By Dale Chu
This week, Assessment HQ published 2024 assessment results for 41 states (and D.C.). The key takeaway is that (nominal) gains in math are outpacing ELA, but students are by and large still far behind. That hasn’t stopped some states from trying to sugarcoat the setbacks students have faced post-Covid, but the lack of transparency makes the already challenging task of gauging student progress all the more complex. On this point, the Collaborative’s Jim Cowen lamented that we may be living through the “asterisk era” of student performance insofar as state assessments are concerned.
Being branded with an asterisk generally means that there is a caveat that the result is not entirely straightforward and may require further explanation. Consider the following three variables when it comes to state tests:
- Cut scores: Every state sets a standard—or “cut score”—by which student proficiency is measured. There are legitimate reasons for adjusting the proficiency cuts from time to time, but it must be done judiciously to ensure the public is provided a consistently honest appraisal of where young people stand. Too many states seem to be sleepwalking into a policy of ratcheting expectations down to reflect where students are post-Covid instead of redoubling their efforts to help students get to where they need to be. When states like Oklahoma and Wisconsin lower their cut scores, they misrepresent the degree to which children are already behind.
- Compliance with ESSA: States have always struggled with data transparency, but there’s little excuse for nearly half of them to be out of compliance with the low bar required by Uncle Sam vis-à-vis disaggregated data and student participation rates. If the U.S. Department of Education would simply enforce what is already required under federal law, this might not be an issue. But the nature of today’s politics has created some strange bedfellows who seem disinterested in holding states accountable on standardized testing.
- Abysmally low participation rates: Federal law requires states to assess at least 95 percent of its students, along with 95 percent of each student subgroup in ELA and math. However, only half include consequences for failing to meet the participation requirement. These consequences include the development of an improvement plan, penalties such as being dropped a level on a state’s accountability system, and/or additional state monitoring. Now there are a handful of states that are falling well short (some as low as 41 percent!) of the 95 percent mark: Montana[1], Alaska, Colorado, and New York[2]. The latter two are particularly notable for being at the epicenter of the so called opt-out movement back in 2015.
What all of this suggests is that the NAEP results coming out next year may take on greater importance as a check on student progress. It also underscores the need to exercise caution when looking at the assessment results of individual states.
[1] Some of this can be explained by the testing waiver Montana received from the feds, which allowed schools participating in the state’s assessment pilot to forgo the annual assessment.
[2] A large number of eighth graders in New York take a high school level exam in lieu of the 8th grade test, but even so, the participation rate for eighth graders in the aggregate is far below the 95 percent threshold.