Illinois students are struggling to meet proficiency standards on state assessments. Instead of working to improve student learning, the state is lowering standards to hide the crisis.
By Hannah Schmid | Illinois Policy Institute
Most Illinois students are struggling to read or do math at grade level on their end of year state assessments. The State Board of Education’s solution? Lower the standards.
The board of education approved a plan to lower the scores needed to be considered proficient in reading and math on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness. It also determined the scores needed to be considered proficient in reading and math for 11th graders as the state moves from the SAT to ACT as the state-required assessment for high school students.
The most recent state data available shows only 41% of students in third through eighth grade could read at grade level in 2024 and just 31% in 11th grade. In math, 28% of third through eighth graders were proficient and 26% of 11th graders
New proficiency rates will be implemented on the 2025 Illinois Report card released in October, leaving Illinoisans unable to compare scores to previous years’ proficiency rates.
Lowering proficiency benchmarks will inflate the percentage of students meeting proficiency standards this year and moving forward, but it will do little to improve students’ actual performance in core subjects. Instead of addressing low proficiency, the board is minimizing the problem by changing the definition of a student struggling.
New scoring allegedly aligns proficiency benchmarks to rest of nation
The state board approved the lowering of “cut scores,” or proficiency benchmarks, on state assessments because it claims Illinois has been “misidentifying students as being ‘not proficient’… due to misaligned cut scores established several years ago.”
Cut scores are the state test results placing students into one of four performance levels:
- Below proficient
- Approaching proficient
- Proficient
- Above proficient
According to the board, the new cut scores mean 53% of students will be considered proficient in reading and 38% would be proficient in math on the spring 2025 state assessment data, which will be officially released October 2025. That marks an increase of 12 percentage points in reading proficiency and 10 percentage points in math proficiency.
Read more here.
Related: “Editorial: Illinois moves the goalposts (again) on reading, math and science”