New Mexico Standards Based Assessments

Purposes of the New Mexico Standards Based Assessment

There are three purposes for the New Mexico Standards Based Assessment:

1. As required by the No Child Left Behind legislation of 2001, the New Mexico Standards Based Assessment (SBA) is utilized to determine the level at which New Mexico students achieve the New Mexico Content Standards, Benchmarks, and Performance Standards at the school and district level. Each subtest is designed to measure the state content standards as delineated in the Assessment Frameworks.
2. To measure the progress of students over time. In the past, measures of student progress were restricted to comparing one year’s class with another year’s class. With the development of vertical scales for reading, writing, mathematics, and science for grades 3-8, the progress of each student and group of students can be examined each year in the tested content areas. 
3. The grade 11 SBA will be used to determine levels of passing required for graduation for the first time in spring 2011. Students will have the opportunity to retake the assessment 2 additional times during their senior year.

Structure of the NM Standards Based Assessments

The SBA is paper-and-pencil assessment that is aligned to the New Mexico Content Standards, Benchmarks, and Performance Standards. The assessment consists of multiple sections for each content area. Per the following table, all areas except Writing have three sessions and Writing has two sessions. Test items are multiple choice (MC) and constructed response (CR). For CR items, students write out their responses as opposed to filling in a bubble next to an answer choice for MC items. The ratio of CR/MC items is 80 percent MC and 20 percent CR, but because of the greater number of potential points for CR items, the point ratio for any given content area’s test is approximately 45 percent of points from CR items and 55 percent of points from MC items. Please note: the 2011 SBA change to an 80/20 configuration is due to a cost savings measure.

For the Reading, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies assessments, CR items may require either short-answer responses (SA) or open-ended responses (OE). Students can earn up to two points for SA responses and up to three or four points for OE responses. CR items are scored according to previously established rubrics. Although there are generic rubric templates for the SA and OE items, please be aware that for actual scoring, the rubrics are customized for each specific item. The generic rubrics can be found in the Assessment and Evaluation web page. The item-specific rubrics cannot be published because to do so would compromise item security.

For the Writing assessment, about half of the total points possible are earned based on the student’s actual writing in response to prompts, but points are also available for planning and editing. Planning points are given for evidence of planning prior to writing the final draft of the response to the writing prompt(s). Editing items require a student to examine a passage that has possible errors underlined and make corrections as appropriate. The rubrics used to score responses to the writing prompts within the Writing assessment are generic and thus can be shared. The writing rubrics, the point distribution scheme, and other details about the Writing assessment can be found in the “Writing Corner” in the lower left column of the Assessment and Evaluation webpage at the following link: http://www.ped.state.nm.us/AssessmentAccountability/AssessmentEvaluation/SBA/index.html There are also some multiple-choice items in the SBA Writing Assessment.