To:  All Idaho Teachers using eInstruction’s CPS to improve ISAT scores

From:  Amy Jones, Educational Consultant for Einstruction in Idaho and Utah

I received a call back from Margo Healy, ISAT Program Manager regarding the new ISAT and how the old practice questions relate to the new test and whether new questions will be available.  This Q and A is simply my interpretation of her answers, not direct quotes!  Please contact her office if you need more detailed responses.

1.  Are there new sample ISAT questions?  Not yet.  Released items will be made available next year after Idaho has gone through one testing cycle.  Released questions were not available before.  We just had the 2000+ sample questions with the previous vendor - these were not released items.

2.  Are the old practice questions still viable?  Some are, some aren’t.  And we don’t know which ones are!  All of the old questions are going through a review process to see if they are valid, reliable and match the current Idaho standards.  None of the 2nd or 9th grade questions made it.  Some of the others did. 

3.  Will there be practice questions in CPS format next year?  I hope so!  If there are released items and can be used by teachers, I will put them in CPS format and make them freely available to any Idaho CPS users.

4.  Can we still use the current questions?  Sure - you can download them from here.  According to Margo Healy, they are as useful as they ever were !  Remember, some of the questions are not valid or reliable.  Some do not line up with Idaho Standards.

 Best wishes for a smooth transition to the new ISAT!

Posted by Amy