Idaho students performed better than expected on the new standardized tests aligned with the Idaho Core Standards, the state's version of the Common Core.

The Idaho State Department of Education released preliminary statewide results Wednesday.

"Idaho students did very well in mathematics and ELA (English language arts), exceeding projections in almost all grades," said state education department spokesman Jeff Church.

It is the first year the state's K-12 students have been officially assessed using a standardized test since 2013, when the Idaho Core Standards were first instituted in classrooms.

Along with the new core standards came a new test: The Idaho Standards Achievement Test by Smarter Balanced, also sometimes referred to as "the SBAC."

The Common Core-aligned ISAT was field-tested in Idaho schools in 2014.

A group of 500 teachers from throughout the nation, including 20 from Idaho, administered last year's field tests and established cut scores - projected percentages of student success that were measured against this year's actual results. The percentage of Idaho students who scored at proficient or advanced levels exceeded projections across the board in English language arts. For example, 38 percent of seventh-graders were expected to score proficient or above, and the actual percentage was 51 percent.

Math scores were not quite as stellar, especially among older students. Among seventh-graders, 38 percent performed at or above their grade's proficiency level when the projected percentage was 33 percent.

"It is encouraging that our students did better than projected," said Post Falls Superintendent Jerry Keane. "Our staff and students worked extremely hard to make the transition to the new standards and new test as successful as possible."

Keane said his district still has work to do. Individual student scores were just recently made available to local school districts, he said.

"We have just begun the analysis of those scores. It appears that our scores are at or above the state in almost every area," Keane said.

Mike Nelson, director of curriculum and assessment in the Coeur d'Alene School District, said school officials in his district are also pleased with the results they've seen so far.

Nelson acknowledged that parents and community members may be disappointed to see students' scores drop in this first year of official testing. The same thing happened when the old ISAT was released more than a decade ago, Nelson said.

"It's a new process and the core standards are a gigantic shift in our state," he said.

Nelson expects the district will be able to provide individual student results to parents and guardians sometime within the next few weeks.

The change to the Idaho Core Standards has shifted the focus of teaching and learning, Nelson said.

"We're more interested in what students are writing, and what connections they are making," he said.

The Common Core initiative, led by state education leaders and governors, created academic standards designed to be more rigorous than existing standards, and aligns those standards among states that choose to adopt them. Idaho signed onto the effort in 2009, and the state adopted the Common Core standards in 2011. There are now 43 states that have adopted the standards.