Nancy Kober, Naomi Chudowsky, Victor Chudowsky
Center on Education Policy
June 2008
The Center on Education Policy's latest report gives a decisive "yes" to the question in its title. Using state test and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data since the implementation of NCLB, CEP found upward trends in reading and math in lots of states and plenty of evidence of a narrowing achievement gap. The percentage of students reaching proficiency in math made "moderate-to-large" gains in 21 states at the elementary level and in 22 states at the middle-school level. High-school gains were fewer: just twelve jurisdictions. Reading achievement was similar but not weaker, with 17 states bettering their performance at the elementary level and eight at the high school level. Of course, a lot of states aren't making any statistically significant gains and progress on NAEP tends to be much more modest than on state tests. CEP also offers possible explanations for the trends it found, the most notable of which is that "subtle manipulations" may have been made in test design (e.g. easier questions, changing proportions of hard and easy questions, different blends of sub-topics covered). We reacted similarly two weeks ago when New York reported sudden dramatic gains in its test scores. Evidence continues to arrive that state results are better on the state's own tests. Unfortunately, changes in test design are hard to document and vary from state-to-state (a problem explored in our Proficiency Illusion report). Here's another concern: "proficiency" is defined at such a low level in so many states (also explored in the Proficiency Illusion) that "increasing student achievement" often amounts to getting more kids over a very low bar. It certainly doesn't mean that the broad student population is making progress--not to mention students at the top. CEP's report does show signs of "progress," but let's acknowledge the limits of that good news.