The State Board of Education approved the scores students need in order to reach proficiency on Indiana’s new standardized test at a meeting Thursday.
Officials worked with educators to figure out the achievement, or cut, scores for the state’s new ILEARN test. Director of Assessment Charity Flores says throughout the process the department aimed to include a sample of teachers from different parts of the state and different types of schools.
“We reach out to corporations, superintendents, and administrators to nominate staff that meet that specific criteria,” she says.
The state’s standardized test became computer adaptive for the first time this year, and includes mostly multiple choice questions.
Schools and districts won’t have access to full student scores until mid-August. Parents can go to their local schools and request a rescore for open-ended test items until the end of this month.
But Flores says rescoring isn’t for changing failing grades to passing ones.
“Really what we’re trying to determine is those specific items where we believe a scoring anomaly has taken place,” she says.
The department plans to present official ILEARN scores to the state board in September.