Superintendent Arntzen Submits Field-Testing Flexibility Waiver for the Montana Made Assessment System

• Brian O'Leary
• May 03 2023

HELENA – Today Superintendent Arntzen submitted the Field-Testing Flexibility Waiver for the Montana Assessment System to the US Department of Education (DOE). This waiver request ensures that students, teachers, and district leaders participating in the Montana Alternative Student Testing Pilot Program (MAST) are not overburdened with double testing during the 2023-2024 school year. The MAST pilot program will be expanded to grades 3-8 in Math and Reading. During the current 2022-2023 school year the MAST pilot program was administered to grades 5 and 7 in Math and Reading. Districts not participating in the MAST Pilot Program will still be required to participate in the federally mandated end-of-the-year summative assessment while participating districts will not have this requirement.

“The MAST pilot program is rethinking assessments in an innovative way,” said Superintendent Elsie Arntzen. “Many times I have said that the old federally mandated pencils up model of testing does not reflect true academic growth. Montana is truly leading the nation in creating an assessment system that fosters personalized academic success.”

Public comment on the field testing waiver was open from March 30, 2023 and closed on April 28, 2023. The Office of Public Instruction (OPI) submitted a Public Comment Summary to the DOE with the waiver request. Contained within this Public Comment Summary Report, is evidence that the OPI:

• Provided the public and any interested local educational agency with notice and reasonable opportunity to comment and provide input on the request;
• Summarized the comments and input, with a description of how the OPI addressed the comments and inputs; and
• Provided notice and reasonable time to comment to public and local education agencies in the manner in which the OPI customarily provides similar notice and opportunity to comment to the public.

The public comment was gathered from school administrators, curriculum specialists, parents, system test coordinators, and teachers from around Montana. The summary of public comment showed that:

• 93% of respondents support OPI pursuing the field-testing waiver
  • Of these 68% support the waiver because of the detrimental effects of double testing on students and teachers
• 95% of respondents support the waiver to gather data to establish the validity and reliability of MAST without publicly publishing student test scores
• 97% of respondents support the maintaining of federal school identification for districts participating in MAST

Superintendent Arntzen has requested that the DOE respond to the waiver request within 15 days.

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