Are standards reset each year?
No. Once the State Board of Education adopts a set of standards for a WASL test, the state carries that expected level of performance from year to year. Each year a new edition of the test is developed. Most of the questions on the test are new questions, but some of the questions have appeared in earlier years. The repeated items are “anchor” items that are used to link the performance on one year’s edition of the WASL to earlier editions of the test. This uses a procedure called “equating.” By equating the current year’s WASL to WASLs given in previous years, the performance standard can be maintained over time.
