The Arkansas State Board of Education approved cut scores for the state’s new assessment exam on Oct. 10, 2024. This photo shows board member Randy Henderson and Education Secretary Jacob Oliva at a board meeting in March 2023. (Photo by Antoinette Grajeda/Arkansas Advocate)
The State Board of Education approved recommended cut scores Thursday for Arkansas’ new statewide assessment, which was administered to students for the first time this spring.
Cut scores are selected points on a scale that are used to assign categories, such as proficient or below proficient, that identity how well someone performed on a test.
Arkansas Department of Education officials expect to use the newly approved performance levels to measure how students performed on the first year of the Arkansas Teaching and Learning Assessment System (ATLAS) exam and publicly release results by Nov. 1.
About 200 educators from more than half of the state’s public and charter school districts participated in a standard-setting process led by national experts this summer, according to ADE officials.
The board on Thursday approved the following cut scores and four recommended performance levels for the end-of-year assessments for grades 3 through high school as well as end-of-course exams for subjects like algebra, geometry and biology:
Level 4: Students demonstrate an advanced understanding
Level 3: Students demonstrate a proficient understanding
Level 2: Students demonstrate a basic understanding
Level 1: Students demonstrate a limited understanding
Based on the newly-approved cut scores, about a third of Arkansas students are performing at proficient or advanced levels in each of the three measured areas — English Language Arts, math and science.
During a call with reporters Wednesday, Education Secretary Jacob Oliva said ATLAS, which includes tests for kindergarten through 2nd grade students, literacy and math screeners for grades K-3, content-specific tests for grades 3-10, and Algebra 1, Geometry and Biology end-of-course exams, marks the first time Arkansas has had a comprehensive student progress monitoring system.
“It’s unified and coordinated and we’ll be able to help support schools and monitor student performance very easily,” Oliva said.
ADE last year developed the new statewide assessment system to replace the ACT Aspire, which was discontinued. State lawmakers in 2023 approved a $71.4 million contract with Cambium Assessment, a company based in Washington, D.C., to develop the replacement assessment.
Arkansas education department shares updates on new assessment exam
Unlike the ACT Aspire, which was an off-the-shelf product, education officials crafted an Arkansas-specific exam by pulling items from Cambium’s question bank and creating new questions to meet state standards, including revised math and English standards that were approved last year.
More than 3,700 educators were involved in the development of the system, including around 500 who reviewed and approved test items, according to an ADE press release.
“There’s not an item on the assessment that an Arkansas teacher has not approved,” ADE Deputy Commissioner Stacy Smith said Thursday. “That’s huge. This is our test, our items, our standards.”
Teachers will have access to questions similar to what students will see on the ATLAS exam that they can pull throughout the year to create their own snapshot of student progress and prepare kids for assessments, Oliva said.
“This one-stop-shop for student performance and support for teachers is really setting our state above other states because we’re being upfront,” he said. “We’re saying this is what we want students to know and learn, and this is how we’re going to measure them, and here’s a bunch of tools that you can use at your disposal to support your students with the teaching and implementation of those standards.”
Oliva said test scores from the 2023-2024 academic year will provide a baseline, and ATLAS scores won’t be comparable to previous assessments. However, year-over-year comparisons will become available over time as students continue taking the test, he said.
For national comparisons, Oliva said Arkansas questions that are similar to those in other states will eventually be able to be compared. He also noted Arkansas will continue participating in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called “The Nation’s Report Card,” that is administered to a sample of students in each state every two years.
After ATLAS student performance data is released this fall, Oliva said officials will turn their attention to figuring out how to apply that information to the state’s accountability system, which currently ranks school performance on an A-F scale. That work will likely occur in January, he said.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.