IAR scores sent home next week will have revised state standards
In March, all students in third through eighth grades took the state-required Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR). During the week of October 27-31, your student’s IAR scores will be sent home with a letter explaining the results. We would like to draw your attention to a change in how the scores are being reported by the state. The test did not change, but the way that the state categorizes the scores has changed.
The new IAR scores will be divided into four benchmarks: below proficient, approaching proficient, proficient, and above proficient. This change eliminates one previous category and re-names the performance levels, so they better align with the ACT and the Illinois Science Assessment.
According to the Illinois State Board of Education, prior IAR performance levels mislabeled many students in elementary and high school, indicating that students were less academically successful and prepared for college than they actually were.
Read more about the 18-month process that went into this change: https://www.isbe.net/Lists/News/NewsDisplay.aspx?ID=1555
More information on the new benchmarks is also available in this report: https://www.isbe.net/Documents/Right-Sizing-Benchmarks-for-Families.pdf
Although proficiency labels will not align with previous years, families can still track their student's growth by comparing their score or their growth percentile; those measures are not affected by the new performance levels.
More information about how to read and use the results is included in the letter that will be sent home with the results. As a reminder, these scores reflect one moment in your student’s learning. The scores should always be viewed in context with other testing and classwork scores.