Board accepts educator committee'recommended RISE ELA proficiency cuts for grades 3

A panel of educators convened by the Utah State Board of Education recommended new proficiency cut scores for the RISE English language arts assessments and the board approved those recommendations on Sept. 11.

Background and process: The state adopted new ELA standards in April 2023. The assessment blueprints were updated to align to the new standards; staff and item developers removed items no longer aligned and created new items. The RISE ELA tests also added a single "cluster" passage per student to better gauge progression through a standard. A standard-setting convening in August brought together teacher panels who reviewed performance level descriptors and actual items ordered by empirical difficulty. Panelists used the descriptors and item difficulty to propose cut points separating proficiency levels.

Board action: The board approved the committee'recommended proficiency cuts (the vote carried 13-4, with two recorded no votes during the sequence) and directed staff to include growth calculations and appropriate explanatory notes on the public data portal. Staff emphasized that the 2025 administration reflects testing on a new blueprint and new standards; direct comparisons of percent proficient from 2023/2024 to 2025 require contextual explanation because some standards (for example, language and speaking/listening measures) were moved or removed, and items and blueprints differ.

What it means: Under the new recommendations, empirical percentages of students meeting grades 3 proficiency change; in some grades the percent meeting the new proficiency cuts is lower than prior years'figures, reflecting the new standards and cut decisions rather than an immediate fall in literacy skill. Staff noted the committee used performance-level descriptors and technical analysis to set the scores and that the board asked staff to add explanatory notes to public reporting to prevent misinterpretation.

Why it matters: The proficiency cut scores determine which students are characterized as meeting grade-level expectations and inform accountability calculations and resource targeting. Because the blueprint changed, staff will mark the change in reporting and compute growth where feasible.

Next steps: Staff will include the new cut scores in public reporting for the 2025 administration, show how the new cut scores affect reported proficiency versus prior years, and compute student growth measures in the dashboard.