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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

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ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2/15/07

3/13/07 HB

SHORT TITLE Student Test Scores to School Districts

SB 1004/aHEC

ANALYST Wilson

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

None

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

ESTIMATED ADDITIONAL OPERATING BUDGET IMPACT (dollars in thousands)

FY07

FY08

FY09 3 Year

Total Cost

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

Total

$140.7 $140.7

$423.0 Recurring General

Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Department of Finance and Administration (DFA)

Public Education Department (PED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of HEC Amendment

The House Education Committee amendment changes the language from tests, performance tests

and academic performance tests to assessments.

The amendment states that the requirement to test student achievement for the academic

assessment program for adequate yearly progress shall be done for grades three through eight

instead of the currently proposed ninth grade.

The amendment further changes the requirements to test student achievement for the academic

assessment program for adequate yearly progress based on national standard-based assessments

Senate Bill 1004/aHEC– Page

2

instead of locally based criteria.

Synopsis of Original Bill

Senate Bill 1004 will mandate the PED to provide to school districts their respective students’

scores on all required standards-based academic performance tests no later than August 5, of

each year.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The PED claims they will experience a fiscal impact of $75.0 annually for a vendor to provide

yearly modifications and maintenance of data and software programs. Further, the PED cannot

fulfill the requirements in the bill with existing staff. To fulfill requirements, the PED will

require a Database Administrator at a cost of $22.74 X 2088 hours X 30% benefits or $61.7.

Also needed is a computer @ $1,500, furniture @ $1,500 and supplies @ $1,000. The total

staffing cost will be $65,700. The total overall cost is estimated at $140.7 per year.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

Information about student, school and district performance on New Mexico standards and

benchmarks is highly valued by teachers, school administrators and parents in monitoring

academic growth and diagnosing problem areas. Many New Mexico teachers and school

administrators have said it is not possible to increase academic proficiency without

understanding performance on standards and benchmarks.

The lack of technology resources in many districts and the timing and volume of data changes

processed during the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) calculation and rating review have

impeded district access to student test score data before school starts.

Test publishers for the New Mexico Standards-Based Assessment and the New Mexico Alternate

Performance Assessment provide districts with printed reports on student, school and district

performance on the standards and benchmarks, but reports are not available until September,

well after the start of school. Test companies also provide test score data to school districts in

September, after PED finishes processing data changes for final AYP ratings.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires the state to provide districts with an

opportunity to review student demographic and program data before final AYP results are

published. PED received requests for 6,000 data changes after preliminary AYP results were

released on August 1, 2006. These changes were not requested in a spring data review, and the

processing of this high volume was not completed until mid-September 2006. This delayed the

release of reports on student performance until late October 2006.

PED has implemented and is planning new processes to assist the districts in cleaning data

earlier in the data collection process. The success of those changes will be evaluated during the

2007 AYP data collection and reporting cycle. The state, districts and testing companies share

responsibility for data quality, and their combined efforts will quicken the availability of data

and reports.

Though test companies provide data files to the school districts, most districts do not have the

Senate Bill 1004/aHEC– Page

3

resources to analyze the data. Test score files are large and complex, exceeding capacity limits of

common spreadsheet and database software. Only a few large districts have specialized statistical

or database software and skilled programming staff to produce reports on standards and

benchmarks.

The Office of Educational Accountability at the DFA is supporting 30 school districts with a

software application that reports results in MS Excel pivot tables. This well-received project is

supported by grant funding. Current resources for the program are not sufficient to serve all

districts across the state. At least one district has hired a contractor to analyze data and produce

test score reports. There are no small rural districts known to use contract services to analyze

student test data. Resources will need to be pooled at the regional or statewide level to provide

contract analysis and reporting to small rural districts.

Many districts have asked PED to provide analysis and reports. A team of assessment staff,

representatives from the school districts and PED content experts are designing reports on

standards and benchmarks for implementation in STARS.

Some individuals have requested performance information at the test item level. This level of

reporting violates test security by disclosing content and scoring information about every item.

This practice is strongly discouraged by test developers and administrators.

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS

PED provided the following:

If PED is to produce or reproduce reports for test vendor data, PED will need in-depth

technical staff to develop and validate the reports.

As currently set up, changes can be requested to AYP who report on August 1, which will

impact the student-level data and require extensive validation by the Database

Administrator.

Data formats change yearly. Resources will be needed to modify and maintain

programming. Costs will be incurred for analysis, program modifications, testing and

verifications.

PED will need to conduct a review of the business rules that are applied to insure

integrity and confidentiality of the information.

DW/mt