Jessica Handy

Of Stand for Children, an education-policy advocacy organization. Public critic of the Illinois State Board of Education's 2025 IAR cut-score change, on the grounds that altering the proficiency threshold breaks the longitudinal continuity needed to track student recovery from pandemic-era learning loss.

Position on the 2025 IAR cut-score change

Per Chalkbeat's coverage, Handy called the change "a change in the goal posts." The objection is about measurement integrity over time: changing the bar mid-recovery makes it impossible to evaluate whether interventions are working, since post-change numbers are no longer comparable to pre-change baselines.

Where this critique sits

Pairs with Robin Steans on the advocate side of the Illinois debate. The two objections target different communication failures in ISBE's rollout: Steans on missing side-by-side comparison data, Handy on the longitudinal continuity loss. Both sit on the measurement side of the same debate Tony Sanders argues from the parent-comprehension side — see the Chalkbeat source for the full exchange.