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Smarter Balanced Approved Cut Scores
Jan 1, 0001
This document provides the approved cut scores for the Smarter Balanced Assessments.
States in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium will report scores on the assessments in several ways, which can serve different purposes for their stakeholders. Threshold scale scores for four achievement levels are the basic units of reporting. These scores indicate the minimum performance required for meeting an achievement level expectation. A student who has achieved a threshold scale score is assumed to have the knowledge, skills, and processes included in the lower achievement level(s), i.e., Not Met (Level 1), Nearly Met (Level 2), Met (Level 3), Exceeded (Level 4).
These scores, which fall along a continuous vertical scale (from approximately 2000 to 3000) that increases across grade levels, can be used to illustrate students’ current level of achievement and their growth over time. When aggregated, these scores can also describe school- or complex area-level changes in performance on the tests and can measure gaps in achievement among different groups of students. The Hawaii Common Core Standards for ELA/Literacy and Mathematics set higher expectations for students and the new tests are designed to assess student performance against these higher standards.