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Reading – Scaled Score Unified Goal

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How do I get to this page?

  1. Log in to Renaissance.
  2. On the Home page, select Star Reading or Star Early Literacy; in the drop-down menu, select Manage Goals & Benchmarks.
  3. On the Goals & Benchmarks page, select Set a Goal.
    The Set a Goal button.

Who can do this with default user permissions?

  • District Level Administrators: can work with goals for all students in the district
  • School Level Administrators: can work with goals for all students in their own school
  • Teachers: can work with goals for their own students

Goals are set at the individual student level. When you set a Scaled Score goal for Reading, you set a target Scaled Score that you want the student(s) to reach and a time frame for them to achieve that goal.

These instructions are for setting a Scaled Score goal on the Unified Scale (for more information about the scale, see Star Unified Scale). This goal may combine Star Reading and Star Early Literacy test data. If you are a customer in Mississippi and would prefer to set a goal on the Enterprise scale, see Star Reading Scaled Score Goal, Enterprise Scale and Star Early Literacy Scaled Score Goal, Enterprise Scale.

Scaled Score (SS), Percentile Rank (PR), and Student Growth Percentile (SGP)

Scaled Scores (SS) are calculated based on the difficulty of questions in a student's test and the number of correct responses. They can be used to compare student performance over time and across grade levels. This goal is for the Unified Scale, where Star Reading and Star Early Literacy Scaled Scores range from 0–1400.

Percentile Ranks (PR) is a norm-referenced score that indicates the percentage of other students nationally who obtained scores equal to or lower than the score of a particular student. Percentile Rank scores range from 1–99.

Student Growth Percentile (SGP) compares a student's growth to that of his or her academic peers nationwide. Lower numbers indicate lower relative growth, and higher numbers indicate higher relative growth. SGP scores range from 1–99.

For more information, see Unified Benchmarks and Cut Scores, and What is Student Growth Percentile?

  1. On the Set a Goal page, use the School , Class , and Students drop-down lists to choose which students to set the goal for.
    The School, Class, and Students drop-down lists.
    • You can only choose a single school or class at a time; if you only have access to a single school or class, you will not need to make a selection.
    • For students, you can use the Select All / Clear All link at the bottom of the drop-down list to check or uncheck all the students at once.
  2. In the "Type of goal" section , use the drop-down lists and select Reading for the goal category and Scaled Score Unified for the goal type.
    The Set a Goal page: Reading is the selected goal category, and Scaled Score Unified is the selected goal type.

    Once you have selected a Scaled Score goal type, you will see a Goal-Setting Wizard on the right side of the page. This wizard will provide you with guidance on the duration and name of your intervention goal and how to get more information about students' assessment results and research. Use the buttons in the wizard to step through the information, and watch it for tips as you complete the goal-setting steps.
    The goal-setting wizard is shown, indicating that the first of several steps can be performed. Yes and No buttons are at the bottom; an X to close the wizard is in the upper-right corner.

  3. After you make those selections, the "Set goal options" section of the page will open. Select the Goal start and end dates drop-down list and choose the marking period during which the students should be working towards this goal (the dates for the marking periods are also shown next to their names).
    The user has chosen to select custom start and end dates for the goal. A pop-up calendar is open, allowing the user to choose the dates. The dates can also be entered in the fields above the calendar. The Apply and Cancel buttons are in the upper-right corner of the pop-up window.

    If you choose a marking period, the goal time period will be tied to that marking period; if changes are made to the marking period, the goal time period will change with it.

    You can also select Custom... and then set a custom date range instead of using a marking period. Enter start and end dates in the fields by using the calendars to select a range of dates; then select Apply to use the dates you have chosen (or Cancel to close this pop-up without saving your selection).
  4. Enter a name for the goal or intervention .
  5. Select the student activities that apply towards achieving the goal .
    In this example, Reading is the goal category, and Scaled Score Unified is the goal type. The user must select which tests will apply towards this goal: Star Reading Progress Monitoring, Star Early Literacy Enterprise, and/or Star Reading Enterprise. Levels for goal calculation follow; the Apply button is at the bottom.
  6. Initially, you will set a single goal level for all the selected students (but you will be able to change individual student goals later if you wish). Select one of the levels presented here: Moderate (50 SGP), Moderately Ambitious (65 SGP), or Ambitious (75 SGP) . Based on your selection, the program will suggest Scaled Score goals for the students.
  7. Once you have set the goal options, select Apply .
  8. At the bottom of the page, you will see a table with all the selected students—each student's Scaled Score (from their most recent test) is shown, along with a calculated goal (based on the level you chose and the date you want the student to reach the goal by —students who have not taken a test yet will still have a calculated goal, but it will be based on a Scaled Score that a student in that grade would typically have at the start of a school year instead of an actual Scaled Score).

    The Scaled Score goal levels (calculated based on the goal levels you selected earlier) are already entered in the Goal fields —you can keep these values or change them if you wish. For guidance in choosing a Scaled Score, see Unified Benchmarks and Cut Scores for Star Reading and Star Early Literacy.
    The Goal fields with the calculated Scaled Scores. The Save Goals button is on the left.

    If the selected goal level is below the Scaled Score from the student's latest test, a Below latest test message will appear in the Goal column, indicating that a higher goal needs to be set for that student.

    Students who already have a Scaled Score Unified goal set for a time period that overlaps this one will appear in bold in this table, with an asterisk following their names, and a separate table below will list the overlapping goals for those students.

    You can still set new goals for these students, or, if you prefer, you can go back and edit or delete the existing goals on the Goals & Benchmarks page. If you don't want to set new goals for these students or change the existing ones, choose Change Selection at the top of the page and deselect the students who have overlapping goals.

    To the right of the Goal field for each student, you will see a graph icon for students who have taken a Star Reading or Star Early Literacy test. Select the icon to see a graph that shows you the students' tests, where each goal level (moderate, moderately ambitious, and ambitious) would take the student over time, the student's trend line, and the benchmark categories. (For students who have not taken a test, the graph is not available, so the icon is gray.)
    A graph showing the goal options for one student who has taken two tests. A dot is placed for each test score; a trend line is calculated based on those scores. Additional lines indicate where the student's future performance would have to be to match Moderate, Moderately Ambitious, and Ambitious levels of growth. Shaded areas also indicate what benchmark category the test scores are in; in this case, the first test is At Benchmark, and the second is Above Benchmark.

  9. Once you have set Scaled Score goals for all the students, select Save Goals (or select Cancel to leave this page without saving these goals).
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