Assessment Information - STAR Unified Scale Score Update 2022-23

For the 2021-22 school year Renaissance made the Unified Scale score the default scale score in the Renaissance Learning application.  The old scale score (Star Enterprise Scale score) was still available and continued to be used in the School Data applications for the 2021-22 school year.  Starting the 2022-23 school year, the Enterprise Scale score will no longer be available.  This means beginning with the 2022-23 school year, we will reconfigure the STAR data displays. The Unified Scale Score becomes the parent assessment and the STAR Enterprise Scale score will only be associated to pre 22-23 scores.

In August of last year, Renaissance Learning published cut scores for the Unified Scale Scores aligned to WA State SBA assessments but they were only published for the Spring Benchmark period. It was uncertain at that time whether they would eventually publish them for Fall and Winter as well. As of July 2022 they have stated they will not publish Fall and Winter benchmarks. Per a representative of Renaissance Learning:

The cut score ranges are specific to the time the students take the summative test (which varies by state, district). In other words, we don’t expect a student at the beginning of grade 3 to meet the end of grade 3 Smarter Balanced expectations; we expect them to grow throughout the year... the software adjusts those expectations gradually throughout the year to estimate whether a student is on-track for the various categories. The process for the adjustment is complex and uses growth data from the Student Growth Percentile package; it can’t be summarized in a single table.

Therefore, we have worked with Bethel School District and have created benchmarks using their extrapolated cut scores as the default configuration for the Fall and Winter Benchmark data. It will never exactly align with what is in Renaissance Learning for Fall or Winter, but it will be close. And when combined with all the other data points available in the School Data suite of applications they will give educators the information they need to make informed decisions about their students.  If you have any questions please reach out to us at support@schooldata.net.