LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas’ Benchmark Exams in fourth- and eighth-grade math and literacy rank in the top half of the nation in difficulty compared with other states’ tests, a new federal study shows.
But what is considered “proficient” on most states’ exams, including Arkansas’, falls below the federal standard for proficiency.
“Today’s study confirms what we’ve known for a long time,” U.S. Secretaryof Education Arne Duncan said in a prepared statement Thursday. “States are setting the bar too low.”
The National Center for Education Statistics, an arm of the U.S. Department of Education, assessed states’ tests using 2005 and 2007 results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a national exam nicknamed the Nation’s Report Card.
In the study released Thursday, the federal agency converted or “mapped” each state standard for proficient achievement on those tests to a common scale - that used on the 2005 and 2007 national assessment.
The use of the common scale allows state-to-state comparisons of proficiency standards on annual statecreated tests mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2002.
The law calls for all students to score at a “proficient” level or their appropriate grade level on the state tests by 2013-14. Each state develops its own tests and sets its own achievement requirements.
Duncan said the federal study makes a case for establishing a common set of education standards across the nation. The study also shows the need for effective teachers in every classroom, data systems that will enable teachers to track student progress and tests that are an accurate measure of achievement, he said.
“In all but a few cases, states aren’t expecting students to meet NAEP’s standard of proficiency. Far too many states are telling students that they are proficient when they actually are performing below NAEP’s basic level. At a time when we should be raising standards to compete in the global economy, more states are lowering the bar than raising it.”
The head of the federal Education Department’s Institute of Education Sciences said the biggest concern should be the wide disparity in standards among the states. A student who is proficient in one state might not be proficient in another, the report said.
“Why are these performance standards so far apart, and why are expectations set so widely from one place to another?” John Easton, director of the Institute of Education Sciences told The Associated Press.
The federal analysis shows that Arkansas’ proficient scores, when converted to the national scale, fell in 2007 when compared with the converted scores in 2005, although there was little change in the Arkansas tests.
Julie Johnson Thompson, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Education, attributed that to the fact that Arkansas results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress have been flat in recent years while the results improved on the state exams.
The national assessment is given every two years to a representative sample of students in every state.
“We keep going up every year with the percent of students who are proficient on our Benchmark Exams,” Thompson said. “We are very proud of that. Our teachers do teach toward our [education standards]. In the past, the Benchmark and NAEP results were more equivalent. We haven’t made the same increases on the NAEP exam. We’ve stayed relatively flat.”
Thompson said Arkansas Department of Education officials agree with Duncan about the need for a common set of rigorous education standards across the country as a way to raise student achievement.
“We do believe it is important for there to be common standards and common measurement. That is one of the reasons we were one of the first states to sign on to the national standards movement, and we are still participating in that effort,” she said.
In 2007, a “proficient” score on the fourth-grade reading exam in Arkansas was the equivalent of a score of 213 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
On the Arkansas test, a proficient score is meant to indicate that a student is achieving at his appropriate grade level.
On the other hand, proficient is defined on the national assessment as “competency over challenging subject matter, not grade-levelperformance.” And “basic is defined as partial mastery of the skills necessary for proficient performance.”
Arkansas’ converted score for fourth-grade reading was the seventh-highest equivalent score in the country, but still it was below the national assessment’s minimum proficient score of 238. A basic score on the national assessment was 208.
In eighth-grade reading, Arkansas’ proficient score was the equivalent of 249 on the national assessment, short of the 281 considered proficient on the assessment. The Arkansas score ranked 22nd in the nation.
Missouri, Minnesota and South Carolina were among the states with the most difficult standards for proficiency at both grade levels, according to the analysis.
Several states had proficient-equivalent scores that were lower than the national assessment’s threshold for a “basic” level of achievement. At fourth and eighth grades, Mississippi and Tennessee had the least difficult standards, the study showed. Other states were Oklahoma, Alabama, Illinois and Georgia.
In fourth-grade math, Arkansas’ proficient score was the equivalent of 229, short of the 249 considered proficient on the national assessment but better than the 214 basic score on the assessment. The Arkansas score ranked 15th in the nation.
In eighth-grade math, Arkansas’ proficient score was the equivalent to a score of 277 on the national assessment compared with the score of 299 deemed proficient on the assessment. A score of 262 is the minimum basic score on the assessment. Arkansas ranked 17th among the states.
Massachusetts, Missouri, South Carolina and Washington were among the states with the most difficult state proficiency standards at both fourth and eighth grades. Tennessee was again the state with the least difficult standards.
Arkansas’ equivalent scores fell from 236 to 229 in fourth grade math between 2005 and 2007, and from 288 to 277 in eighth grade math. In fourth grade reading, the equivalent score dropped from 217 to 213 and at the eighth grade, from 254 to 249.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 10/30/2009