Norm Scores and Percentile Rankings

Based upon our easyCBM district users' nation-wide, we generate scores from students who've taken on-grade benchmark tests that are administered 3 times a year (fall, winter, and spring). Our progress monitoring scoring guidelines are derived from the number of students who score at or below a particular score on a test. These numbers are based on what is called a 'percentile rank' and indicate the proportion of students at a grade level that your students' scores are equal to or above. In essence, how does your student 'rank' among other students in the same grade?

To know how a student compares to other students in their grade (at one of three benchmark times of year) take a student's score from a measure and compare it to the same measure, grade, and time of year the test was taken. Ideally, a student score should fall at the 50th percentile for them to be considered performing on grade. If they are at the 50th percentile or above, no other testing in that area is needed until the next benchmark testing cycle. If they fall below the 50th percentile, then progress monitoring measures should be implemented.

Norms and Percentiles Balanced Over Domains and Standards

We do not give raw scores by individual CCSS (Common Core State Standard) standard or domain as sub-scores of this type would be based on too few items to give a reliable estimate of student performance. The CCSS items are balanced across CCSS domains, with only 1-3 items/CCSS standard. Having said that, under the Reports tab that students with quite low performance will be suggested to be monthly progress monitored using the NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) assessments, with students performing better, though still demonstrating some risk, will be suggested to be monthly progress monitored using the CCSS assessments. This is because the NCTM assessments were designed based on the National Teachers of Mathematics Focal Point Standards (pre-dating the CCSS) to target students showing serious deficiencies in mathematics. Again, though the system does not give subs-cores based on individual standards/domains, the suggestions for progress monitoring give teachers guidance on what level types of skills the student (and groups of similarly performing students) should be working on. Additionally, Reports tab > Individuals tab > Individual Graphs and then scrolling to the bottom allows teachers to click on View a single test, which shows each test item and whether the student answered correctly/incorrectly — analysis of this data may yield patterns of what types of problems a student is missing, and thus, guidance as to skill deficiencies.

To look over our research information, please visit our website: https://brtprojects.org/publications/technical-reports/. and pay particular attention to 2013 and 2014 with lead authors Saven, J. L. and Irvin, P. S. The data that is most applicable is in Appendix B: Item Statistics by Test Form.

*Please note:

• The easyCBM norms and percentiles were originally developed in 2013-2014. They were updated in the summer of 2025, and will continue to be updated on a five-year rotation thereafter. The next update will be completed for the fall of 2030. We opted to follow industry best practice in adopting a five-year norming cycle for the easyCBM assessments, beginning in 2020 and continuing every five years thereafter.
• The easyCBM program has been developed for school testing from September 1-June 30th. We have no norms or percentile scores for summer use (July/August) as we have not done the research testing for this time period. Likewise the percentile lines on the graph will be missing. We consider the summer a break from testing and the natural progression of students transitioning to their next grade in school.