North Dakota's Department of Public Instruction should improve its tracking of students' academic progress by gathering data from frequent tests given by most local schools, a candidate for state school superintendent says.

At present, the agency uses one annual student test to measure the progress of North Dakota's schools under a federal education law called No Child Left Behind, said Max Laird, a Grand Forks teacher who is opposing incumbent Wayne Sanstead's re-election bid.

The "state assessment" test is given in October and November. Its results are not fully known until May, when the students who took them are ready to advance a grade, Laird said.

Most North Dakota schools give their students separate, computerized tests regularly during the school year and use the results almost immediately to analyze where each student needs to improve, Laird said. They are called Measures of Academic Progress tests, or MAP, and are given to students as often as three times during each school year.

He believes those tests, rather than the single test, should be used to track North Dakota schools' progress under No Child Left Behind.

"We must initially find a way to abandon the present assessment system required by the Department of Public Instruction. It does not work," Laird said. "We must argue for a model that allows students, parents and teachers to react to the growth of each student during a given school year."

Sanstead said he did not believe Laird's proposal would comply with the federal law. The regular student tests and the annual state assessment serve different purposes, Sanstead said.

The state assessment is intended to measure the achievement of schools and districts, rather than individual students, Sanstead said.

"We can't abandon it in the first place. It's required in state and federal law," Sanstead said.

Local schools pay for the regular student testing, and the state Commission on Education Improvement is considering a recommendation to the Legislature to provide state support for the tests, Sanstead said.

Sanstead is a member of the commission, which was appointed by Gov. John Hoeven in January 2006 to draft a plan to overhaul North Dakota's system of providing state aid to local schools. Its focus has now turned to drafting recommendations on other education issues.

"They have not recommended any change to the state assessment system," Sanstead said. "I think there's an understanding that the current system is valid and reliable … and it meets all the requirements that are in place now."

Laird said a number of states use the method he advocates to measure school progress. "I believe our state has not aggressively pursued this issue," he said.

Congress is considering changes to No Child Left Behind, and Laird said he believes the law should be overhauled or replaced.

"Over the last eight years this law has both frustrated and confused those in education, those members of the public, and those policymakers in North Dakota who have to address the issues related to it," Laird said. "It must either be changed substantially, or we must construct something else in its place."