DATE:
Thursday, March 6, 2025
TO:
Middle and High School Administrators
FROM:
Carolyn Gough, Administrator of Teaching and Learning
Ben Jameson, Director of Assessment, Research and Accountability
SUBJECT:
REMINDER: Summative Testing Changes for 2024-25
With the change in the ELA core approved by the Utah State Board of Education in recent months, the state’s summative assessments will now reflect those changes. The changes to RISE and the Utah Aspire Plus are highlighted below:
Utah Aspire Plus:
- The English subtest will no longer be administered. Only the Reading, Math and Science subtests will be administered.
- USBE, under recommendation from the Assessment & Accountability Policy Advisory Committee, has opted to not go through the standard setting process over the summer as they had originally intended. Therefore, Utah Aspire Plus proficiency reporting will be available within 24 hours after students complete and submit the assessment. Proficiency reporting, composite scale scores, and predicted ACT scores will be available for Math, Reading and Science. There will be no ELA proficiency reporting.
Please see the attached Utah Aspire Plus updates document released by USBE for more information.
RISE:
- The summative RISE ELA assessment and the summative RISE Writing assessment (5th and 8th grades only) have been revised according to the new ELA core. Scores for the summative RISE ELA and summative RISE Writing will not be available until fall 2025. Automatic scoring for both summative assessments will resume in the 2025-26 school year.
- Scoring for RISE Math and Science will still be available after students complete and submit the assessment.
- For RISE ELA and Math, students will see up to one cluster question (see Feb. 6th JAM). The RISE Math cluster questions will be field test items. The RISE ELA cluster questions will be actual questions that count towards students’ scores.
- RISE blueprints, performance level descriptors, and writing rubrics may all be found on the RISE Portal under the Resources tile.
Please see the attached RISE updates document released by USBE for more information.
For questions about these changes, please contact Ben Jameson in Assessment, Research & Accountability.
