House Education Committee reviews Alaska statewide assessments, costs and participation rates

Juneau — At a March 20, 2025 meeting of the Alaska House Education Committee, Kelly Manning, Deputy Director for the Division of Innovation and Education Excellence at the Department of Education and Early Development (DEED), presented an overview of the state’s seven statewide assessments and related costs, participation rates and district supports.

Manning told the committee the state administers seven main assessments: the Alaska System of Academic Readiness (AK STAR) for English language arts in grades 3–9; the Alaska Science Assessment in grades 5, 8 and 10; the Dynamic Learning Maps alternate assessment; WIDA ACCESS and alternate ACCESS for identified English language learners; the Alaska Developmental Profile for kindergarten entrants; and the MCLASS DIBELS-eighth edition literacy screener required under the Alaska Reads Act. “Our mission of an excellent education for every student every day is partly monitored and addressed through our Alaska statewide assessments,” Manning said.

Why it matters: statewide assessments are used for federal and state accountability, to guide instruction and to measure progress against Alaska standards. Manning said DEED is emphasizing assessment literacy so districts, teachers and families can use results to adjust instruction rather than treat testing as “one and done.”

Key facts and figures

- Total annual state cost: Manning reported combined annual costs for state-required assessments at $6,821,000. She broke that down as: AK STAR and MAP Growth (annual contract that includes fall and winter MAP Growth and the spring AK STAR summative) $3,563,000; Alaska Science Assessment $1,945,000; Dynamic Learning Maps $320,000; ACCESS for ELLs $392,000; and MCLASS DIBELS-8 $600,000. Manning said NAEP costs are fully federally funded and therefore do not add to the state total.

- AK STAR and MAP Growth: Manning described the AK STAR as an integrated system that combines MAP Growth interim metrics (fall, winter) with a spring summative to provide projected proficiency and growth measures for grades 3–9. She said the integrated approach reduces duplicated spring testing windows and provides teachers both growth metrics and a summative proficiency projection to guide instruction.

- Waivers and alternate screeners: A small number of districts have chosen alternatives or waivers for the statewide screener. Manning said Mat Su School District had requested a waiver to use a different literacy screener and would pay for that alternative; two districts have adopted native language screeners; and the Lower Kuskokwim and one Yup’ik charter school are using local options. When a district requests an alternate screener, DEED reviews alignment to the Alaska Reads Act requirements before approving a waiver.

- Participation rates and delivery models: Manning reported participation differences between brick-and-mortar and correspondence (homeschool/remote) programs. For AK STAR (2022–24 data she presented) participation rates hovered around 79–81% overall for ELA and math, with non-correspondence (brick-and-mortar) rates near the low- to mid-90s percent and correspondence schools ranging roughly in the mid-to-high-teens percent. For the Alaska Science Assessment (administered in grades 5, 8 and 10) participation was lower overall and more variable. DEED uses rostered students during the testing window to calculate participation for AK STAR and Alaska Science; some other metrics use total enrollment.

- English learner assessments and developmental profile: Manning noted that Alaska has a high rate of students identified as English language learners in many communities, in part because assessment of indigenous language learners often identifies students as ELL. She said DEED would follow up with comparative proficiency rates versus other states. Participation for the Alaska Developmental Profile (kindergarten) was higher: DEED reported ~88% overall participation, 95% for brick-and-mortar and 56% for correspondence schools in the year shown.

District supports and professional development

Manning described DEED-provided supports for districts: test coordinator training (in-person and webinars), weekly testing communications during windows, vendor help lines, district technology coordination meetings, toolkits and interpretive guides for families and educators, and data-literacy professional learning. She said DEED negotiated vendor-provided assessment-literacy resources with NWEA (the MAP Growth vendor) and established a certified-facilitator program that trained in-district staff; about 35 districts had participated in the certified facilitator program at one point and roughly a dozen districts a year request district-specific professional development sessions.

Federal assessments and data custody

On the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Manning said NAEP is administered and staffed by the federal contractors, with a statewide NAEP coordinator to coordinate logistics with districts. Karen Meline, DEED Assessment and Standards Administrator, added that NAEP science is optional and a primary reason Alaska has not regularly taken the NAEP science assessment is that it is not federally required and the department has been mindful of overall assessment burden and alignment with Alaska standards: “The primary reason… is it’s not a required assessment,” Meline said.

Follow-up requests

Committee members asked DEED for additional detail on: the federal grant amount that offsets assessment costs; district budget coding (where locally purchased screeners would be budgeted); how many states participate in NAEP science; the causes of lower participation in some assessments; and what DEED can do to improve participation and parent access to full student reports. Manning said she would provide follow-up materials and data.

Ending

Committee co-chairs and members thanked DEED staff for the briefing and asked DEED to return requested follow-up information. No formal committee action was taken during the presentation.