The proficiency disconnect

A new brief from Achieve details discrepancies -- or the "honesty gap" -- between student proficiencies as reported by states to students, parents, and educators, and as reported by NAEP, the standard for student assessment comparisons across state lines. Over the past two years, many states report proficiency rates that are more than 30 percentage points higher than their 2013 NAEP rates, leading parents and educators to believe that far more students are succeeding in grade-level ELA/literacy and mathematics than is the case. NAEP is the only assessment with comparable results for all 50 states, administered to a representative sample of students from all 50 states every two years, providing results for individual states, and comparable with prior assessment years going back to 1990. State participation was optional until 2003, when all states were required to participate. The Achieve report includes state-reported proficiency data from 2012-13 and 2013-14, and compares it to 2013 NAEP results. Some states have progressed in closing the honesty gap by switching to new assessments aligned to college- and career-ready state academic standards in 2013-14. Many more states are administering new tests aligned to college- and career-ready standards this school year, and 2015 NAEP results will be released this fall, perhaps narrowing the "honesty gap." More

Source:  Public Education News Blast

Published by LEAP

Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP) is an education support organization that works as a collaborative partner in high-poverty communities.