Viewing/Editing District Benchmarks

Several of the Star reports use cut scores, benchmarks, and benchmark structures to identify students who are having difficulty.

A cut score is a Percentile Rank (PR) score. Cut scores that are chosen as targets for students to meet or surpass are benchmarks.

District benchmarks are targets that apply to every student in a school district. The district benchmark applies to all schools and grades and is always used for longitudinal reporting.

1. On the Goals & Benchmarks page, select the product you want to view/edit benchmarks for . (The current default benchmark for the selected product will appear below the drop-down list.)
   
2. Select the District tab .
3. On the District tab, you can see the current settings for the district benchmark structure and the district cut scores for the selected product.
   
   

   The benchmark structure is the number of categories, the category names, and the minimum proficiency level chosen. There are 4 default categories, but the number of categories in the structure can be changed; you can have just 2 categories or up to 5 categories.

   For Star Early Literacy Spanish, Star Math Spanish, and Star Reading Spanish, we currently have normed data for grades 1–8. We continue to gather norming data from higher grades, but at this time no Spanish benchmarks are available for grades 9–12.

4. Select Edit Benchmark Structure to edit the district benchmark structure.
   
   1. In the pop-up window, use the drop-down list to choose how many categories you want in the benchmark structure (the default is 4, but you can have 2–5 categories).
      
   2. You can change the names of the categories from their default by typing them in the appropriate fields .
      
      
   3. Select one of the categories as the minimum proficiency level you want students in the district to reach . You cannot use the lowest level as the minimum.
   4. Once you have made your changes, select Save . You can also select Default to restore the original default settings (4 categories: At/Above Benchmark, On Watch, Intervention, and Urgent Intervention, with At/Above Benchmark as the minimum proficienty level), or Cancel to close the pop-up window without saving your changes.
5. Select Edit Cut Scores to change the PR values of the cut score categories.
   
   
6. In the Edit District Cut Scores pop-up window, use the drop-down list under a category to set the cut score value for that category.
   
   
   
   • The PR values must increase from left to right.
   • The numbers you enter are the upper limit for a category; the lower limit is calculated as the top value of the prior category plus 1. For example, if you had four categories and the upper limit of the third one (On Watch) was set to 63 PR, At/Above Benchmark would be set to At/Above 64 PR.
   • You do not have to enter an upper limit for the rightmost category (it is calculated based on the value of the next-highest category).
   Each set of district benchmark categories has default PR values:
   [ open screen-readable version in new window ]
   
7. Once you have set the cut scores, select Save , or select Cancel to close the pop-up window without saving your changes.
   
   

   Changes to benchmark structures or cut scores will not take effect until the next school day.

   If cut scores are changed, all activities (such as past assessments) will be recategorized.