ACT State-Specific Cut Scores and Performance Level Descriptors
Starting with the 2017-18 school year, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) gives states greater autonomy and flexibility over standards, assessments, and accountability systems—including the possibility of using a national admissions test, such as the ACT® test, as the high school accountability measure for Math, English Language Arts, and/or Science.
There are many benefits for states that want to use national admissions tests for federal accountability, including reduced testing time (since the ACT is already administered in many states) and having a nationally recognized predictor of college readiness to support students as they exit high school and prepare for broad national opportunities for college and career, but there are tradeoffs to consider in any assessment program used for federal accountability.
ACT has supported states that administer the ACT for accountability purposes by providing sound, research-based methods for establishing relevant state-specific cut scores and performance level descriptors (PLDs), employing panels of state educators, subject matter experts, and other appropriate stakeholders in standard setting and performance level descriptor writing activities. Next, we briefly describe our recommended method for establishing cut scores—empirical-based standard setting (Camara, Allen,& Moore, 2017)—and for developing custom performance level descriptors.