PED bumps up testing timeline

Results expected months sooner after LFC feedback

The New Mexico Public Education Department announced Thursday that it has bumped up its assessment results timeline, based on feedback from the Legislative Finance Committee during a meeting in mid-May.

Now, results for the SAT, which is the standardized test for juniors, are expected in early June instead of the original timeline of August, according to a memo from the PED.

End-of-year Measures of Student Success & Achievement (MSSA) results, which measure third through eighth graders’ achievement in reading and math, are expected in late August or early September, the memo stated.

PED spokeswoman Judy Robinson said the contractor that processes assessment results, Cognia Inc., originally estimated those results would come sometime in November.

“(They) began with what worked for them, and we told them that doesn’t work for us,” she said.

The PED will stick to its timeline for a process known as “standard setting,” which will involve gathering over 100 New Mexico educators to help set new baselines for assessments, according to the department. That’s set to happen over a week in July.

Cognia’s turnaround time, Robinson said, is being accelerated, which is how the new timeline for results is being pushed up.

The MSSA assessments are relatively new, and the PED has said the delays are only expected for this year. Next spring, the department said, schools can expect to get reports back around 10 days after testing windows close in mid to late May.

Testing was waived in 2020, according to the PED, because of the pandemic. That came after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham nixed the state’s previous testing system in favor of the current MSSA tests, which were set to be rolled out that spring.

In 2021, the state allowed the tests to be voluntary, but Education Secretary Kurt Steinhaus promised to get assessments in place by the end of fiscal year 2022 last fall, officials said during the meeting.