Puerto Rico Still Awaits NAEP Math Results

National test administered in Spanish for students taught in that language.

Three years after students in Puerto Rico took their first crack at a specially designed version of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, their scores have yet to be made public, a delay that has frustrated some members of NAEP’s policy-setting board.

The test being given in the U.S. commonwealth also breaks new ground for NAEP. It is the first version of “the nation’s report card” written entirely in Spanish for students taught primarily in that language, which will allow those scores to be compared against students there and in the 50 states. But crafting the test in another language has brought a host of challenges.

NAEP was first given in Puerto Rico in 2003, then again in 2005. When officials at the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers the test, conducted an internal review of the 2003 results, they found that students had answered questions correctly only 25 percent of the time, on average, according to information released by federal officials in March. Students also skipped large numbers of items: As many as 80 percent of test-takers left some questions blank. Many of those problems...