National Assessment of Educational Progress Education Statistics Service Institute (NAEP ESSI)

AIR’s NAEP Education Statistics Services Institute provides technical assistance, research and development support, and project management services to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP, also known as “The Nation’s Report Card,” is the only nationally representative and continuing assessment of what American students know and can do in various subject areas, such as math, reading and science. The assessment is extensive, and federal allocations to administer and support NAEP have averaged close to 100 million annually for the last five years. NAEP ESSI is AIR’s a center designed specifically to support this important assessment.

NAEP ESSI staff support NCES and NAEP in a number of ways. For example, NAEP ESSI is responsible for reviewing all NAEP items and the scoring procedures; performing research studies that explore new methods, improve validity, or evaluate operational improvements; providing technical, web and document reviews for all NAEP products; and performing quick-turnaround data analyses and fact checking for the Commissioner or Secretary of Education. To perform this work, NAEP ESSI staff come from a variety of backgrounds and includes psychometricians, statisticians, researchers (sociologists, psychologists, etc.), state assessment specialists, item development and scoring experts, policy analysts, mathematics and science experts, and graphics and general support staff.