Advances and Missed Opportunities in the Development of the 2026 NAEP Reading Framework

Abstract

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Reading aims to measure reading comprehension for students in the United States and to monitor progress in our education system. NAEP Reading is developed based on an assessment framework document that is periodically revised to reflect the latest understandings about reading comprehension and its assessment. A key goal of the Visioning Panel (VP) and the Development Panel (DP) charged with updating the NAEP Reading assessment framework for 2026 was to lay the foundation for an assessment that made progress toward greater fairness, equity, and validity. In this essay, we discuss how the framework development process unfolded and its results. We document the unusual ways the National Assessment Governing Board (“the Board”) shaped the development process. We provide evidence that a small group of dissenting Board members aimed to preserve the status quo in reading assessment by downplaying reliance on expertise and authoritative sources of research on reading, learning, and assessment and by removing attention to equity in NAEP Reading. We also discuss both successful (i.e., approved by the Board) and unsuccessful (i.e., rejected by the Board) recommendations for changes to the 2026 Framework that initially were proposed by the DP. We end by considering how, despite the efforts of the small group of dissenting Board members, we as a literacy field can improve the nature and impact of our large-scale reading assessments, and NAEP in particular.

Reimagining LRA in the Spirit of a Transcendent Approach to Literacy

“…Using anti-Black racism to deflect attention from the seeds of authoritarianism, state, and local governments have taken actions in support of White supremacy: banning books (selectively, but not exclusively, books written by and about Black people's achievements, chattel enslavement, and anti-Black racism in the US); censoring educators (criminalizing the teaching of an inclusive US history); requiring university courses and teacher training in a single approach to reading; and politically leveraging anti-Black racism (to control how literacy is defined, measured, and promoted). For example, at the federal level, the sanctioned highjacking of the 2026 NAEP reading framework (Forzani et al, 2022), and at the state level, multiple laws enacted in Florida (Florida Department of Education, 2022) are designed to preempt racial equity and control what students read and learn. These actions do not value Black people.…”

Implications of the Science of Learning and Development for the Field of Literacy

“…The recent revision of the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2026 Reading Framework illustrates such ongoing ideological challenges (Forzani et al, 2022). Forzani et al (2022), who served on an expert panel commissioned to develop the Revised NAEP 2026 Reading Framework, reflected on a politicized process in which those with policy-wielding power intentionally diminished the contributions of culture, context, and emotional resources in defining what it means to read.…”

“…The recent revision of the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2026 Reading Framework illustrates such ongoing ideological challenges (Forzani et al, 2022). Forzani et al (2022), who served on an expert panel commissioned to develop the Revised NAEP 2026 Reading Framework, reflected on a politicized process in which those with policy-wielding power intentionally diminished the contributions of culture, context, and emotional resources in defining what it means to read. With a partial view of reading guiding the assessment design, there are concerns about how this national assessment could accurately capture and explain the achievement of a geographically dispersed and racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse population of U.S. students.…”