Parents may be wondering when they'll see the results of the new online academic assessments students in grades 3 through 8 and 11 took in spring to measure knowledge of California’s English language arts and mathematics.

Originally, schools were told to expect the score reports for these assessments during our summer break. However, state officials now say they plan to release the scores in early September. If everything goes according to plan, parents should expect to see student score reports this fall.

Officials say that because this is the first time results on the new assessments will be released, they want to take extra care and make sure everything is accurate and complete before the official release in September. A date for these reports has not been announced.

“We are taking an abundance of caution to ensure that the substantial amount of data we are receiving is properly collected and placed in new files on a new site,” department spokeswoman Pam Slater said. “Additionally, the department will be launching a new website to display the results and needs sufficient time to test the new site.”

It’s important to remember that the assessment system is new, therefore student score reports will also be new and look differently. The new tests in English language arts and mathematics are too fundamentally different from old exams to make any reliable comparisons between old scores and new. That’s why this year’s scores are better thought of as a starting point—a baseline for the progress we expect students to make over time.

For more information about the assessments, visit the California Department of Education’s CAASPP website.