With the U.S. Department of Education’s cancellation of the National Assessment of Educational Progress for 17-year-olds, education researchers are losing one resource for evaluating post-high school readiness — though some say the test was already a missed opportunity since it hadn’t been administered since 2012.
The department cited funding issues in its cancellation of the exam, which had been scheduled to take place this March through May.
Since the 1970s, NAEP has monitored student performance in reading and math for students ages 9, 13 and 17. These assessments — long heralded as The Nation’s Report Card — measure students’ educational progress over long periods to identify and monitor trends in academic performance.
The cancellation of the NAEP Long-Term Trend assessment for 17-year-olds came just days before the Trump administration abruptly placed Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics and as such, the public voice of NAEP, on paid leave.
Carr has worked for the Education Department and NCES for over 30 years through both Republican and Democratic administrations. President Joe Biden appointed her NCES commissioner in 2021, with a term to end in 2027.
The decision to drop the 2025 NAEP for 17-year-olds also follows another abrupt decision by the Education Department and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to cut about $881 million in multi-year education research contracts earlier this month. The Education Department had previously said NAEP would be excluded from those cuts.
Compounding gaps in data
“The cancellation of the Long-Term Trend assessment of 17-year-olds is not unprecedented,” said Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications for the Education Department, in an email.
The assessment was supposed to be administered during the 2019-20 academic year, but COVID-19 canceled those plans.
Some experts questioned the value of another assessment for 17-year-olds since the last one was so long ago.
While longitudinal studies are an important tool for tracking inequity and potential disparities in students, the NAEP Long-Term Trend Age 17 assessment wasn’t able to do so because data hadn’t been collected as planned for more than a decade, according to Leigh McCallen, deputy executive director of research and evaluation at New York University Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools.
“There weren’t any [recent] data points before this 2024 point, so in some ways it had already lost some of its value, because it hadn’t been administered,” McCallen said.
McCallen added that she is more concerned about maintaining the two-year NAEP assessments for 9- and 13-year-olds, because their consistency over the years provides a random-sample temperature check.
According to the Education Department’s Biedermann, these other longitudinal assessments are continuing as normal.
Cheri Fancsali, executive director at the Research Alliance for New York City Schools, said data from this year’s 17-year-olds would have provided a look at how students are rebounding from the pandemic. Now is a critical time to get the latest update on that level of information, she said.
Fancsali pointed out that the assessment is a vital tool for evaluating the effectiveness of educational policies and that dismantling these practices is a disservice to students and the public. She said she is concerned about the impact on vulnerable students, particularly those from low-income backgrounds and underresourced communities.
“Without an assessment like NAEP, inequities become effectively invisible in our education system and, therefore, impossible to address,” Fancsali said.
While tests like the ACT or SAT are other indicators of post-high-school readiness at the national level, Fancsali said they offer a “skewed perspective,” because not every student takes them.
“The NAEP is the only standard assessment across states and districts, so it gives the ability to compare over time in a way that you can’t with any other assessment at the local level,” Fancsali said.
Fancsali emphasized the importance for parents, educators and policymakers to advocate for the need for an assessment like NAEP for both accountability and transparency.
LIkewise, McCallen said that despite the lack of continuity in the assessment for 17-year-olds, its cancellation offers cause for concern.
“It represents the seriousness of what’s going on,” McCallen said. “When you cancel these contracts, you really do lose a whole set of information and potential knowledge about students throughout this particular point of time.”