Superintendent Arntzen Establishes Scoring Guidelines for MAST Reading Assessment

• Brian O'Leary
• September 04 2024

HELENA – Superintendent Arntzen gathered representatives from higher education institutions, rural school districts, and reservation communities for a Montana Aligned to Standards Through-Year (MAST) Range Finding event on English Language Arts (ELA), or reading, assessments in Bozeman from August 13-15, 2024. During the event, the reading performance task samples from the 2023-2024 MAST pilot program were analyzed to establish scoring guidelines for the 2024-2025 state-wide MAST implementation.

“MAST focuses on educational excellence by directly connecting testing to the learning of the skill,” said Superintendent Elsie Arntzen. “The pioneer spirit of our great state is reflected in the innovative MAST program. We are all Montana proud of the partnership with our students, parents, teachers, and administrators that reimagined the outdated end-of-the-year ten-hour test.”

“Not only did we have rich discussions about student writing with colleagues from across the state, but our comments and suggestions were also heard, documented, and will strengthen the assessment,” said Dr. Dana Haring, a middle school English Language Arts teacher from Kalispell who attended the event. “It was powerful to provide input that will directly impact the assessment and our students' performance. Being involved and learning about the transparency of the process gave me confidence that this assessment is designed to enhance student learning and inform instruction."

The MAST ELA assessments will be delivered in three testing windows throughout the school year. The performance task will be delivered during the second testing window from January 13 to February 21, 2025. The Range Finding event focused on ensuring that state writing content standards are taught and assessed in meaningful ways that provide actionable feedback to support teaching and learning across Montana.