What We’re Watching: 2022 NAEP Long-Term Trend Release

Education Next Editor-in-Chief and National Assessment Governing Board member Martin R. West hosts a discussion of the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress Long-Term Trend results for 9-year-olds. The Long-Term Trend assessment, a math and reading exam in use since the 1970s, was administered to 9-year-olds in early 2020 before quarantine closures and again in 2022 after schools were reopened. The decision to test 9-year-olds a second time post-pandemic was spearheaded by West. As he wrote in his editor’s letter for the Winter 2022 issue of Education Next, “my colleagues unanimously approved a motion I authored to revise the assessment schedule to test 9-year-olds rather than 17-year-olds in January 2022… we are pleased that the Nation’s Report Card will provide the first high-quality, nationally representative evidence on just how much additional work needs to be done to help students catch up.”