DPI assessment director: state tests show modest ELA gains, math slower to recover

Stanley Schauer Jr., assessment director for the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction, told the Appropriations — Education & Environment Division on Feb. 11 that 45% of students met state expectations in English language arts in 2023–24 while 40% met expectations in math.

Schauer said the North Dakota State Assessment (NDSA) produces a vertical scale score and places students into performance levels: advanced, proficient, partially proficient and novice. He explained the committee’s typical 'met' percentage combines advanced and proficient students and noted that the pandemic year produced a sizeable drop in scores: "we lost 5 percentage points" in ELA and "in math, we took a 7% hit," he said, adding that the state has seen a modest recovery since.

Why it matters: the numbers frame budget and policy choices for K–12 services and recovery programs. Committee members probed whether program investments such as Amira or Science of Reading can be tied to recent gains. Representative Richter asked if DPI could break out ELA results for schools using Amira and other programs to test effectiveness; Schauer said DPI can do student-level comparisons if provided student SSIDs but warned retrospective analysis is difficult without consistent identifiers and pre-defined measures of success.

Schauer presented a cohort view tracing students who began third grade in 2017–18 through 2023–24. He said reading has been relatively stable for that cohort, while math “slides” as students advance, with 10th-grade math the lowest-performing grade and subject. He described common explanations discussed previously—changes in middle-school structure, increasing content complexity and attendance patterns—that can produce an "iceberg" effect of cumulative gaps.

Schauer also highlighted Choice Ready, a portfolio-based measure of graduate readiness, which the presentation showed rising from about 21% in 2017–18 to roughly 71% in 2023–24. He cautioned Choice Ready is a body of evidence, not a single test: "The assessment is not the conclusion itself," he said.

Committee members and Schauer discussed evaluation design. Schauer recommended setting a theory of action and specific, up-front success markers (for example, target score improvements or minimum usage hours for a tool) so DPI or researchers can reliably measure whether an intervention worked. He also noted past ESSER-era investments were deployed rapidly and often without the student-level identifiers or pre-planned evaluation frameworks that make later analysis straightforward.

What’s next: Schauer said he will share the slides and follow up with additional data, and committee staff agreed to provide the presentation materials to members.