National Center for Education Statistics Releases Exciting Beach Read for Summer 2015! (Not Really, But This Is Why It’s Still Important)

_{New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie addresses a gathering at Burlington County College Thursday, May 28, 2015, in Pemberton, N.J. Christie is backing away from the use of Common Core school standards, saying the system isn't working for students in New Jersey. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)}

RCEd Commentary

An overlooked federal report – released biennially with a thrilling title, perfect for vacation reading – seemingly tells us more of what we already know. But it has some important findings that policymakers, educators, and families may want to keep in mind as they wrestle with No Child Left Behind, state standards and, more to the point, the Common Core.

The latest National Center for Education Statistics report, Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto [National Assessment of Educational Performance] Scales: Results from the 2013 NAEP Reading and Mathematics Assessments, seeks to clarify what “passing the state standards” means in different states. The NAEP is the only national test that allows a representative comparison of students across state lines.

How do state standards compare, for instance, in grade four reading between New York and Georgia? Or in grade four math between Texas and Alabama? If the differences are narrow, then some arguments for the Common Core become superfluous, as children across states would presumably already be exposed to similar curriculum based on similar standards. And if the rigor across states is high, comparable to, say, the middle of the NAEP Proficient range, then arguing that we need the CCSS to help increase rigor becomes harder to justify.

Of course, history tells us all of that is unlikely, and (SPOILER ALERT!) NCES has once again found that the range in proficiency standards is gigantic, and the overall level of rigor rather unimpressive.

The methodology is straightforward, although the description in the report is dense and heavily qualified. Basically, NCES staff take the percent of students who meet each state’s definition of proficiency on state assessments, and they match it to the estimate on the 2013 NAEP tests. So if 75 percent of students in a state perform at or above the proficient level on the state test, NCES determines the level at which 75 percent of that same state’s students performed on the matching NAEP test. There’s more to it, and NCES does some validity checking to provide a level of confidence in their estimates, but that’s essentially what NCES did here.

We can quibble with this approach, but it has provided the best information we have on interstate comparability of standards and tests over the past decade, and it serves as a nice lens through which to view the rigor of state standards. Although many of the results may be obvious to experts, they won’t be for the general public.

The results are truly staggering. The range in proficiency across the states is almost unbelievably huge. In grade four math, the difference in estimated cut scores between the highest (N.Y.) and lowest (Ga.) states is 76 points on a scale ranging from zero to 500. Not to get into the weeds of score interpretation, but that’s massive, probably representing several years of student learning. But even if one looks at those data more conservatively, comparing the estimated cut score between the 10th highest and 10th lowest states, the difference is still very big, roughly equivalent to two-three years’ worth of learning.

The number of states who have implied rigor in their standards and assessments below the “Basic” cutoff level on NAEP is notable, and not in a good way. In grade four reading, 26 states were estimated to lie below “Basic”; in grade eight, 10 states. Math was a little better: four states in grade four, eight in grade eight. On the positive side, these numbers represent significant improvements from 2009 and 2011.

The report also notes that Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, and Maryland have standards below Basic in both math and reading in grade four, with Alabama, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, and Ohio below Basic in math and reading in grade eight. Only two states were found to have Proficient-level standards in both content areas: New York in both grades, and Wisconsin in grade four (barely, in both cases, but still).

Many of these states are transitioning to the Common Core and related assessments, and for that reason we can hope for significant progress when the next analysis is released in two years. But as some states “rethink” their Common Core involvement, such as New Jersey just last week, they would be wise to consider the data in this report to see how their pre-Core standards and assessments matched up to those in other states and to the NAEP standard.

The timing of the report’s release is also interesting. The general rule of thumb is that you release reports the first two weeks of July if you want people to pay as little attention as possible, but the timing of this report is actually almost perfect: Both the House and Senate are focusing on ESEA reauthorization right now, and this report provides helpful data to inform the rethinking of the accountability provisions. Here’s hoping they improve rather than gut incentives for greater rigor in state standards and higher quality in educational assessments.