MAST Vision & Overview
In the 2024-2025 school year, MAST is the operational statewide assessment in grades 3-8 in the areas of math and ELA for all general population students. After a year of piloting in 2022-2023, a large-scale field test with over 30,000 students across Montana was completed in 2023-2024. MAST will be operationalized in the first testing window starting October 2024. Score reports will be provided to parents throughout the year and summative scores will be reported and used in the federal accountability system for identifying TSI, ATSI, and CSI for small schools after standard setting in the summer of 2025.
The U.S. Department of Education has responded to a request from Montana's Office of Public Instruction (OPI) for a waiver under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). OPI sought to waive the requirement to identify schools for targeted support and improvement (TSI) and additional targeted support and improvement (ATSI) using 2024-2025 statewide assessment data.
While the Department had previously granted a one-year waiver for the 2023-2024 school year, allowing flexibility in the accountability system for schools participating in the MAST field test, the request to extend these flexibilities was denied. The Department emphasized the need for an accountability system based on the 2024-2025 MAST statewide operational administration data to ensure appropriate support for schools and student groups in need. This data will be critical for identifying schools requiring improvement, especially in the context of ongoing academic recovery efforts.
Federal School Identification Waiver Response
The Through-Year Assessment design benefits students, teachers, parents, and administrators by providing actionable data at the beginning of the school year and by providing a meaningful model of student growth over the academic school year (i.e., with-in year so teachers can act as opposed to between years). Another goal for the design feature is to allow districts to flexibly align testing with local scope and sequence offering coherence with the taught curriculum.