Illinois Right-Sizes Assessment Performance Levels to Give Families and Educators More Accurate Data on Student Success

Following an 18-month rigorous design and engagement process, ISBE adopts new research-informed proficiency benchmarks

SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) today adopted new, research-informed, and right-sized assessment performance levels to give students, families, and educators better data on academic achievement and college readiness. Prior performance levels mislabeled many students in elementary and high school, often indicating that students were less academically successful and prepared for college than they actually were. The new, unified levels correct long-standing misalignment between Illinois’ state assessments and other real college and career readiness expectations.

ISBE embarked upon an unprecedented and transparent engagement process over the course of 18 months to establish new proficiency benchmarks, based on real placement and success data from Illinois colleges and universities. Over the past 18 months, ISBE:

Presented at 12+ education conferences and regional convenings.
Hosted a statewide listening tour with nine in-person stops, touching every region of the state and attended by hundreds of educators and education leaders.
Sought the feedback of student leaders, postsecondary voices, and community members.
Engaged 100+ educators and content specialists to create performance level descriptors (rubrics that describe the range of performance via the standards within each performance level).
Recruited 147 teachers to evaluate the difficulty of test items to recommend cut scores for each performance level.
Analyzed college and university course placement data and student probabilities of passing college coursework.
Ensured the entire process was guided by the Technical Advisory Committee and monitored and validated by experts from Center for Assessment.
Provided regular updates to the field, the ISBE Board, and on the ISBE website.

"Illinois’ students are nationally recognized for their academic achievements, but our proficiency rates have not reflected that reality,” said State Superintendent of Education Dr. Tony Sanders. “For years, Illinois’ proficiency benchmarks have mislabeled students, causing qualified students to miss out on opportunities for acceleration and telling a whole generation of students who were ready for college that they were not. Illinois’ new performance levels bring much-needed alignment between grade levels, subjects, and actual college and career readiness expectations. I want to thank the hundreds of educators, parents, and Illinois community members who informed and supported this process over the past 18 months.”

"These common-sense adjustments will align state testing benchmarks with college expectations and will particularly benefit rural students, low-income students, and students of color whose true capabilities and academic successes have not been reflected in our state’s proficiency rates or in their own test results," said Representative Mary Beth Canty (D-Arlington Heights). "I believe better data leads to better outcomes for all students. The Accelerated Placement Act can only achieve its goal of expanding access to advanced coursework and college preparation for all qualified students if we are using accurate measures of student achievement."

"Illinois’ education system continues to lead the nation, with countless examples of our students thriving and our state serving as an education destination," said Representative Will Davis (D-East Hazel Crest). "I support this effort to ensure proficiency rates give a more accurate picture of student achievement. This was an open, rigorous, and thoughtful process that will benefit students, families, and school communities across Illinois."

"As a state, we have taken bold strides to increase access to college through initiatives like universal FAFSA completion and direct admissions," said Representative Laura Faver Dias (D-Grayslake). "This is another important step to remove barriers to college and career for our students. State assessment data should be meaningful to policymakers, parents, and educators—it should inform, not hold students back or discourage them from pursuing opportunities to the fullest extent of their abilities. I am confident in our ability to continue measuring progress and growth across our whole education system."

"Illinois school leaders have been advocating for assessment standards that truly reflect what they see in their classrooms every day—students who are thriving academically and prepared for college and career," said Dr. Brent Clark, executive director of the Illinois Association of School Administrators. "ISBE’s efforts to right-size performance levels to align more closely with national standards is an important step toward providing a clearer, more accurate picture of student performance for educators, families, and the public."

"For too long, Illinois’ assessment proficiency benchmarks have been misaligned with what our state needs to appropriately judge the academic performance of our kids," said Dr. Jason Leahy, executive director of Illinois Principals Association. "The work done by educators from across Illinois has resulted in proficiency benchmarks that retain rigor while offering a more accurate picture of how young people are doing in the classroom. This effort will ensure resources and supports go to students and schools that need them, bringing about better educational outcomes for both."

"The Illinois Federation of Teachers applauds Superintendent Dr. Tony Sanders’ and the ISBE’s effort to make cut scores more rational and, in effect, more useful to teachers, students, and parents," said Dan Montgomery, president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers. "There’s more work to be done—we’d like to see reduced standardized testing and fully resourced schools, for instance—but today’s announcement about cut scores is a sensible and practical start."

"The Illinois Association of School Boards recognizes the importance of assessment data, and supports efforts that modify Illinois and federal student assessment processes to enhance student achievement and facilitate test score comparability within and across state lines," said Kimberly Small, executive director of the Illinois Association of School Boards. "IASB hopes to continue the conversations related to alignment with national standards and champions the importance of nationally comparable assessment/accountability data. As we move forward, it will be important to ensure that comparable data continues to be collected and reported at the state and national level. This will ensure our school board members hold themselves and their district accountable for the growth and achievement of all students. IASB appreciates ISBE’s responsiveness to stakeholder feedback, intention of 'right-sizing' cut scores, and the transparent process used to gather input on this decision."

