The Stranger Test: What Strong IEP Goals Look Like

Most IEP goals fail a basic test. We call it the stranger test, and it is the single most useful tool a family can carry into an IEP meeting.

The test in one sentence

Here is the test. Read your child's annual goal out loud. Now imagine handing the IEP to a substitute teacher who has never met your child. Could that substitute teacher, working from the goal alone, deliver instruction that helps your child make progress?

If the answer is yes, the goal is strong. If the answer is no, the goal is too vague to do its job. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires measurable annual goals for exactly this reason. Goals exist so that any qualified educator can pick up the IEP and pick up where the last teacher left off.

The Stranger Test has a sister concept used in behavior analysis: the Teddy Bear Test. The Teddy Bear Test asks whether a teddy bear could perform the behavior described in a goal. If yes, the behavior is not measurable. "Being quiet," "sitting still," "not yelling" all fail the Teddy Bear Test because a teddy bear can do them. A goal written in these terms cannot tell the team whether your child is actually doing anything. The Tennessee Department of Education and Vanderbilt Kennedy Center publish a one-page tipsheet defining both tests that you can save and bring to your next meeting.

What weak goals look like

Weak goals share a few common patterns. They use language like:

• "improve reading"
• "make progress in math"
• "show better behavior"
• "engage more in class"

Each of those phrases sounds reasonable until you sit down to teach. Improve from what to what? Progress in math at what skill, at what level, measured how? Better behavior compared to what baseline? Engage more is a feeling, not a target.

A goal like "Jordan will improve reading" gives the substitute teacher nothing to work with. A complete goal names the trajectory the child is supposed to travel: from where they are now to where they are expected to be. It reads something like this:

Given a 4-function calculator, Luis will increase his accuracy in solving one-step equations from 40% to 90%, across 4 of 5 consecutive sessions, weekly, evaluated by a 10-problem one-step equation probe administered at independent practice level, by April 2027.

That single sentence tells the substitute teacher exactly what materials Luis has, exactly what skill to teach, exactly where Luis is starting, exactly where Luis is expected to land, exactly how consistently the skill must be shown, exactly how often the team checks the data, and exactly what tool they use to measure. Nothing is left to interpretation.

The seven parts of a goal that passes

Every strong annual goal has seven parts. Look for all seven when you read your child's IEP, using the Luis example above:

1. Condition, setting, or materials. "Given a 4-function calculator..." names what the student has access to while working on the goal. Without this, the team can disagree later about what supports were intended.
2. Student name. "Luis will..." anchors the goal to a specific child, not a class or category.
3. Observable skill or behavior. "Increase his accuracy in solving one-step equations" uses a measurable verb. Solve, write, count, identify, increase, initiate are observable. Improve, understand, demonstrate awareness of, engage with are not.
4. Extent (from baseline to target). "From 40% to 90%" names both the current performance and the target the child is expected to reach. The two numbers together show the expected rate of improvement across the goal period. "With 90% accuracy" alone could mean a year of meaningful growth or no growth at all, depending on where the child started. The team and the family can only judge whether a goal is appropriately ambitious when both numbers are on the page. Rubric-based goals use the same pattern ("from a Level 1 to a Level 3 on the writing rubric").
5. Frequency. "Across 4 of 5 consecutive sessions" sets how consistently Luis must show the skill before the team can call it mastered.
6. Evaluation schedule. "Weekly" sets how often the team checks the data.
7. Measurement tool. "Evaluated by a 10-problem one-step equation probe administered at independent practice level" names exactly what the team uses, what is on it, and the conditions under which it is given. A strong measurement tool has three traits: it measures the specific skill the goal targets (not adjacent skills), it has a clear structure (number of items, scoring criteria, administration setting), and it is administered consistently across data points. Vague tools like "exit tickets," "classroom observations," or "teacher report" sound reasonable on paper but leave the team free to interpret data however they want, which means progress becomes whatever the case manager remembers. Exit tickets in particular reflect what a student did during the lesson they just received, not what they have retained, so a goal that depends only on exit tickets cannot tell you whether the student is actually mastering the skill.

