Harper: Here's How New ISAT Test Scores Will Work

Guest column from Dr. John Harper, superintendent of Plainfield School District 202:

Our elementary and middle school students are once again engaged in the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT).

The ISAT (and its high school counterpart, the Prairie State Achievement Exam) is important because it gauges the progress of our third- through eighth-graders in meeting the state’s learning expectations. It is also important because the state then shares that progress publicly so parents and taxpayers know how their schools are doing.

The “public” part of the ISAT process is sometimes challenging because the test itself is very complicated and hard to understand for many people who do not work in public education.

With that in mind I want to use this month’s column to announce a major change in the ISAT that will affect how the results of this spring’s tests will look next fall, and to reassure our families that District 202’s students will continue to do well on the state test.

This year, the state has raised the “cut scores” for the ISAT. A “cut score” is the minimum score needed to “meet” state learning expectations. So, as a hypothetical example, the “cut score” for 3rd-grade math last year might have been “80.” This year that “cut score” may now be “85.”

The state is doing this as part of the transition to the new Common Core State Standards for learning, which will be implemented in District 202 starting next fall. The Common Core standards are more rigorous than the current state learning standards.

Therefore, raising the ISAT “cut scores” now will be helpful because the higher score will better reflect the level of rigor that students will see on the new Common Core assessment that will be given in spring 2015.

That also means that students’ scores on this spring’s ISAT across Illinois will likely be lower than what we have seen before from our students and schools. In fact, we expect our students’ scores on this year’s ISAT could be 15-30 percentage points lower than last year’s scores, based on some early data we’ve seen from the state.

That being said, we need to stress that this “drop” in ISAT scores does not mean District 202 students know less than before, or that our teachers and schools are “failing” in any way.  Rather, these lower scores reflect a major change in the assessment system.

District 202 will continue to teach and help our students meet the rising learning expectations, and we fully expect scores will rise again once the new assessment system is in place.

We will do our best to help our community and the media understand this important change so that we can continue to focus on what’s really important: preparing our learners for the future.