Cut Scores, Benchmarks, and Benchmark Structures

Several of the Star Early Literacy reports use cut scores, benchmarks, and benchmark structures to identify students who are having difficulty.

• A cut score is simply a Percentile Rank (PR) score. Grade-by-grade distributions of Star Early Literacy scores from the Calibration and Validation studies are used as the basis for the Percentile Rank score reported in Star Early Literacy.
• Cut scores that are chosen as targets for students to meet or surpass are benchmarks.
  
  
  • School benchmarks are targets that apply to every student in a school (each grade has its own benchmarks).
  • District benchmarks are targets that apply to every student in a school district.
  Each type of benchmark can have different values; for example, school benchmarks may be set higher than district benchmarks. One of these benchmarks can be chosen as a default benchmark (to be used in situations where a benchmark is required but one hasn't been chosen).
• The number of categories, the category names, the minimum proficiency level chosen, and the grade they all apply to create a benchmark structure. There are four default categories, but the number of categories in the structure can be changed from two to five.
  
  

  	Category	Description	Default Cut Score
  	At/Above Benchmark (green)	Students meeting or exceeding the benchmark score	At/Above 40 PR
  	On Watch (blue)	Students slightly below the benchmark score	Automatically calculated as the range between "At/Above Benchmark" and "Intervention"
  	Intervention (yellow)	Students below the benchmark score	Below 25 PR
  	Urgent Intervention (red)	Students far below the benchmark score	Below 10 PR