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Department of Education: EFA students can take state assessments through resident districts; scores tracked separately
Summary
The New Hampshire Department of Education told the EFA oversight committee that EFA students can access statewide assessments through resident districts or dedicated testing sites, and that scores are tracked by SASID so EFA results are aggregated separately and not mixed with resident-school reports.
The committee sought clarity March 27 on how assessment results for Education Freedom Account (EFA) students are gathered, reported and compared.
Nate Green of the New Hampshire Department of Education said any New Hampshire student may take the state assessment regardless of educational pathway. “Those students are able to go to their resident school district and take the state assessment there during the same time period,” Green said, adding that private schools and other organizations sometimes host testing sites for remote students.
On data handling, Green said student records are tied to a SASID so results for EFA students are not commingled with resident-school test reports. “All that data, even though the student might be taking the test… if they’re EFA students, that data is not mixed in with any of the other data for Bow,” he said.
Committee members pressed how comparable different tests are — portfolios, norm-referenced tests such as the California Achievement Test (CAT) or NWEA, and the statewide assessment — and whether the department could provide tools to equate instruments. Green suggested linking approaches (Lexile/Quantile frameworks and vendor linking studies) and said the department’s data platform allows districts to combine local assessment data with state scores for district-level analysis.
The Children’s Scholarship Fund gave the committee counts used for the 2025–26 application: 5,162 ROAs (records of educational attainment), 2,793 portfolio evaluations, 2,359 standardized-test submissions across roughly 17 instruments, and 10 students who used the statewide assessment. Sotherton said updated figures for 2026–27 will be available after July 15.
The committee requested staff and CSF produce a grade‑level and instrument‑level breakdown to aid comparisons across pathways and better inform oversight work.
