States Still Differ Dramatically In Their Academic Expectations, Study Finds
What does it mean to be passing math class?
The answer to this question varies from state to state, according to a new report released by the research arm of the Education Department, the National Center for Education Statistics. These differences are crucial as America's population becomes more mobile, moving between states.
As some parents, teachers and politicians fight the Common Core State Standards, an effort to make sure the bar for learning in math and reading is consistent nationally, the new report shows that as recently as 2013, this metric varied widely. For example, it’s possible for a fourth-grader to be passing reading in New Jersey, but as soon as he or she moves across the Hudson River to New York, to be suddenly considered failing -- despite not knowing any less.
“Policymakers ... want to be able to compare state progress and state performance standards, but because they are all different, a common yardstick is necessary to make comparisons,” said Peggy Carr, NCES’s acting commissioner. The study defined that yardstick as the standards set for the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a low-stakes yet demanding nationally representative test considered to be the gold standard for measuring student learning. The study converted states' cutoff points on 2012-2013 tests to where those points would fall on the NAEP scale, and the results are jarring.
Graphic by Alissa Scheller for The Huffington Post.
Most states set their standards within NAEP’s “basic” range, and very few state standards measured up to NAEP’s aspirational proficiency standard, which measures “mastery over challenging subject matter.” In fourth-grade reading, though, most states set their cutoff for proficiency below NAEP’s “basic” level. In that subject and grade level, states’ cutoff points spanned a range of 76 points on NAEP, a 500-point test. Overall, New York, Wisconsin, Massachusetts and Texas had the highest