EDUCATION WEEK - 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 No Child Left Behind Act became law in 2002, concludes a
study. The study by Policy Analysis for California Education, a
nonprofit research group based at the University of California,
Berkeley, was released here 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.". . .
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. Greater
Transparency Urged
http://tinyurl.com/2j4qg9
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reading and mathematics tests than on the National Assessment of
Educational Progress, and those gaps have grown to unprecedented levels
since the No Child Left Behind Act became law in 2002, concludes a
study. The study by Policy Analysis for California Education, a
nonprofit research group based at the University of California,
Berkeley, was released here 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.". . .
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. Greater
Transparency Urged
http://tinyurl.com/2j4qg9
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