---
title: Benchmarks and Creating Student Growth Goals
description: CERT is designed to provide a plethora of data to measure a student's readiness on Common Core Standards and College and Career Readiness Standards and provide a platform for growth. As educators, it
---
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# Benchmarks and Creating Student Growth Goals
CERT is designed to provide a plethora of data to measure a student's readiness on Common Core Standards and College and Career Readiness Standards and provide a platform for growth. As educators, it is imperative to use that data to create student growth goals. To help determine student growth goals, look to the current score the student scored when taking the assessment.
By definition, the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks are the minimum ACT® College
readiness assessment scores required for students to have a high probability of success in credit-bearing college courses—English Composition, social sciences courses, College Algebra, or Biology. English Composition, College Algebra, and Biology are the first credit-bearing courses most commonly taken by first-year college students. Benchmarks can be used to determine both the likelihood of college success as well as data for curriculum decisions.
### How Are Benchmarks Determined?
Since CERT was designed to mimic the ACT® in terms of content, standards, timing, number of questions, subcategory proportions, passage formatting, etc., CERT uses benchmarks set forth by ACT®. Some states, like Kentucky, have created custom ACT benchmarks. CERT aims to provide the most useful data for schools, therefore you may notice that benchmarks for your state are state-specific and not national benchmarks.
### Setting Student Growth Goals
CERT provides Reflection Sheets that are helpful to have student involvement in their goal setting. Those sheets are for each section: English, Math, Reading, Science.
To access reflection sheets:
1. Choose the **Resources** tab from the top.
2. Select **Reflection Sheets** on the left-hand side.
3. Choose the appropriate reflection sheet. The sheet will automatically download.
Once that you have worked through the reflection sheet and determined the goal scores for the student, you can use this information to help goal set with the student. This creates student ownership and is a standard-based way to goal set.
### Standards-Based Goals
You can use the following reports to write standards-based goals for students accessed through the **Reports** tab at the top of the page.
- **CCSS/NGSS Standards**
- **College Readiness Standards**
- **State-Specific Standards**
For example, the **College Readiness Standards Performance Report** will break down each standard to help write student-specific goals that are directly related to required standards. Use the **Filter Data** box to select the desired group, grade, testing window, subject, and testing year.
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