IFG ACRE Religion Assessment for Grades 5 and 8 (Levels 1 and 2); High School (Level 3)
The National Catholic Education Association (NCEA) partners with Catholic Faith Technologies to deliver a stronger online platform for the IFG ACRE Religious Education Assessment, to learn more, please click here. During Covid-19, specific guidance has been issued to support all schools entering into the ACRE assessment, please click here.
What is the ACRE?
Since the late 1970’s NCEA has offered assessment instruments designed to strengthen catechetical/religious education programs. The ACRE (Assessment of Children/Youth Religious Education) helps schools, parishes and diocesan leaders evaluate the faith knowledge and attitudes of students in Catholic schools. As an integrated assessment tool, ACRE provides faith knowledge questions (cognitive domain) and questions related to religious beliefs, attitudes, practices, and perceptions (affective domain). The NCEA IFG: ACRE 2013 edition is based on the Catholic Church’s expectations for an organic, systematic, and comprehensive education in Christian discipleship. This tool that provides national scores for comparison and processes for tracking religious education program data over time.
How is the ACRE part of the Strategic Plan?
In the Archdiocese of Seattle, we implemented PreK – 12 Religion Standards in 2014. The High School Religion Standards are now available to our high school theology teachers for courses 1-6. Our strategic plan calls for the final piece of this puzzle: a nationally normed test that assesses the religious and theological preparation of our students. We test annually each APRIL. Assessment: Per OCS policy: 2.1 (M) The elementary religion curriculum will be evaluated by a uniform means of assessment, including national assessments, with oversight by the Office for Catholic Schools. Students in grades 5 (level 1) and 8 (level 2) will take the ACRE (Assessment of Children/Youth Religious Education) assessment offered by the NCEA in the month of April. The high school ACRE assesment is optional at this time (level 3). The school will receive a group report for each ACRE leveled assessment used in the school.
Who receives the results?
The local Catholic school will receive a group report for each ACRE leveled assessment used in a school. Only the archdiocese should get the composite report of all the schools. The archdiocese can share the overall scores, but not the individual school scores publicly. As a multilevel, age-appropriate tool, ACRE will be administered in grade 5 (Level 1) and grade 8 (Level 2) in the Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Seattle each APRIL. We welcome our Catholic high schools to test (Level 3) within the APRIL window to be a part of our ACRE data rollup.
Next steps: Order local ACRE materials, click here. Schools are strongly encouraged to select the on-line for affordability reasons. The Archdiocese of Seattle – Office for Catholic Schools ID code is 32380. If you need your School ID Code when initially setting up your account, please contact the OCS. Costs: Online Assessment $3.50; You can email the company at help@nceaifg.com any time. You can also call Catholic Faith Technologies directly at: 1-800-707-6232. If questions directed for NCEA, please use the same phone number: 1-800-707-6232. School ACRE Coordinators should set up an NCEA-IFG online account to review all pdfs to administer the ACRE successfully at NCEA – Register New User Account (nceaifg.com)
- PLAN YOUR TESTING WINDOW FOR APRIL: Grade 5 and Grade 8 testing battery is about one hour in length. To be part of the annual OCS roll-up data, each school needs to schedule within the April window- Actual window: Wednesday, March 29 – Friday, April 28, 2023. (Easter is April 9, 2023)
- Rostering information: All students are anonymous. The purpose of the ACRE is to access the program, not the student. By making the student anonymous, that message is relayed to the student as well as the teacher and principal. Registering for online is a simple process. The instructions are sent to the schools immediately after purchase and each student is given a code to use to login and take the assessment. In regard to the paper/pencil version, the instructions and bubble sheets are sent to the respective school and each student will complete a bubble sheet. The schools need to send Catholic Faith Technologies the sheets for processing as soon as they have administered the assessments. Upon receipt we will scan and score the results. For both online and paper/pencil assessment, Catholic Faith Technologies will email the results to the principal/contact the local school has provided. Once all schools have been scored, the diocesan report is generated for the OCS. NOTE: Please remind teachers to “close” their testing session once the testing is concluded. Once closed, Catholic Faith Technologies can process your grade level results and your results in your school file.
- The local school should receive their results quickly and the OCS will receive the April roll-up ACRE data in May. The OCS roll-up ACRE data reflects those schools who tested within the APRIL window.
- Participating schools: You have your data … now what? This one pager can assist you as you review your school’s data: IFG_ACRE-OnlineReportAccess-Instructions-041519 plus the OCS data review resources to break open the data and align to the OCS religion standards with your faculty.
2022 APRIL ACRE Participating Schools
2021 APRIL ACRE Participating Schools
2020 April testing window was cancelled due to Covid-19.