The Maine Department of Education released new data Monday that it said show student test scores have been increasing since 2023 on the state-level Through Year Assessment. “Those scores are taken, and they’re cleansed and verified, and they pull out outliers, high, extra high ones, extra low ones. Then they take a look at the demographic makeup of the state of Maine, and they make a statistical projection, which is called a state score estimate,” Makin said. Makin acknowledges that test scores are just a small indicator of the health of the state’s education system. “It’s really important to remind people that there is a great deal of context when we ask how the kids are doing.