If any one of those seven parts is missing from your child's annual goals, the goal cannot be measured, cannot be taught reliably across teachers, and cannot prove progress. Each gap is grounds for a request to rewrite the goal.

The baseline that anchors the trajectory (the "from 40%" in the Luis goal above) is drawn directly from the IEP's Present Levels of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance section. If Present Levels does not name a current measurable number, the goal has nothing to anchor to. The next section is about that.

What baselines have to do with it (and why so few IEPs have them)

Every strong annual goal needs a starting point. The IEP's Present Levels of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance section is where the baseline lives. A complete baseline for Luis's math goal would read something like "On three sets of 10 one-step equations administered in March 2026 using a 4-function calculator, Luis solved an average of 4 of 10 correctly." That number is the starting line the annual goal pushes the child from.

Most IEPs we audit do not have one.

The Present Levels section is almost always the weakest section of the document. Schools write things like "Luis is below grade level in math" or "Luis struggles with algebraic reasoning" or "Luis is performing significantly below same-age peers." Each of those sentences sounds informative until you ask what number they are based on. Below grade level by how much? Struggles compared to what data? Significantly below what assessment? Without a number, there is no baseline. Without a baseline, the annual goal has no starting line.

Why does this happen so often? Three structural reasons:

1. Schools copy and paste. District IEP templates carry generic present-levels language across many students. The phrase "below grade level" is in the template before the meeting starts. Filling in a specific number requires the evaluator to administer a recent assessment, score it, and write up the result. The vague language survives because nobody has the time to write the specific version.

2. Recent assessments are not always done. Federal law requires re-evaluation at least every three years, with annual progress monitoring in between. In practice, many IEP teams roll forward present-levels language from the previous IEP without administering a fresh assessment. By year three of a child's IEP, the baseline might be a number from two years ago that no longer reflects the child's current performance.

3. Vague language hides the lack of progress. A baseline of "below grade level" can be used to justify the same vague goal year after year. If the goal stays "improve reading" and the baseline stays "below grade level," nobody on paper has to admit the child has not made progress. The goal looks reasonable on paper while the child loses years of instruction.

What this costs the child

Without a baseline, there is no way to measure whether instruction is working. Without measurement, there is no trigger for the team to change the approach. A child can spend an entire IEP cycle in interventions that are not moving the needle while every progress report says "making progress toward goal" because nobody set a target the progress could fail to reach.

This is what we see in the data. Across the seven families we served in our first year, every single IEP had at least one annual goal with no measurable baseline. Several had no measurable baselines at all. None of the families had ever been told this was a problem before we walked them through it.

What to do when you spot a missing baseline

• Say the word at the meeting. "I do not see a measurable baseline for this goal. What number is the goal pushing my child from?"
• Ask for the assessment. "When was the most recent assessment that supports this present-levels statement? May I see the score?"
• Put it in writing. Send a follow-up email after the meeting that says: "As I understood the meeting, the present-levels statement for this goal does not include a measurable baseline. I am requesting that the team administer a current assessment and update the present-levels statement to include the specific score before I sign the IEP."

Most schools will not push back on a direct, written request for an assessment they were legally required to do anyway. The teams that push back are the teams that need the most pushing.

What to do at your next meeting

Walk into the meeting with your child's current IEP. Read each annual goal out loud at the table. Ask the team: "What is the baseline for this goal in Present Levels? Does this goal have all seven parts? Could a substitute teacher work from this goal as written?" If the team cannot answer one of those questions, ask for the goal to be rewritten so they can.

If you want to check a goal yourself right now, we built a free interactive IEP Goal Checker. Enter the components of your child's annual goal and the tool tells you which of the seven parts are present, which are missing, which are too vague to measure, and the exact language to ask for at your next meeting. Nothing you enter is sent to us.

For a deeper, professional review, our free IEP Audit scores every goal against the stranger test and the seven-part structure, identifies which baselines are missing from Present Levels, and tells you exactly what to ask for. Across the seven families we served in our first year, every IEP failed the stranger test on at least one goal, and several had every goal fail.

The system does not improve on its own. Families have to ask, in plain language, for goals that work.