The Problem
Illinois’ previous performance levels did not match classroom realities. Illinois' proficiency benchmarks in English language arts (ELA) and math were more difficult to meet than those in almost any other state in the nation, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which is the only standardized exam administered nationwide. The chart below shows the estimated score on NAEP that a fourth grade student would need to score to be considered "proficient" in math on their local state assessment, in Illinois’ case, on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR).

(Note: Performance levels are the score ranges that divide the full spectrum of performance on the state assessment into categories. Each state decides how many levels there are, the cut scores that divide each level, and which levels qualify as “proficient.” The proficiency benchmark is the score a student needs to reach on a state assessment to be considered on track in their learning for their grade level.)

While Illinois students perform above the national average in eighth grade reading and math on the NAEP and are attaining record achievement in Advanced Placement (ranking in the top five states in multiple Advanced Placement success metrics, including overall participation and performance), and while Illinois is recognized as having the third best educational system in the country by CNBC, Illinois’ proficiency rates have not reflected the actual success students are demonstrating in the classroom.

Illinois school leaders, teachers, and parents made the state aware that for years, students who were excelling in school by earning strong grades, meeting expectations on local assessments, passing college-level courses, and getting accepted into college, were being told that they were “not proficient” on the state’s ELA and math assessments. These benchmarks were set well above widely accepted college readiness standards, including the College Board's own benchmarks for the SAT. While two-thirds of Illinois graduates from the Class of 2022 enrolled in college within 12 months of graduation, Illinois’ high school assessment in 2024 considered fewer than half that number proficient in ELA and even less in math, illustrating a disconnect between actual student achievement and the state’s misaligned proficiency benchmarks.

Meanwhile, the state’s science test displayed the opposite problem. Far greater numbers of students appeared “proficient” on the Illinois Science Assessment (ISA) but did not seem to have mastered grade level expectations in the classroom.

Each state test also had a different number of performance levels and called the levels by different names.

These mismatches caused confusion for students and their families and made assessment data less reliable and meaningful for educators, school leaders, and policymakers.

New, Unified Performance Levels and Right-Sized Proficiency Benchmarks
Illinois’ rigorous learning standards and the assessments themselves remain entirely unchanged. The new performance levels only change the score needed to be considered “proficient” on each state assessment to align to college and career readiness expectations.

The process to develop the new performance levels was led by educators and validated by external experts. ISBE’s North Star throughout the effort was to align the performance levels and proficiency benchmarks to real college and career expectations: the ACT scores necessary for students to get into college, pass college coursework, and succeed in the workforce.

Additionally, for the first time, all three state assessments now have the same performance levels, providing families and educators with a clearer and more consistent picture of student learning: Above Proficient, Proficient, Approaching Proficient, and Below Proficient.

The new performance levels and proficiency benchmarks now correspond to actual postsecondary expectations and align vertically and horizontally: from grade to grade and across subjects, giving families, educators, and policymakers a more reliable and useful indication of students’ readiness for college and career.

Previous and New Proficiency Benchmarks by Subject and Grade

(*Note: Illinois’ high school assessment changed from SAT to ACT, starting with spring 2025 testing, so there are no prior ACT benchmarks to compare.)

The new benchmarks will result in recalibrated proficiency rates for 2025, setting a new, more accurate baseline for proficiency data. Proficiency rates from 2025 and forward will not be comparable to prior years’ proficiency rates. However, importantly, families, educators, and policymakers will retain the ability to track longitudinal progress and recovery from the pandemic using the Student Growth Percentile, which uses raw scale scores, not proficiency rates, to allow for year-over-year comparisons of student learning at the individual student, school/district, and state levels. Parents and families can also continue to track students' progress from year to year by comparing their raw scale scores, which are not affected by the changes to the performance levels or proficiency benchmarks.

School districts will preview the impact of the new performance levels on their local spring 2025 testing data within the next few weeks. Parents/guardians of tested students will see their students’ performance levels on the Individual Score Reports they receive from their schools. The public will view the new, more accurate, baseline proficiency data, reflective of the new performance levels, on the 2025 Illinois Report Card on Oct. 30.

Schools’ accountability designations for 2025 will utilize the recalibrated proficiency rates, as one of multiple measures of school performance. ISBE will continue its work over the coming year to redesign the accountability system to better support continuous school improvement in all schools, with the new accountability system set to launch on the 2026 Illinois Report Card.

For more information, visit ISBE's Better Systems for Better Outcomes webpage.

###

For more information:

Jackie Matthews

Phone: 312-590-4327

Email: press@isbe.net

The Illinois State Board of Education is the State Education Agency for Illinois. Our mission is to provide each and every child with safe and healthy learning conditions, great educators, and equitable opportunities by practicing data-informed stewardship of resources and policy development, all done in partnership with educators, families, and stakeholders.

Click here to change your Subscription Preferences. Click here to unsubscribe.