The purpose of content-specific PLDs is to provide: 

     • guidelines to assess the level of student performance, 

     • an indication of how demanding the standards should be, 

     • specific expectation about student knowledge and skills in a particular content area at each performance level, and 

     • a progression of knowledge and skills that students are expected to have mastered across the performance levels. 

Both the scale score and the PLDs provide information that helps guide educators and assist parents in understanding the level of student performance required at each performance level.