States Set Widely Varying 'Proficiency' Bars
By Sarah D. Sparks
‘Short Selling’ StudentsRead the Whole Artcle HERE
Gary W. Phillips, the AIR’s vice president and chief scientist, who wrote the report, called state-proficiency standards “the educational equivalent of short selling.”
“Rather than betting on student success,” he said in the report, “the educators sell the student short by lowering standards.”
Student-Expectation Gap
A comparison of 4th grade students scoring at the proficient level in math on 2007 state assessments vs. an internationally benchmarked common standard show dramatic differences in what is considered proficient. Of all states, only Massachusetts had more students perform at the proficient level on international standards than on state standards.
For comparison, Mr. Phillips points to two winners in the federal Race to the Top grant competition: Massachusetts and Tennessee. Massachusetts’ bar for 8th grade math proficiency is two full standard deviations above Tennessee’s proficiency bar; that gap, the study found, represents more than four grade levels’ difference between proficient 8th graders in the two states. Tennessee changed its achievement standards this year, but such gaps remain among all states.
And Here's the AIR REPORT
1 comments:
Hmm...I recall at a public school I used to work at that we struggled for years to get our math and science scores up to par. Then, one year, the state decided to change the formula for measuring the passing rates to take into account "added value". Guess what? That year the science scores shot waaaaaaaay up (I don't recall the math scores). Interesting, eh?
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