Friday, August 2, 2024
Dear District Administrators,
Big Picture
Forward Exam results are available to you and your teams through the DRC INSIGHT Portal. I want to draw your attention to a couple changes which are detailed below. First, the cut score benchmarks were changed this year. That’s an additional change on top of the renamed benchmarks we announced earlier this year. Second, the results include an individual reading score. We’ve prepared resources for you and your teams to communicate these changes to your staff and the communities you serve on our Forward Exam Data and Results.
Details
Electronic Individual Student Reports (ISRs) and summary reports for administration of the 2023-24 Forward Exam are now available in the secure vendor DRC INSIGHT Portal. Paper ISRs will be mailed to districts in late August. Schools and districts should share ISRs with families and can use the vendor reports for planning purposes. Assessment results will be available later this summer in the secure DPI WISEdash for Districts portal, and publicly available in the WISEdash Public Portal in early fall. WISEdash provides comprehensive, quality assured, and official reporting used for report cards, school and district improvement planning, and public information.
As you know, recent revisions to Wisconsin’s English language arts and mathematics academic standards meant an update was needed to the Forward Exam design to align to those academic standards. These revisions went into effect during the 2023-24 administration of the standardized assessment. Also, for the first time, the Forward Exam includes a distinct reading assessment, and a corresponding student score. This is a measurable step in support of extensive efforts to improve Wisconsin students’ educational outcomes and reading comprehension.
Every time there are revisions to academic standards (and therefore assessment designs), a corresponding performance standard-setting process is required to update cut scores. In June, a group of Wisconsin educators engaged in that process and recommended updated cut scores, in alignment with the updated academic standards and new ELA and mathematics Forward assessments. These updated cut scores separate students into four performance levels (Developing, Approaching, Meeting, and Advanced). These performance levels use language that encourages and motivates student learning, providing a snapshot of students’ progress in learning grade level skills and content.
One important result of these improvements is that current Forward assessment results in ELA and mathematics are not comparable to previous year results. This is similar to what happened when assessment or standards changes were made in 2012-13 with the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exams, 2014-15 with the Badger Exam, and in 2015-16 with the Forward Exam (as well as in 2018-19 and 2021-22 in science and social studies, respectively, to reflect updated standards in those disciplines).
We have developed a few resources to help communicate these changes and make them understandable. Several resources are available on the Forward Exam Data and Results webpage. These resources may be helpful for your planning and can assist in answering questions you may receive regarding recent updates to the Forward Exam English language arts and mathematics test designs, as well as the standard setting conducted in June.
For more information, please contact Phil Olsen, Assistant Director, Office of Educational Accountability at DPIOSAmail@dpi.wi.gov.
Sincerely,