With the new year comes the 2026 administration of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as NAEP or The Nation's Report Card.
An estimated 600,000 students across 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Department of Defense Education Agency schools will take the 2026 NAEP assessments, starting on January 26 and ending March 20. It’s a monumental effort, and we thank all the students, educators, and administrators who are about to participate.
Fourth- and eighth-grade students will take the NAEP assessments in math and reading. Results will be reported at the national and state levels and for 20+ urban districts who have volunteered to participate in the Trial Urban District Assessment program.
In addition, eighth graders will take the NAEP U.S. history and civics assessments; those results will be at the national level.
New in 2026
Over the last few years, NAEP has worked with states and districts to prepare for several improvements to the assessments.
For years, we brought devices to schools, which became costly and challenging to maintain. This year, most schools will have the option for NAEP to be administered on their own school devices if they meet the technical specifications or on devices provided by NAEP if they don’t. To prepare for this change, NCES conducted NAEP on multiple device types as well as school-based internet to make sure this year’s transition goes smoothly.
In addition, the 2026 NAEP math and reading assessments will be the first administered using new frameworks, which guide the development of the questions students answer. The updated frameworks ensure that assessment questions align more closely to what students learn in reading and math now.
On the NAEP math assessment, students will encounter more scenario-based tasks and questions that incorporate the five NAEP mathematical practices. These practices include, for example, mathematical modeling and justifying and proving math claims, which will help illuminate how well students apply mathematical understanding when solving problems.
On the NAEP reading assessment, the assessment will specifically measure students’ reading comprehension of social studies and science texts for the first time, as well as literature texts.
Once results are released, NAEP users will be able to look at how students perform in math and reading overall, as well as by math area (e.g., algebra or geometry) and reading area (e.g. social studies or science). And for the 2026 NAEP reading assessment, we also will introduce the use of automated scoring.
To protect NAEP’s integrity and validity, NCES will conduct a study to confirm that changes to scores are due to what students know and can do, rather than to the device they use for the assessment or changes to the framework. These additional analyses take extra time, which means that 2026 NAEP reading and math results are scheduled to be released in early 2027. The release of the NAEP 2026 U.S. history and civics results will follow in the summer of 2027.
Supporting the NAEP Program
NCES recently added six new staff to the NAEP team and will be recruiting for additional roles soon. We're excited to have these experts in technology, assessment content, sampling and weighting, data analysis, and reporting on the team.
The National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for NAEP, recently welcomed new members. They include literacy expert Kymyona Burk, elementary school principal Michael Sidebotham, and former Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant.
As NAEP administration gets underway, we will continue to seek opportunities for progress—to increase the program’s value to NAEP users and to keep modernizing its delivery and operations, a longstanding priority of the program.
Interested in learning more or staying updated on the NAEP program? You can find us online at https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ and nagb.gov. Stay updated via social media with NCES (Linkedin, X, and Facebook) and the Governing Board (Linkedin, X, and Facebook).
Mathew Soldner is the Acting Director of the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and Acting Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. Lesley Muldoon is the Executive Director of the National Assessment Governing Board.
