Marblehead seniors to take new NAEP assessment test

MARBLEHEAD-Ninety-five Marblehead High seniors will be taking a test on Thursday n but this time Principal John Ziergiebel is calling that news “immensely important and very exciting.”?We have never given this test before,” Ziergiebel said.The test is called the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test and it is also known as “the nation?s report card.”Administered to U.S. fourth, eighth and twelfth graders for the past 35 years, the test is designed to be a constant, allowing education researchers to track progress n or a lack of progress n over time.The MHS test-takers, 40 percent of the senior class, were chosen by the U.S. Department of Education as a representative mix of local students. They include mainstream and special education students, and those who receive free and discounted lunches.While the tests are given nationally in reading, mathematics, writing, science, the arts, civics, economics, geography and U.S. history, Marblehead High will be testing students in reading, mathematics and science.Marblehead isn?t the only NAEP first this year. Ziergiebel noted that the NAEP?s 2009 results will be reported in 11 individual states, including Massachusetts. The public reporting is a first too. In the past, results have been reported only as a national statistic.?This is a very important development because it provides a measure of the success or failure of individual state reforms in education,” Ziergiebel said. “This should be quite interesting.”There is an international assessment, the Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS), which creates some powerful expectations for Massachusetts school personnel. According to the TIMSS, which reports state results individually, if Massachusetts were a country it would have the sixth highest eighth grade math scores in the world.?Massachusetts can take considerable pride in the progress we have made since the Education Reform Act of 1993,” Ziergiebel summed up. “Marblehead High has a great opportunity to demonstrate that success on Feb. 26.”