New Mexico Public Education Department officials say it is impossible to measure potential learning loss during the pandemic since so few students participated in state testing last year.
According to AP News, NMPED's numbers show that only 10% of elementary and middle school students took part in standardized testing last spring.
"I'm SHOCKED that the state isn't sharing this information. They don't want you to know how much losing a year of in-person schooling damaged your kid," the Rio Grande Foundation wrote in a Sept. 28 tweet.
The state will not be able to assess increases or decreases in academic performance until 2023, since that will be the first year since 2018 it will have consecutive years to compare. And that means the legislature will have to decide in February how to allocate $3 billion for the annual education budget with little of the data that usually drives where funding goes.
"Without tests, it'll be hard to say whether New Mexico students are learning and to what degree," Susan M. Bryan, AP Correspondent in Albuquerque, tweeted.