The United States Department of Education released a statement on Thursday stating that the assessment will proceed as scheduled for the following year, despite the fact that enormous layoffs have left the department with a skeleton team in charge of administering and assessing the Nation’s Report Card.
“The Department will ensure that NAEP [the National Assessment of Educational Progress] continues to provide invaluable data on learning across the U.S,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in a stated on Thursday. “The 2026 NAEP assessments in reading and math are on track for administration in January 2026.”
The administration of U.S. history and civics to eighth graders will be carried out as scheduled prior to the layoffs that took place in March, according to a letter that was delivered to states on Thursday.
This is in addition to the assessment of reading and mathematics in fourth and eighth grades in January 2026.
Based on the letter, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is now making preparations for the 2025-26 cycle and will conduct the exams between January 26 and March 20, 2026.
At the beginning of the year 2027, the results of the math and reading assessments that were administered to the nation, states, and districts that took part in the Trial Urban District Assessment, which monitors the academic achievement of urban districts, will be made public.
Later in the year 2027, it is anticipated that the national results for civics and United States history would be made public. The information on those evaluations at the district and state level will not be made public.
Notwithstanding the fact that the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) “offers an important measure of student achievement and we are pleased that it will be administered in reading and math in 2026,” Melissa McGrath, chief of staff for the Council of Chief State School Officers, said in a statement.
The department’s update on testing in all subject areas, including optional ones, partially answers concerns that have been brewing for more than a month among education and testing experts.
These experts have been concerned that cuts to the agency would compromise the integrity of the Nation’s Report Card.
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Former employees of the National Center for Education Statistics, which is in charge of the Nation’s Report Card, had expressed concern that the widespread layoffs would lead to a “barebones” evaluation that would provide data of a lesser quality.
The Department of Education has maintained that the majority of the work that NAEP has done has been done under contracts, which it has stated continue to be in place.
