Many educators depend on Star Reading and Star Math assessments to get the valid and reliable data they need for screening, progress monitoring, informing classroom instruction and practice, measuring growth, and forecasting future performance. Whatever your purpose for using Star Assessments, Renaissance continues to evaluate, update, and innovate to ensure educators have the most relevant data in which to inform their instructional decisions.
We are excited to announce that multiple linking studies have been updated for the new school year.
What are linking studies and why are they helpful?
Linking studies connect state summative test scores to interim test scores (Star Reading and Star Math) for the same grade level. The statistical linking helps educators predict whether students are on track to meet grade level expectations well in advance to the end-of-year state assessment, giving educators more time to make meaningful adjustments to instruction and positively impact student outcomes.
Educators in the following states will see the updated cut scores under Goals & Benchmarks and on the Star State Performance reports, as shown below, at the start of their school year. We’ve also included the linking study report that provides details about the research, main findings, and results. Linking study reports for all states can be found on the Star Assessments page on our website (scroll down to the State Linking Studies section).
- Florida FAST report
- Massachusetts MCAS report
- New Jersey NJSLA report
- New York NY Math and ELA Tests report
- Nebraska NSCAS report
- New Hampshire NH SAS report
- Texas STAAR English report
- Texas STAAR Spanish report
- Vermont VTCAP report
For educators in Alabama and Missouri, we also used new data to update the accuracy checks for Alabama ACAP and Missouri MAP, but the underlying linking &cut scores remain unchanged.
For states that introduced new state assessments in Spring 2024, or in some instances where we didn’t obtain sufficient data to complete the linking study, we will continue to work on updates and provide more information as it becomes available.
For more information about using linking studies to predict performance on state tests, check out this brief video.