“The Proficiency Illusion” reveals that the tests that states use to measure academic progress under the No Child Left Behind Act are creating a false impression of success, especially in reading and especially in the early grades.
The report, a collaboration of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Northwest Evaluation Association, contains several major findings:
- States are aiming particularly low when it comes to their expectations for younger children, setting elementary students up to fail as they progress through their academic careers.
- The central flaw in NCLB is that it allows each state to set its own definition of what constitutes “proficiency.”
- By mandating that all students reach “proficiency” by 2014, it tempts states to define proficiency downward.
- Although there has not been a “race to the bottom,” with the majority of states dramatically lowering standards under pressure from NCLB, the report did find a “walk to the middle,” as some states with high standards saw their expectations drop toward the middle of the pack.
- In most states, math tests are consistently more difficult to pass than reading tests.
- Eighth-grade tests are sharply harder to pass in most states than those in earlier grades (even after taking into account obvious differences in subject-matter complexity and children’s academic development).
As a result, students may be performing worse in reading, and worse in elementary school, than is readily apparent by looking at passing rates on state tests.
In the forward to “The Proficiency Illusion” (2007), Finn and Petrilli claim standards-based education is in deep trouble foremost because “on the whole, states do a bad job of setting (and maintaining) the standards that matter most — those that define student proficiency for purposes of NCLB and states — own results-based accountability systems.” No state enjoys the financial resources and technical expertise that is available to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for setting achievement level standards or “proficiency cut scores.” Not one state. Federal law requires that NAEP use achievement levels only on a trial basis until the Commissioner of Education Statistics determines that the achievement levels are “reasonable, valid, and informative to the public.” Not there yet! NAEP still uses achievement level scores on a trial basis and urges strong caution in their use and interpretation. This is true even with the just released NAEP 2007 achievement level results for reading and mathematics. It seems a bit unreasonable and unfair to castigate any state’s performance on a complex task that even the national assessment has not yet fully mastered.
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