In the midst of the school-funding battle here in the Buckeye State, it is easy to lose sight of the other major education reforms on Governor Strickland's agenda, including revamping the state's academic standards and assessments. The governor says the revisions are necessary in order to incorporate the teaching of "21st century skills" in Ohio's classrooms. I don't agree, but I also don't think it matters much what Ohio's schools are expected to teach or students are expected to learn if the bar by which we judge student and school performance isn't raised.????
Ohio's low cut scores on our state reading and math tests were brought to light in 2007's The Proficiency Illusion, and an Education Trust report out last month highlighted the gap between proficiency levels on Ohio's state achievement tests and the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Akron Beacon Journal columnist Laura Ofobike picked up on EdTrust's findings today:
Are we basking in an illusion of progress under the state assessments? Is the achievement bar set high enough that our students can match up outside Ohio? Draw your own conclusions. Here's what the state report showed, comparing proficiency rates on the Ohio tests against the National Assessment of Educational Progress, considered the nation's standardized tests:
On the NAEP reading test in 2007, 36 percent of Ohio fourth-graders rated proficient or better--a far cry from the 80 percent proficiency rate recorded by fourth-graders on the state reading test.
Turn to the eighth-grade math test, and the NAEP results are no less distressing: 36 percent proficient or better, while the state test showed 72 percent proficient or better.
Poke deeper, and the gaps in scores among student groups would make a legislator weep. The Ohio reading test indicated 43 percent of African-American fourth-graders were below profiency. The NAEP test showed 87 percent were not proficient. For Latino students, 32 percent were not proficient at the state level; the NAEP figure was 79 percent. And for white students, the difference was 15 percent not proficient on the state test versus 58 percent on the NAEP test.
Similarly wide margins were evident between the Ohio Achievement Test and NAEP in eighth-grade math proficiency. For each group of students, the national assessment showed significantly fewer students achieving proficiency levels than the state tests would lead anyone to believe.
If the national tests represent the expected standard for American students, then clearly we are doing children here a huge disservice by using yardsticks that serve only to make us feel good.
