(Santa Fe)-The State Department of Education (SDE) announced today that it has notified districts that the Standards-Based (criterion-referenced) Assessment (SBA) in grades 4 and 8 can be administered within either the original testing window of March 3-21, 2003, or during a later testing window of March 31-April 18, 2003. The extension is due to concerns by some districts that the March 3-21 testing window is too short to accomplish all of the required testing.

The SBA testing materials must be received by CTB/McGraw-Hill by April 28, 2003, in order for the results to be processed in a timely manner.

"It is important to return assessment data to the contractor in time for all the information to be entered before the start of the next school year," said Dr. Carolyn Henderson, the SDE's director of assessment and evaluation. "It is an important part of our commitment to an instructional system that is documented and accountable to the public trust."

The New Mexico Achievement Assessment Program (NMAAP) includes the TerraNova, The Second Edition, Complete Battery (CAT), the SUPERA (Spanish) and the newly developed SBA in grades 4 and 8. School districts still must give the TerraNova, The Second Edition and SUPERA within the original testing window to ensure that all scoring and reporting tasks are completed and school ratings are assigned by the beginning of the 2003-2004 school year.