Assessment Overview

The assessment portion of the National Indian Education Study (NIES) presents the performance results of American Indian/Alaska Native students at grades 4 and 8 on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading and mathematics.

Approximately 325,000 students participated in the 2005 NAEP reading assessment nationwide, and 334,000 participated in the 2005 mathematics assessment. Of those, approximately 7,200 American Indian/Alaska Native students participated in reading, and 7,300 participated in mathematics. View NIES participation rates, including the numbers of students identified, excluded, and assessed.

In addition to the national sample, the NIES focused on states with relatively high proportions of American Indian and Alaska Native students. The seven states whose results are discussed are Alaska, Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. In each of these selected states, about 5 percent of the student population is American Indian or Alaska Native; about 50 percent of the nation's American Indian and Alaska Native students reside in these states.

Results for American Indian/Alaska Native students are also presented for five regions of the country. These regions are Atlantic, North Central, South Central, Mountain, and Pacific. View the regions on a map.

The national and regional results include American Indian and Alaska Native students in all schools (public, private, Department of Defense, and Bureau of Indian Affairs [BIA]) while the state results are based on samples of American Indian and Alaska Native students in public and BIA schools only; however, the percentage of American Indian and Alaska Native students who are enrolled in schools other than public and BIA schools nationally is very small (between 1 and 2 percent, unweighted).

Results are divided into four sections: national, regional, selected states, and student groups. In all of the sections except for state results, the comparisons are generally between the performance results of American Indian/Alaska Native students and the performance results of students who are neither American Indian nor Alaska Native.

Where state results are presented, the comparisons are between the performance results of American Indian/Alaska Native students within each selected state and those of American Indian/Alaska Native students in each of the other selected states, and the national sample of American Indian/Alaska Native students. Readers are cautioned to consider that each of the selected states represents a different educational context, and that comparisons across states should be tempered by considerations of different school types, demographic factors, and socioeconomic factors. Read more about assessment procedures in Inside the Assessment. Explore the results of the assessment.

Part II, the survey portion of the report, presents findings on the educational experiences of American Indian/Alaska Native students, based on responses to a combination of student, teacher, and school questionnaires. The 2005 questionnaires used in the Part II survey are not linked to the NAEP student performance results. Such relationships will be examined in future studies scheduled for 2007.

To read all of the study results reported in Part I, download a copy of the full report: National Indian Education Study (NIES), Part I: Performance of American Indian and Alaska Native Fourth- and Eighth-Grade Students on the 2005 NAEP Reading and Mathematics Assessments.

* Indian Nations At Risk Task Force. (1991). Indian Nations at Risk: An Educational Strategy for Action. Final Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED339587).