EdWeek: Gaps in Proficiency Levels on State Tests And NAEP Found to Grow

Gaps in Proficiency Levels on State Tests And NAEP Found to Grow
By Lynn Olson

Chicago

Far greater shares of students are proficient on state reading and mathematics tests than on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and those gaps have grown to unprecedented levels since the federal No Child Left Behind Act became law in 2002, a study released last week concludes.

The study by Policy Analysis for California Education, a nonprofit research group based at the University of California, Berkeley, was released here April 10 during the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.

The researchers compiled state and federal testing results for the period 1992 to 2006 from 12 states: Arkansas, California, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, and Washington.

In all but two states—Arkansas and Massachusetts—the disparity between the share of students proficient on state reading tests and on NAEP, a congressionally mandated program that tests a representative sample of students in every state, grew or remained the same from 2002 to 2006. A similar widening occurred between state and federal gauges of math performance in eight of 12 states.

Those findings call into question whether the state-reported gains are real or illusory, according to the researchers.

“State leaders are under enormous pressure to show that students are making progress,” said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at Berkeley who led the study. “So, they are finding inventive ways of showing higher test scores.”

Under the federal law, states must give reading and math tests annually in grades 3-8 and at least once in high school. Schools and districts that do not meet annual targets for the percentage of students who score proficient on those exams face an escalating series of federal sanctions, with the target rising to 100 percent proficiency in 2013-14.

Critics have suggested that, rather than raising academic standards, the law is encouraging states to lower the bar for passing state tests or otherwise adjust their definition of “proficiency” downward in order to avoid identifying too many schools as missing their targets.

more here: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/04/18/33aeradata.h26.html