PSS adjusts Praxis cut off scores

The Public School System has adjusted their Praxis test standard cut scores to go with the changes to content areas of the test, according to Board of Education chair Herman Guerrero.

The Educational Testing Service, the company that administers the test, updates the test periodically, according to Guerrero. This is to “make it more update to date” or “more friendly,” he said.

“Sometimes in the content area, they drop that specific old test and they come up with a new one—so you need to adjust the cut off for the new test,” he explained.

He said that scores of those who’ve taken the test before are still valid. “But if you are a new person coming into the system and we require you to take that new specific content area then you have to meet our standards.”

He said PSS cut off scores are a “little above medium of all the states.”

“We look at the score of the cut off for all the states that are participating and we just take the median, or just one point above the median. And that’s the methodology that we have been doing over the years since it was first implemented.”

Against the PSS average performance range, Guerrero said the cut off scores “are not too far above average” but “not at the bottom either.”

The education board adopted Education Commissioner Dr. Rita Sablan’s memorandum on Praxis cut off scores. The memo listed cut off scores that have been approved.

For Elementary Ed[ucation]: Content Knowledge, the cut off score is 163. For World Language Pedagogy, the cut off score is 158.

For Health and Physical Education: Content Knowledge, the cut off score is 153.

For Music: Content and Instruction, the cut score is 162. For Physical Education Content and Design, the cut score is169.

For Social Studies Content and Interpretation, the cut off score is 153. For Technology Education, this is at 159. For Marketing Education, this is at 160. For Agriculture, it is 147.

For Education of Young Children, test codes 5021 and 5024, they are 163 and 160, respectively. For Interdisciplinary Early Education, the cut off score is 166.

For SPED: Teaching Students with Intellectually Disabilities, the cut score is 156. For SPED: Education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing, it is 160. For Speech Language Pathology Requirement, the cut off score is 162.

For English Language Literature and Composition Content and Analysis, the cut off score is 164. For Core Academic Skills for Education: “Combined,” the cut off score is 468.