Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the K12 Assessment Results topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Interim NDDPI official: small post‑pandemic recovery in proficiency; students with disabilities show relative stability
Summary
Interim NDDPI assistant superintendent Stanley Shower Jr. told a legislative committee that state assessment data show modest recovery after pandemic‑era drops and that students with disabilities have experienced smaller year‑to‑year variance than students without disabilities. Lawmakers asked for additional cohort and disaggregated views.
Interim assistant state superintendent Stanley Shower Jr. of the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction presented the committee with the first year of NDAplus operational results and multi‑year views combining NDSA, NDAA and ACT data. He told members the state’s participation rate on summative instruments typically runs about 95 percent and that NDSA test volumes are large enough to show reliable patterns statewide.
Shower said the data show a pandemic‑era decline followed by a modest recovery in many grades and subjects. “We saw an increase of about 2% across the novice and approaching buckets for math with students with disabilities,” he said, and noted math declines for students without disabilities were larger in some grades. He added the department will return to the committee with additional splits on alternate assessments and cohort views if members want them.
Committee members pressed for context about how performance thresholds are set. Shower described standard‑setting as a statewide, educator‑led process in which roughly 120 teachers and content experts review test items and recommend cut scores. “It’s set by educators in North Dakota based on the content standards and our achievement level descriptors,” he said.
Lawmakers focused questions on three recurring themes: whether results vary by grade/cohort (Shower offered to produce cohort comparisons for students with and without disabilities), whether NDAplus and the alternate assessment should be reported separately, and what realistic year‑to‑year goals should be. Vice Chair Senator Axman asked, “what’s our goal?” Shower recommended focusing on shrinking the novice category, saying state working groups have set disparity‑reduction goals that include novice and approaching buckets.
Representatives also highlighted technical points Shower raised: NDSA and ACT were the main assessment sources; there is no 2019–20 data due to canceled testing; and the NDAplus classification may alter year‑to‑year baselines. Several members asked the department to return with more disaggregated slides showing how alternate assessment takers compare to those taking the regular state summative.
The committee voted to request the follow‑up data and to consider the new NDAplus baseline at a subsequent meeting.
