Anonymous
05/19/2025 16:23
Subject: Benchmark and SOL
Anonymous wrote:I am just curious what are the differences between iReady and SOL. My DD always got 99% on iReady, but barely got pass advanced in SOL this year. Does it means she is not doing as well as previous year?
Here's the results from a simple Google search:
"i-Ready and SOL (Standards of Learning) are both important aspects of education in Virginia, but they serve different purposes. i-Ready is a diagnostic assessment tool used by Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) to identify student strengths and weaknesses, while SOL tests are the standardized assessments that measure student achievement against state standards."
Colloquially, this board generally argues that iReady is better at identifying weaknesses than differentiating at the advanced levels. They also argue AAP students should be earning passed advanced on the SOLs since they're supposedly above grade level. Obviously this year that didn't happen for some.
Anonymous
05/19/2025 15:03
Subject: Benchmark and SOL
Anonymous wrote:I am just curious what are the differences between iReady and SOL. My DD always got 99% on iReady, but barely got pass advanced in SOL this year. Does it means she is not doing as well as previous year?
Same here my kid always get 99% in math but he got 513 on sol
Is she in aap?
Anonymous
05/19/2025 11:46
Subject: Benchmark and SOL
I am just curious what are the differences between iReady and SOL. My DD always got 99% on iReady, but barely got pass advanced in SOL this year. Does it means she is not doing as well as previous year?
Anonymous
05/17/2025 13:02
Subject: Benchmark and SOL
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:May I know what do u mean by benchmark?
This was my response 2 months ago, when I was asked how my DC feels about the Benchmark. It is a new LA curriculum implemented this year. I’ll let someone else explain it.
Oh my god, I feel like I’m a bad mom… and my kid doesn’t like to share details. Maybe because he’s a boy.🥹
DP the only reason I know about it is because our school had a presentation about this at the beginning of the school year and people complain about it on this board constantly.
Hhhh yes, people here never fail to make me feel like a careless mom.
Even if you do care, I don’t feel that I can make much difference about the curriculum used. You need a sort of momentum with sufficient number of parents who care about this type of thing in order to complain. I am not even sure whether there is anything to complain about because at our school most teachers make it very difficult to figure out what is being taught at school.
Anonymous
05/17/2025 12:52
Subject: Benchmark and SOL
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:May I know what do u mean by benchmark?
Oh my god, I feel like I’m a bad mom… and my kid doesn’t like to share details. Maybe because he’s a boy.🥹
DP the only reason I know about it is because our school had a presentation about this at the beginning of the school year and people complain about it on this board constantly.
Hhhh yes, people here never fail to make me feel like a careless mom.
Anonymous
05/17/2025 12:48
Subject: Benchmark and SOL
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Oh my god. This thread is incredibly stupid. OP, your child just isn't as smart as you think she is, dummy.
My child has a 148 verbal IQ, thank you (GMU WISC). No need to be jealous! There's something seriously wrong somewhere if a child at that IQ level is NOT scoring pass advanced, and I'm trying to figure out what's going on. Like others on this thread, my kid has high iready (97%) and is reading books aimed at middle schoolers for pleasure, so I'm leaning towards it not being some one off issue with my kid.
Maybe they rushed through it?
Anonymous
05/17/2025 12:43
Subject: Benchmark and SOL
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:May I know what do u mean by benchmark?
Oh my god, I feel like I’m a bad mom… and my kid doesn’t like to share details. Maybe because he’s a boy.🥹
Yes, boy here too
I think our school had an email with a brief mention of Benchmark at the beginning of the school year, but no presentation or elaborate explanation.
It could be unrelated, but both of my AAP kids went from having nearly perfect 600 scores to mid 500 and low 500. They say many kids in their class were talking about being pass proficient for the first time ever. And, one parent openly expressed concern if there is an issue with their kid because they got pass proficient for the fast time.
This topic has been covered in several different threads here on dcurbanmom. Apparently, some kids did much better than before, so not sure whether there is any connection to Benchmark.
Anonymous
05/17/2025 11:56
Subject: Benchmark and SOL
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:May I know what do u mean by benchmark?
Oh my god, I feel like I’m a bad mom… and my kid doesn’t like to share details. Maybe because he’s a boy.🥹
DP the only reason I know about it is because our school had a presentation about this at the beginning of the school year and people complain about it on this board constantly.
