State Assessment
At their September 2015 meeting, the Board of Regents directed Department staff to convene a workgroup to advise on several technical and policy issues surrounding score interpretation and reporting for the Common Core Regents Exams1 . In this advisory role, workgroup members were directed to provide written and verbal feedback to the Commissioner of Education on resources, policies, and implementation strategies surrounding the reporting of Regents Exam results.
After reviewing relevant data from the Regents Examination in Algebra I (Common Core), the Workgroup has recommended that scale maintenance be performed such that the passing standard is realigned with the recommendations of the educator panel that convened in June 2014, when the exam was first administered. The Workgroup recommended the scale maintenance for the June 2016 administration of the Regents Examination in Algebra I (Common Core), and that the resulting adjustment be applied to this and future administrations, only. The Commissioner accepted the recommendations of the Workgroup, and directed Department staff to perform the scale maintenance.
As a result of the maintenance, scores of 55, 65, and 85 will remain the cut scores for Level 2, Level 3, and Level 5, respectively. Because the cut score for Level 4 was not mathematically fixed, the score range associated with this level will change. However, it will not reflect any increased difficulty in achieving this performance level. Conversely, the Department expects additional students to pass the Regents Examination in Algebra I (Common Core) and achieve the higher performance levels. As in the past, the scale scores and corresponding performance levels will be reported on the conversion chart that is released with the scoring materials.
Please contact the Office State Assessment by e-mail at emscassessinfo@nysed.gov or by phone at 518-474-5900 for questions concerning the Regents Examinations.
