Oklahoma’s fictional test score gains

28 Aug Oklahoma’s fictional test score gains

By Dale Chu

The assessment world was set alight last week with the news of skyrocketing test gains in the Sooner State. Reading scores for Oklahoma’s third graders jumped from 29 percent proficient last year to 51 percent this year. Eighth graders bested their previous mark by double, spiking from 20 percent proficiency to 40 percent. While some welcomed the ostensibly good news, Harvard’s Andrew Ho described the gains as “nonsensical fiction.”

Which indeed they were. Rather than reflecting an actual improvement in student performance, the astronomical increases resulted from a lowering of the threshold required (i.e., adjusting the cut scores) to achieve proficiency. Had the scoring system not been changed, the results would have been similar or slightly below the previous year’s. To put things in context, the new cut scores are closer to the “NAEP Basic” mark, while the previous cut scores were on the cusp of “NAEP Proficient.” This is worth nothing because once upon a time, Oklahoma was among the leaders of the pack (see graph below) in benchmarking proficiency to the higher standard:

Predictably, the recriminations are now flying, with some attributing the hullaballoo to poor communication on the part of the state’s education agency. Others suggest ulterior motives, but the state ed chief quickly dismissed all of the noise as “fan fiction.” Regardless of who’s to blame, the result is an unfortunately confusing mess. If anything, states should be raising the bar for proficiency following the historic academic declines post-pandemic to say nothing of the growing threats internationally. What’s worse, playing fast and loose with test scores does nothing to solve the larger problem: many parents have little to no idea how their kids are faring in school.