International Benchmarks for Kentucky Scoring

If Kentucky 2011 students had taken the international TIMSS and PIRLS assessments, the American Institutes of Research estimates that:

• 46% of Kentucky fourth graders would have reached the high benchmark in mathematics (in a system that gives scores of low, intermediate, high, and advanced)

• 60% of Kentucky fourth graders would have reached the high benchmark in reading

• 27% of Kentucky eighth graders would have reached the high benchmark in mathematics

AIR used a "chain linking" method to develop those estimates, reported in a new report on International Benchmarking: State and National Education Performance Standards.

The report also shares analysis of how Kentucky defined proficient work on the old KCCT assessment and the new K-PREP tests.  On the old test, Kentucky's proficient lined up with TIMSS and PIRLS scores of at the intermediate level.  In our new system, launched in 2012, AIR concludes that Kentucky proficient lines up with the high score level on the international assessments.  That's an excellent step up for helping us understand how our students' learning compares to success rates around the globe!

--Posted by Susan Perkins Weston