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Utah State Board of Education details RISE ELA changes, adds cluster items; writing benchmark field test needs thousands of student essays
Summary
State assessment staff told educators at a recorded webinar that the RISE English language arts summative will now include cluster items, benchmarks will be optional and available Feb. 18, and writing benchmarks will not be auto‑scored this year while a large field test is conducted to enable automated scoring in future years.
Megan Lopez, secondary English language arts assessment specialist at the Utah State Board of Education, told educators in a recorded training that the RISE English language arts (ELA) summative for grades 3–8 will be aligned only to reading standards, include at least one cluster item for every student, and require a standard-setting exercise this summer with scores released in fall 2025.
The change matters because clusters are multipart, stimulus‑based items designed to let students choose an analytical path and provide connected evidence. Staff walking educators through the training test said every student will see three traditional reading passages plus one cluster on the operational summative; training tests and optional benchmarks will be posted on the RISE portal so teachers and students can practice the new item types.
Staff described the testing timeline and scoring…
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