The Daily Howler - 11/02/05

MAKING SCHOOLS (SEEM TO) WORK! Hedrick Smith makes “enormous” claims. But do his claims actually work? // link // print // previous // next //

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2005

WINERIP DOES IT AGAIN: Michael Winerip does it again in today’s New York Times. He helps us lay out two basic points about state-run testing programs:

State-run tests are sometimes “easy:” Many states run testing programs which report the number of kids who are “proficient” on a given grade level. But “proficiency” is in the eye of the beholder; a state can set the bar for “proficiency” as high or as low as it wants. How “easy” are some state-run programs? Winerip notes the contrast between results on some state-run programs and results on the federally-administered NAEP (the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as “The Nation’s Report Card”):

WINERIP (11/2/05): Take Florida, where 30 percent of fourth graders were proficient in reading on this federal test in 2005. Yet on the Florida state test, 71 percent of fourth graders were proficient in reading in 2005. It's a big difference: Are nearly three-quarters of your fourth graders proficient? Or less than a third? And it's typical.

As Winerip notes, the gap is similar in New York—and even wider in Tennessee. Where do you set the bar for “proficiency?” That is always a matter of judgment—and states can set it as low as they want. Citizens need to keep this in mind when they get pleasing scores from a state-run program. Why, other journalists might even consider this point—if it isn’t too taxing, too boring, too depressing, too awkward or just too much trouble, of course.