Anonymous
05/17/2025 10:55
Subject: Benchmark and SOL
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:May I know what do u mean by benchmark?
Oh my god, I feel like I’m a bad mom… and my kid doesn’t like to share details. Maybe because he’s a boy.🥹
Anonymous
05/16/2025 20:37
Subject: Benchmark and SOL
Anonymous wrote:May I know what do u mean by benchmark?
This was my response 2 months ago, when I was asked how my DC feels about the Benchmark. It is a new LA curriculum implemented this year. I’ll let someone else explain it.
Anonymous
05/16/2025 18:38
Subject: Benchmark and SOL
May I know what do u mean by benchmark?
Anonymous
05/16/2025 14:13
Subject: Benchmark and SOL
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Both of my kids pass advanced on reading SOL (4th, 7th). Interestingly, my 7th grader said their English teacher specifically said to pay close attention to the first passage and triple check answers because the test is adaptive and very difficult to pass advanced if you mess up at the start. I hadn’t heard that before and my kids have been taking SOLs for awhile now.
That is fcked up.
That is how computer adaptive testing works though. Mess up early and you might not get a chance to answer the harder questions. Early screw ups of a missed couple of easy questions can explain why scores and vary widely between tests.
Actually, no, that's not how it works.
With adaptive testing, it should continually try to adjust until it converges. The test should not stop until it's found a balance of "just hard enough" questions your child can't answer and questions below that difficulty it reliably can. At least according to test theory, and specifically IRT.
Whether or not the actual SOL has the depth and implementation to do this correctly is another question.
Anonymous
05/16/2025 12:59
Subject: Benchmark and SOL
Anonymous wrote:Wow people are unkind. There's nothing wrong with your child, OP.
My AAP kid got a 481 in LA, so pass proficient. Which seems perfectly fine to me (I did come here to see what the number meant, since I had no other context and they're in 3rd grade). The more important thing is that they love school and seem to be learning and thriving.
My kid got almost the same score. I know what he’s capable of, so I don’t care about the score at all. It does not reflect his true knowledge
Anonymous
05/15/2025 18:47
Subject: Benchmark and SOL
Anonymous wrote:OP here. I will be first to admit I've changed my mind. I think if benchmark were at fault, iready scores would be trending down. My child's actually showed good growth from fall to winter. 975 lexile per iready, so I don't think there's a hidden comprehension issue skewing results.
I think instead the SOL is an outlier for whatever reason- perhaps they made the cut scores crazy this year? I will say for math, my child reported content on there that is not in the third grade standards. 100% not mentioned. I searched and it appears for the first time in (2023) fourth grade standards. Maybe it's a pilot question but I was thinking perhaps if they sprinkled an above grade level question or two in there, and your kid happens to miss it, then they have the cut score in such a way that the kid won't score pass advanced?
Signing off here. I'm convinced this whole thing is not something specific to only my kid.
Or maybe your kid had an off day. You have a 3rd grader, OP, you need to chill out on the scores obsession.
Anonymous
05/15/2025 18:07
Subject: Benchmark and SOL
Anonymous wrote:OP here. I will be first to admit I've changed my mind. I think if benchmark were at fault, iready scores would be trending down. My child's actually showed good growth from fall to winter. 975 lexile per iready, so I don't think there's a hidden comprehension issue skewing results.
I think instead the SOL is an outlier for whatever reason- perhaps they made the cut scores crazy this year? I will say for math, my child reported content on there that is not in the third grade standards. 100% not mentioned. I searched and it appears for the first time in (2023) fourth grade standards. Maybe it's a pilot question but I was thinking perhaps if they sprinkled an above grade level question or two in there, and your kid happens to miss it, then they have the cut score in such a way that the kid won't score pass advanced?
Signing off here. I'm convinced this whole thing is not something specific to only my kid.
That is because the tests are adaptive. In math, that means that the test will give harder questions until the child gets something wrong. It will move into material from the next grade level. DS commonly reported seeing questions on material that he had not been exposed to. Sometimes he was able to figure out the correct answer on his own sometimes he was bummed that the answer was easy to get with a little bit of additional information.
Both the Reading and Math SOL have been revamped. We have the raw scores now so there is a chance that things will be adjusted on the margins.