A bill that would add a fifth category to the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) is waiting to be signed by Governor Mike Kehoe.
If signed into law, the new scoring system would add “grade level” as a level of overall mastery when scoring MAP tests. The bill would also require evaluators to provide each student’s grade-level equivalence, as determined at the time of the assessment, alongside their overall mastery score.
Matt Michelson, director of education policy at the Missouri State Teachers Association, says the change should clarify confusion from parents and guardians about their child’s academic standing.
“It’s just providing additional information to parents, stakeholders (and) teachers when they’re trying to evaluate where students are at when they take those end-of-course, end-of-year assessments,” Michelson said. “Adding in something that says that they are ‘grade level’ gives a better clarity, perhaps, to where the student is at in relation to the standards that are established throughout the state.”
While the bill is slated to change how standardized tests are scored, Michelson said he does not expect the bill to significantly affect school funding.
Sonja Winter, assistant professor of education at the University of Missouri, says that in her work, the first big challenge for researchers is determining what the term “grade level” means for each subject.
“The most important question that they’re going to have to answer is, ‘At what point does a child switch from one category to the next?” Winter says. “To me, adding an additional level of nuance and clarifying the definitions will help parents, schools and researchers in the long run.”
Winter said it’s likely the new system would require reassessment after its first year.
“It will be important in the long term to reassess and evaluate whether the new thresholds for moving from one level to the other are actually applied appropriately, perhaps by connecting the standardized scores to other metrics of student success,” Winter says.
In 2024, Missouri students’ test scores kept up with national averages. Missouri’s percentage of fourth and eighth grade students achieving basic mastery in math and reading were either the same or within one percent of the national average in each subject, according to Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
While Missouri remains on par with the national average, test scores in Missouri and nationwide have largely decreased since 2022, when standardized test scores around the country dropped dramatically post-pandemic. In 2022, national math scores saw the first drop in the history of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the primary nationwide standardized test.
Fourth grade math was the only category that rose nationally and in Missouri between 2022 and 2024 while other tests scores continued to decrease by one or two percentage points.
Missouri’s Commissioner of Education Karla Eslinger said in a January release that bouncing back from the pandemic will be a long journey for students and educators alike.
“Accelerating learning post-pandemic takes time, and we are proud of our Missouri students and educators for their continued focus on that important work,” Eslinger said. “We must use this information, alongside state and local metrics, to continue our statewide efforts to support improved instructional practices and student achievement in both reading and math.”
MAP measured these scores using the current non-grade-level grading scale and do not reflect grade-level proficiency as proposed in the bill.
The bill would make grade level data available to the public through the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
