PED: Lost standardized test data (for 2020 and 2021), lost learning

The Albuquerque Journal has reported that New Mexico’s Public Education Department won’t be releasing standardized test results from its spring 2020 testing. The stated reason is that 10% of public school students participated in testing last school year.

The test (implemented by Gov. Lujan Grisham’s Administration) is called New Mexico Measures of Student Success and Achievement, or NM-MSSA, is designed to measure English and math proficiency for students in third through eighth grade. It was originally slated to be administered in the spring of 2020 as a replacement to the PARCC exam which had been in place during the Martinez Administration.

Perhaps more troubling (considering that THIS lost data is from late 2020 when the Pandemic was just getting started) is the fact that we won’t have solid data on student performance from 2021 either.

According to Alexis Alvarez, PED’s director of accountability. “Reliable statewide data concerning academic losses or improvements will likely not be available until 2023 due to pandemic related testing issues and the state’s move away from the PARCC test to the NM-MSSA.”

Alvarez said metrics like growth require at least two points of time to be compared, which requires the test to be administered with high levels of participation at least twice – something that won’t happen until 2023 at the earliest.

Plenty of data show serious impacts from lost classroom time, but New Mexico families won’t know the full scope of the damage for some time.