District Standardized Tests
Below is some general information about the standardized tests we administer to District 30 students.
IAR (Illinois Assessment of Readiness)
The Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) is the state assessment and accountability measure for Illinois students enrolled in a public school district. IAR assesses progress of students in grades 3-8 in meeting the Illinois Learning Standards in English Language Arts and mathematics.
How many tests will my child take? How long is each test?
English Language Arts
Grade 3—2 tests (75 minutes each)
Grades 4-8--2 tests (90 minutes each)
Mathematics
Grades 3-8—3 tests (60 minutes each)
When will the IAR be administered?
The state of Illinois establishes a testing window for spring testing. Once this window has been announced by the state, it will be posted on the District website.
How is the IAR administered?
The IAR is computer-based. Students will use district devices such as iPads.
How is IAR scored?
The majority of the questions are computer scored by the state. The writing portion of the ELA test and the reasoning portions of the math test are assessed by trained state scorers using a rubric.
How are the results of the tests used?
District administrators, coordinators and specialists, and teachers work together to examine the results. Data from the assessment provides the school district with information on student learning, which allows for continuous improvement of our educational programs.
CogAT (Cognitive Abitities Test)
The CogAT is a measure of a student’s potential to succeed in school-related tasks. It is NOT a tool for measuring a student’s intelligence or IQ. Rather, it measures the reasoning skills that have developed during a student’s educational career, even though they have not been explicitly taught. These general cognitive skills are not specific to any content area, but are skills that are used in all areas of a student’s academic experiences. The CogAT also measures general “school skills,” such as the abiity to listen, follow direction, and focus attention. The CogAt scores are measured as:
- Verbal (verbal classification, sentence completion, and verbal analogies)
- Quantitative (quantitative relations, number series, and equation building)
- Nonverbal (figure classification, figure analogies, and figure analysis)
The standardization of the CogAt was designed to provide national norms based on a sample of the entire U.S. school population. This “norm group” includes represenative samples from 6,000 to 9,000 studnets drawn from public and private schools; from all geographic regions; from rural, suburban, and urban schools; and from schools of all sizes.
Students in grades 3 and 5 take the CogAT test.
NWEA MEASURES OF ACADEMIC PROGRESS (MAP)
The Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) is a nationally normed, criterion referenced, multiple-choice, electronically administered and scored achievement test designed to measure growth in student learning. The MAP achievement test assesses students’ reading, language usage, and mathematics knowledge and skills.
The data generated from the fall administration of the MAP provides baseline data for teachers to use to determine students’ readiness for content and concepts in the District 30 language arts and mathematics curricula. The data gathered from the spring assessment provides teachers and parents with student growth and achievement information.
First grade students take the Primary Math test; second grade students take the Math and Reading tests; third through eighth grade students take the Math, Reading, and Language tests.
AIMSweb CBM (Curriculum Based Measurement)
AIMSweb Curriculum Based Measures for literacy fluency and comprehension. These tests assist teachers and/or support staff in identifying struggling students and monitoring progress. Students are given the tests three times a year in order to benchmark every student for problem identification.
ACCESS (for ELL students)
ACCESS is the English language proficiency test administrated to ELL students (K-8). Students are assessed in speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. ACCESS administration is mandated by the state.
District 30 Assessment Calendar
District 30 Assessments
