The Missouri State Board of Education discusses a proposed change to the state's standardized test during its meeting Tuesday (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).
Missouri education officials are piloting a new model for the state’s decades-old standardized test, shifting the Missouri Assessment Program from a single end-of-year exam to a through-year assessment with multiple checkpoints.
The change is designed to give a clearer picture of student growth during the school year and deliver results within 24 to 48 hours, a sharp break from the current system, which releases scores months later.
State officials say the new model could help address one of the most persistent complaints about the Missouri Assessment Program: By the time teachers see the results, the students who took it have often already moved on.
That concern is taking on added urgency as Missouri lawmakers weigh new measures to hold schools accountable.
“We are using a flawed test… to put greater emphasis on something because we want accountability,” state Sen. Mike Henderson, a Desloge Republican and former educator, said Tuesday during a Senate Education Committee hearing.
The committee was debating a House bill that would create “A” through “F” grade cards for public schools, following an executive order from Gov. Mike Kehoe that directs the state’s education department to draw up such a plan.
The bill proposes a scoring system where 75% of points come from standardized test scores, raising questions about whether the Missouri Assessment Program, in its current form, can accurately measure school effectiveness.
“If the intention of the bill is to make us a better educational system… I do not think it can do that with the MAP,” Henderson said. “If we get to a benchmarking test, I see where this would bring us along and actually bring some real progress.”
Addressing the problem
Complaints about the Missouri Assessment Program are nuanced, with education groups at odds about how to best use the data. But there is wider consensus that the way the test is administered could use improvement, specifically when it comes to timing.
Educators describe the MAP as an autopsy because it gives a measure of student performance based on one point in time and after the students have advanced to the next grade. Henderson repeated this comparison Tuesday.
“When you get the results,” he said, “Those kids have already moved on to the next grade, so they are not even there.”
Sami Moore, a fifth grade teacher at Highland Park Elementary in Lee’s Summit, told The Independent that MAP results come too late to be actionable. When scores hit her desk, the students have already moved to middle school.
So when her school’s principal asked Moore if she would try out a new standardized testing model, she signed up for the small-scale pilot that concluded last week. Around 200 students participated across 14 English language arts classrooms and seven math classes.
Moore had 21 students volunteer to take the math assessment during their study hall time. A variety of students signed up, she said, and some were even excited to pioneer the new test.
“Hands down, all of them agreed that this is so much better (than the MAP) and less stressful,” she told The Independent. “They felt more capable.”
A new model
For two years, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has been working through federal programs to transform its standardized test to meet the call for quick, actionable results.
The proposal, dubbed the “Success Ready Student Assessment,” is intended to address this need while keeping MAP’s “content and rigor,” department officials told the State Board of Education during its regular meeting on Tuesday.
“This is still assessing the same thing,” said Education Commissioner Karla Eslinger. “It is just a different way to assess it.”
The Success Ready Students Assessment will maintain the Missouri Learning Standards, which set grade-level expectations to prepare students for college or a career by graduation, and fulfill state and federal requirements for statewide, summative tests.
A $1 million federal grant kickstarted the creation of the new assessment, funding the department’s planning process as it applied for a federal waiver to conduct the pilot. Officials received that authorization at the end of July.
While the MAP is administered as a single, summative assessment, the new testing model breaks the content into modules and combines results into a summative report at the end of the year.
April Georgetti, the department’s Missouri Assessment Program manager, said during the state board meeting that teachers will have flexibility to choose when to administer the modules based on students’ needs.
“Whereas the existing system is a static, fixed form,” she said. “This (change) means teachers have the opportunity to assess when students are ready to demonstrate mastery.”
Moore received students’ scores within a day of the test, allowing her to address students’ struggles before moving on to the next unit.
“I can truly impact the kids that I have now with their data, just knowing how to tweak my instruction for the next class,” she said.
The department plans to expand the pilot to 3,000 fourth-grade students and 3,000 students in grade five next year. By the 2028-29 school year, all Missouri students grades 3-8 will be switched over to the new model.
“To some of us, this does feel very quick,” said Lisa Sireno, the education department’s assistant commissioner for quality schools. “To others, it might be, ‘Oh my gosh, look how long it will be before we get to the finish line.’”
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX