Utah board staff outline major changes to RISE writing assessments, call for field-test participation

Megan Lopez, Utah State Board of Education secondary English language arts assessment specialist, told a virtual training session that the presentation “is solely focusing on the changes to the RISE writing assessments.” The session, delivered to nearly 200 registered attendees, reviewed new prompt language, separate rubrics for content and conventions, and a field-testing schedule to train an automatic scoring engine.

Why it matters: The changes affect how teachers prepare students for state writing tasks and how schools will receive and interpret writing results. State staff said scores for this year’s revised assessments will be delayed while new cut scores are established and the scoring engine is trained.

State staff described two RISE writing pathways. Benchmarks (optional) are available for grades 3–8; summative writing is required only for grades 5 and 8. “Benchmarks are available to all grades. They are not required,” Lopez said. The benchmarks are being field-tested with new prompts and rubrics; summative prompts are also new for grades 5 and 8.

Teresa McIntyre, assessment development coordinator, said the state needs large samples from the benchmark field test so the vendor can…