Understanding Performance Bands

Performance bands translate raw scores into meaningful tiers like “Meets Expectations” or “Below Grade Level.” They give your assessments clear, color-coded labels that make it easy to see how students are doing at a glance. This article explains what performance bands are, how the defaults work, and how to create your own.

What Is a Performance Band?

A performance band is a scoring rubric that maps a percentage range to a label and color. For example, the default PaperScorer performance band looks like:

When a student scores 85% on an assessment using this band, their result is labeled Standard Met in green.

Why Use Performance Bands?

• Instant visual feedback — the color tells you at a glance which students need help.
• Consistent language — everyone on your team uses the same proficiency labels across assessments.
• Alignment with your grading philosophy — a pre-test and a post-test can warrant different cut scores. Custom bands let you tune the thresholds.
• Reporting — performance-band distribution charts show up in the Results overview, making it easy to track growth over time.

The Default Performance Band

Every assessment starts with the system default band. If you don’t need custom cut scores, you can leave this as-is and your results will be tiered automatically. The default band is locked — you can’t edit its thresholds or labels. To customize, create a new band (see below).

Creating a Custom Performance Band

If the default doesn’t fit (e.g. you want “Mastery” to start at 80% instead of 90%), create your own.

1. From the main navigation, open Performance Bands.
2. Click Create New.
3. Enter a Name for the band (e.g. “End-of-Unit Mastery”).
4. Add one or more definitions — each definition is one tier in the band.
5. For each definition, configure:
   • Color — pick a swatch.
   • Minimum % — the lowest score that qualifies for this tier.
   • Label — the display name (e.g. “Proficient”).
   • Mastery flag — check this if the tier counts as “mastery” for reporting purposes.
6. Save the draft.
7. When you’re ready, publish the band so it can be assigned to assessments.

Draft vs Published

Performance bands have a two-stage lifecycle:

1. Draft — the band is saved but not yet usable. You can freely edit anything — labels, colors, thresholds, mastery flags.
2. Published — the band is active and can be assigned to assessments. Once published, the band is locked from editing to preserve the integrity of historical results.

Duplicating a Band

If you want a variation of an existing band (e.g. a “Quiz Band” that’s a small tweak of your “Unit Test Band”):

1. Open the Performance Bands list.
2. Find the band you want to copy.
3. Use the band’s action menu to duplicate it.
4. The new band is created as a draft named “Copy of [original].”
5. Edit and publish when ready.

Assigning a Performance Band to an Assessment

You assign a band when creating or editing an assessment:

1. Open the assessment’s edit modal.
2. Click Change next to the current performance band and pick the band you want.
3. Save.

The new band is applied immediately to all existing student results — no rescanning needed. See Changing an Assessment Performance Band for the full walkthrough.

Examples of When to Use Custom Bands

• Pre-test: lower cut scores because students haven’t been taught the content yet. “Proficient” might start at 40%.
• Formative quiz: tight cut scores. “Proficient” at 85% to drive practice retakes.
• Summative unit test: standard cut scores matching your gradebook’s A/B/C/D/F.
• State-test prep: cut scores matching your state’s proficiency levels so results align with accountability reports.

Performance Bands in Reporting

Once a band is in use, it shows up:

• On the assessment’s Students tab — color-coded label next to each student’s score.
• On the Results overview — distribution chart showing how many students fell into each tier.
• In exports — the band label is included in CSV exports of the assessment data.
• On student review links — students see their own performance-band label when viewing results.

Unpublishing or Deleting a Band

You can unpublish or delete a band only if it’s not currently in use by any assessment. If an assessment references the band, switch those assessments to a different band first.

The system default band cannot be unpublished or deleted.

Related Articles

• Creating an Assessment
• Changing an Assessment Performance Band
• Viewing and Understanding Assessment Results