Northwest Education

Fall 2006 / Volume 12, Number 1.

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region at a glance

The Different Meanings of Proficiency By Richard Greenough

“Proficiency” is readily mistaken as a purely objective phenomenon. On close examination, though, it is clear that it’s a question of great subjectivity. This is amply demonstrated by the accompanying charts that present national and state standards-based testing results for reading in 2005 in the five Northwest states.

The same students are two to three times more likely to be judged “proficient” on state standards-based tests as on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), a national standards-based exam. This discrepancy occurs because of choices made in the content being tested, the difficulty of the test items, and the setting of cut scores. While there are ways of ensuring consistency, reliability, and precision within a single state’s standards-based system, there is little reason to expect similar proficiency rates when comparing one state’s results to another’s or to the NAEP results for the same students.

Given this background, it is almost surprising that there isn’t more variation among the Northwest states on their state standards-based assessment results. While the NAEP spreads are comparable to those on the state exams, there seems to be a surprising inverse correlation: In grade 8 reading, the three Northwest states with the lowest proficiency rates on state exams had the highest proficiency rates on the NAEP. Similarly, in grade 4 reading, the Northwest state with the lowest rate on its state assessment tied for the highest proficiency rate on the NAEP.