The “Honesty Gap” is the discrepancy between what a state and
the National Assessment on Educational Progress (NAEP) each consider to be “proficient.”
With academic recovery efforts stalled and policymakers sidestepping school accountability, lowering student expectations becomes an easy way to project success. Holding the bar high is far less appealing.
The warning signs are clear. More states are lowering proficiency “cut scores” on their annual statewide assessments, obscuring student progress—or lack thereof.
The adage of ‘if it looks too good to be true, it probably is’ applies here. States that lower proficiency standards may show exaggerated gains on Assessment HQ To understand whether this is – or is not – the case, we utilized the new NAEP results released on January 29, 2025, along with our database of statewide summative assessment data for the 2023-24 school year to create the chart below.
Notes:
The Honesty Gap highlights major discrepancies between state-reported student proficiency rates and those set by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Unfortunately, the language states use to communicate with parents and education stakeholders often obscures these differences. Some policy experts and advocates argue that the Honesty Gap still gives states too much credit.
Florida
Florida’s “Proficient” standard is more aligned with NAEP than its “On Grade Level” benchmark. However, Florida uses “On Grade Level”—a lower threshold—for school accountability and public reporting, whereas most states use “Proficient.” To maintain consistency with the Honesty Gap’s original methodology, we compare Florida’s “Proficient” level and above to NAEP “Proficient” and above. If we compared NAEP proficiency to “On Grade Level,” Florida’s Honesty Gap would be significantly wider.
North Carolina
North Carolina defines proficiency as “College and Career Ready,” but also reports an “On Grade Level” category, which represents a lower standard. As with Florida, we compare what North Carolina deems as “proficient” and above to NAEP “Proficient” and above to remain consistent with the Honesty Gap’s original methodology. If we compared NAEP proficiency to “On Grade Level,” North Carolina’s Honesty Gap would be much larger.
“Inverse” Honesty Gaps:
For grades and subjects where states have an “inverse” Honesty Gap (i.e., the state-reported proficiency rate is lower than NAEP’s), additional context may be necessary.
For example, in New Jersey, many of the state’s 8th graders take Algebra or Geometry and are assessed in those subjects rather than the standard 8th grade math test. As a result, the state’s proficiency rate reflects only a subset of students who take the 8th grade math assessment.
Feb. 24th Update:
The 2024 Honesty Gap snapshot has been updated to replicate the approach of the original Honesty Gap published in 2015, which considered both proficient and advanced scores when determining state results. The adjustment narrowed several Honesty Gaps, and ensures a more comprehensive, transparent picture of student performance across states while holding strong on the main point that many state proficiency expectations continue to vary widely from NAEP’s rigorous national benchmark.