It's Official: National Test Is Postponed Due to COVID-19 Concerns

The head of the U.S. Department of Education's statistical wing has officially postponed the 2021 administration of the Nation's Report Card due to surging COVID-19 rates across the country, meaning it could be until the following year before it administers its next reading and math exams and releases the results.

The delay means that the nation will lose what might have been the only opportunity to gather comparable state-by-state information on the extent of learning loss in those two subjects, after months of school closures and other disruptions.

Officially known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the test, given to representative samples of students in all 50 states, was scheduled to begin in early 2021. The venerable exam has gone forward, rain or shine, since the 1970s. But as it has with so many other aspects of schooling, the pandemic has wreaked havoc on the NAEP testing schedule.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2020/11/national_test_naep_postponed_coronavirus.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news1-rm&M=59783457&U=2050105&UUID=42d8eaa0e1fd83d2d422f1841ef2e9b9