When New York state released the first results of the exams under the Common Core State Standards, many wrongly believed that the results showed dramatic declines in student achievement. A closer look at the results showed that student achievement may have increased. Another lesson from the exams is that states need to closely coordinate new data…

Many students who attend school in California also take paper or computerized-adaptive tests developed in cooperation with the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA). These tests report student performance on a single, cross-grade scale, which NWEA calls the RIT scale. This scale was developed using Rasch scaling methodologies. RIT-based tests…