States' student tests set low bar, Education Department says
By: Leah Fabel
Examiner Staff Writer
November 3, 2009
Maryland and Virginia are setting the bar too low in measuring their students' success, according to the Department of Education.
Some of the standards used by the two states to determine student success are significantly lower than the expectations set by the Department of Education, even as both states score well on national tests.
In fourth-grade reading, both states were among 31 nationwide that were deemed to have set a standard of "proficient" lower than the federal standard for "basic," using 2007 data. Typically, students' standardized test scores are organized into three categories: basic, proficient and advanced. Too many students scoring at the "basic" level can mean trouble for schools under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Maryland also had standards lower than "basic" for fourth-grade math. At the eighth-grade level, Virginia's standards were lower for both reading and math, while Maryland's were closer to the target range.
The study also showed that changes made to Virginia's tests between 2005 and 2007 resulted in a less rigorous reading exam but a more stringent math exam. The District of Columbia's standardized testing was not included in the 47-state analysis.
The news came as part of a study by the federal National Center for Education Statistics. The center compared state tests, used to determine compliance with No Child Left Behind, with the National Assessment of Educational Progress, an annual test given to a sampling of U.S. students.
By 2014, all states are required to have students at the "proficient" level, leading some analysts to worry that states have quietly eased their measures of proficiency.
Maryland and Virginia education officials rushed to defend their schools and tests by pointing out that their students consistently score higher than the students in most states on NAEP exams. The most recent NAEP results, released in early October, showed both states in the top eight in the nation for fourth- and eighth-grade math scores. Reading results are released at a later date.
"This study has been wildly misinterpreted," said Bill Reinhard, spokesman for the Maryland State Department of Education. "It's an alignment study. All it says is that our fourth-grade tests are different from the NAEP fourth-grade tests."
Charles Pyle, spokesman for Virginia's Department of Education, said the NAEP tests measured "where we'd like for students to be," while the Virginia standardized tests measured the minimum level of acceptability for "accountability purposes."
"These are assessments that serve very different purposes," Pyle said.
