December 19, 2006

What Do We Know about NAEP Performance Standards?

The following is an excerpt of a report which can be found at: http://www.weac.org/Resource/2006-07/NAEP

Education Week reported that the U.S. Department of Education will conduct a comparative study of what it means to score proficient or advanced on state tests compared with tests administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).


The NAEP Standards
For several years Gerald Bracey (Where are the Standards?) has criticized NAEP's standards by calling attention to the following evidence:

  • In the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, U.S. students ranked third among all countries participating, yet fewer than one-third of U.S. fourth graders were proficient or advanced on NAEP.

  • Likewise, on the 2002 reading assessment U.S. third graders finished 2nd in the world, yet only 31% scored proficient or advanced on NAEP

    Bracey maintains that we should be asking why is it that U.S. elementary level students do so well on international assessments, yet only one-third of them are judged proficient or advanced by NAEP.

    Bracey is not the only critic. NAEP also has been severely criticized by the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and other testing and measurement experts. In particular, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) says:

    NAEP's standards [are] fundamentally flawed. . . producing unreasonable results. Further, the NAS concludes that the judgment tasks are . . . difficult and confusing; raters judgments of different item types are internally inconsistent; appropriate validity evidence for the cut scores is lacking; and the process has produced unreasonable results.

    The most compelling evidence that something may be wrong with NAEP's standards comes from the National Assessment Government Board itself. It states on its own web site that its standards should be used on a trial basis with caution until the Commissioner of Education Statistics determines that the achievement levels are reasonable, valid, and informative to the public (The Status of Achievement Levels).

    The National Assessment Governing Board was directed by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 to come up with an alternative. To date, this has not been done (confirmed in an e-mail sent on September 22, 2006 from Susan Loomis, representative of the National Assessment Governing Board, to Russ Allen, WEAC).

    Watch for the results of the study by the U.S. Department of Education. The report is due in Spring, 2007.


    • Upcoming Events 2007:

    January
    13, Substitute Teacher Training Seminar at CESA #2

    24, ETS Pathwise Introduction to the Framework at CESA #2

    February
    10, Substitute Teacher Training Seminar at CESA #2

    16, Paraeducator Workshop, Western WI Ed. Conference at UW-LaCrosse

    16 & 23, Pathwise Framework Observation Program at CESA #2

    22-23 Paraeducator Workshop, Para & Teacher Ed. Conference at UW-Oshkosh

    March
    2-4, WEAC Winter Conference, Milwaukee

    9, Paraeducator Workshop, North WI Ed. Conference at UW-Green Bay

    10, Substitute Teacher Training Seminar at CESA #2

    Now Available!

    Online Classroom Management Course
    Join other educators who are participating in the WEA Professional Development Academy's newest online class. This is a convenient opportunity to learn more about motivating students, setting up an effective classroom environment, dealing with discipline and more, this class can be taken on a non-credit basis or for 1 or 2 grad credits through Cardinal Stritch University. For more information on the class and to sign up, go to: PDA Learning
    Questions about the class can be directed to Debra Berndt, Academy Director.



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