4th-grade reading and 8th-grade mathematics, thus the need for a new test. Opponents argue that a statistical linkage among tests already used by states and districts might provide the sort of comparability called for by the president's proposal. Public Law 105-78 requested that the National Research Council study whether an equivalency scale could be developed that would allow test scores from existing commercial tests and state assessments to be compared with each other and with the National Assessment of Education Progress. In this book, the committee reviewed research literature on the statistical and technical aspects of creating valid links between tests and how the content, use, and purposes of education testing in the United States influences the quality and meaning of those links. The book summarizes relevant prior linkage studies and presents a picture of the diversity of state testing programs. It also looks at the unique characteristics of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Uncommon Measures provides an answer to the question posed by Congress in Public Law 105-78, suggests criteria for evaluating the quality of linkages, and calls for further research to determine the level of precision needed to make inferences about linked tests. In arriving at its conclusions, the committee acknowledged that ultimately policymakers and educators must take responsibility for determining the degree of imprecision they are willing to tolerate in testing and linking. This book provides science-based information with which to make those decisions.
Since the late 1960s, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)--the nation's report card--has been the only continuing measure of student achievement in key subject areas. Increasingly, educators and policymakers have expected NAEP to serve as a lever for education reform and many other purposes beyond its original role. Grading the Nation's Report Card examines ways NAEP can be strengthened to provide more informative portrayals of student achievement and the school and system factors that influence it. The committee offers specific recommendations and strategies for improving NAEP's effectiveness and utility, including: Linking achievement data to other education indicators. Streamlining data collection and other aspects of its design. Including students with disabilities and English-language learners. Revamping the process by which achievement levels are set. The book explores how to improve NAEP framework documents--which identify knowledge and skills to be assessed--with a clearer eye toward the inferences that will be drawn from the results. What should the nation expect from NAEP? What should NAEP do to meet these expectations? This book provides a blueprint for a new paradigm, important to education policymakers, professors, and students, as well as school administrators and teachers, and education advocates.
Since 1969, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been providing policymakers, educators, and the public with reports on academic performance and progress of the nation's students. The assessment is given periodically in a variety of subjects: mathematics, reading, writing, science, the arts, civics, economics, geography, U.S. history, and technology and engineering literacy. NAEP is given to representative samples of students across the U.S. to assess the educational progress of the nation as a whole. Since 1992, NAEP results have been reported in relation to three achievement levels: basic, proficient, and advanced. However, the use of achievement levels has provoked controversy and disagreement, and evaluators have identified numerous concerns. This publication evaluates the NAEP student achievement levels in reading and mathematics in grades 4, 8, and 12 to determine whether the achievement levels are reasonable, reliable, valid, and informative to the public, and recommends ways that the setting and use of achievement levels can be improved.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as the nation's report card, has chronicled students' academic achievement in America for over a quarter of a century. It has been a valued source of information about students' performance, providing the best available trend data on the academic achievement of elementary, middle, and secondary school students in key subject areas. NAEP's prominence and the important need for stable and accurate measures of academic achievement call for evaluation of the program and an analysis of the extent to which its results are reasonable, valid, and informative to the public. This volume of papers considers the use and application of NAEP. It provides technical background to the recently published book, Grading the Nation's Report Card: Evaluating NAEP and Transforming the Assessment of Educational Progress (NRC, 1999), with papers on four key topics: NAEP's assessment development, content validity, design and use, and more broadly, the design of education indicator systems.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is responsible for collecting information on marine recreational angling. It does so principally through the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP), a survey program that consists of an in-person survey at fishing access sites and a mail survey, in addition to other complementary or alternative surveys. Data collected from anglers through MRIP supply fisheries managers with essential information for assessing fish stocks. In 2006, the National Research Council provided an evaluation of MRIP's predecessor, the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey (MRFSS). That review, Review of Recreational Fisheries Survey Methods, presented conclusions and recommendations in six categories: sampling issues; statistical estimation issues; human dimensions; program management and support; communication and outreach; and general recommendations. After spending nearly a decade addressing the recommendations, NMFS requested another evaluation of its modified survey program (MRIP). This report, the result of that evaluation, serves as a 10-year progress report. It recognizes the progress that NMFS has made, including major improvements in the statistical soundness of its survey designs, and also highlights some remaining challenges and provides recommendations for addressing them.
There is little dispute within the scientific community that humans are changing Earth's climate on a decadal to century time-scale. By the end of this century, without a reduction in emissions, atmospheric CO2 is projected to increase to levels that Earth has not experienced for more than 30 million years. As greenhouse gas emissions propel Earth toward a warmer climate state, an improved understanding of climate dynamics in warm environments is needed to inform public policy decisions. In Understanding Earth's Deep Past, the National Research Council reports that rocks and sediments that are millions of years old hold clues to how the Earth's future climate would respond in an environment with high levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Understanding Earth's Deep Past provides an assessment of both the demonstrated and underdeveloped potential of the deep-time geologic record to inform us about the dynamics of the global climate system. The report describes past climate changes, and discusses potential impacts of high levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases on regional climates, water resources, marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and the cycling of life-sustaining elements. While revealing gaps in scientific knowledge of past climate states, the report highlights a range of high priority research issues with potential for major advances in the scientific understanding of climate processes. This proposed integrated, deep-time climate research program would study how climate responded over Earth's different climate states, examine how climate responds to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and clarify the processes that lead to anomalously warm polar and tropical regions and the impact on marine and terrestrial life. In addition to outlining a research agenda, Understanding Earth's Deep Past proposes an implementation strategy that will be an invaluable resource to decision-makers in the field, as well as the research community, advocacy organizations, government agencies, and college professors and students.
Congress requested that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) produce a site-specific biosafety and biosecurity risk assessment (SSRA) of the proposed National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan, Kansas. The laboratory would study dangerous foreign animal diseases-including the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), which affects cattle, pigs, deer, and other cloven-hoofed animals-and diseases deadly to humans that can be transmitted between animals and people. Congress also asked the Research Council to review the validity and adequacy of the document. Until these studies are complete, Congress has withheld funds to build the NBAF. Upon review of the DHS assessment, the National Research Council found "several major shortcomings." Based on the DHS risk assessment, there is nearly a 70 percent chance over the 50-year lifetime of the facility that a release of FMD could result in an infection outside the laboratory, impacting the economy by estimates of $9 billion to $50 billion. The present Research Council report says the risks and costs of a pathogen being accidently released from the facility could be significantly higher. The committee found that the SSRA has many legitimate conclusions, but it was concerned that the assessment does not fully account for how a Biosafety-Level 3 Agriculture and Biosafety-Level 4 Pathogen facility would operate or how pathogens might be accidently released. In particular, the SSRA does not include important operation risks and mitigation issues, such as the risk associated with the daily cleaning of large animal rooms. It also fails to address risks that would likely increase the chances of an FMD leak or of the disease's spread after a leak, including the NBAF's close proximity to the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine clinics and KSU football stadium or personnel moving among KSU facilities.
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