After common core, states set rigorous standards: forty-five states raise the student proficiency bar.
Peterson, Paul E. ; Barrows, Samuel ; Gift, Thomas 等
IN SPITE OF TEA PARTY CRITICISM, union skepticism, and anti-testing
outcries, the campaign to implement Common Core State Standards
(otherwise known as Common Core) has achieved phenomenal success in
statehouses across the country. Since 2011, 45 states have raised their
standards for student proficiency in reading and math, with the greatest
gains occurring between 2013 and 2015. Most states set only mediocre
expectations for students for nearly 10 years after the passage of the
federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Now, in the wake of the Common
Core campaign, a majority of states have made a dramatic move forward.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Common Core State Standards
In 2009, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School
Officers formed a consortium that established Common Core. Put simply,
the standards outlined what students should know and be able to
accomplish at each grade level in reading and math.
Eventually, 43 states and the District of Columbia fully adopted
Common Core, while one other state, Minnesota, adopted only the reading
standards. Although much of the debate surrounding Common Core has
focused on the nature of the curriculum for each grade level, proponents
have also sought to raise the proficiency level on tests that assess
student learning. In fact, one of the consortium's central goals
has been to encourage states to set their proficiency standards on par
with those set internationally.
To motivate states to adopt Common Core standards, the U.S.
Department of Education provided incentives in 2009 via its Race to the
Top initiative. The department announced a competition that would award
grants totaling more than $4.3 billion to states that proposed to
undertake reforms drawn from an extensive list provided by the
department. Adopting "college-and-career-ready" standards was
among the recommended reforms. All but four states submitted Race to the
Top proposals, and 18 states and the District of Columbia received
awards.
Subsequently, the Department of Education further encouraged states
to adopt Common Core by offering waivers from NCLB requirements, which
many states had found increasingly onerous, in exchange for pursuing
department-approved alternatives similar to those suggested as part of
Race to the Top.
The priority given to Common Core by both Race to the Top and the
waiver program provoked outcry among some conservatives, who feared that
the national standards would both undermine local control of schools and
lower expectations for students. "The Common Core national math
standards are not 'internationally benchmarked,'... not world
class and competitive with the best... and not 'second to
none' (though advertised as such when announced)," testified
Hoover Institution researcher Williamson Evers before the Ohio
legislature. Similarly, Jamie Gass at the Pioneer Institute in Boston
declared, "Common Core is dumbed down."
Meanwhile, teachers unions also expressed trepidation that Common
Core standards would be used to assess teachers, especially since
test-based evaluations of teachers ranked high on the Race to the Top
agenda. The District of Columbia Public Schools, for example, had
introduced such evaluations over heavy union opposition, and teachers
unions across the country mobilized against accountability systems that
leveraged statewide tests as a basis for evaluating their members.
With opposition mounting in both liberal and conservative circles,
support for Common Core slipped significantly among the public at large,
casting doubt on its very viability. But despite staunch political
dissent, a careful look at proficiency standards reveals that most
states have delivered on their commitments to tighten them.
Measuring State Proficiency Standards
Beginning in 2005, Education Next has published the grades given to
state proficiency standards on an A-to-F scale designed by researchers
in the Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) at Harvard
University. In 2005, only six states received an "A," while
just three states earned this distinction as recently as 2011. In 2015,
however, 24 of the 49 states (including the District of Columbia) for
which data were available as of mid-January 2016 earned an
"A." Meanwhile, the number of states receiving a "D"
or an "F" has dwindled from 17 and 13 in 2005 and 2011,
respectively, to a grand total of 1 in 2015 (See Figure 1). In short,
state standards have suddenly skyrocketed.
State proficiency standards were initially required when Congress
passed NCLB in 2002. Under that law and continuing under its successor,
the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the U.S. Department of Education
has required states to test students in math and reading in grades 3
through 8 and again in high school. States must also set the performance
level that students must reach on the exams to be identified as
"proficient." States report proficiency rates for each school
as well as for the state as a whole. Importantly, each state chooses its
own tests and establishes its own proficiency bar.
Federal law also mandates the periodic administration of tests in
selected subjects to a representative sample of students in 4th and 8th
grade as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP),
often called "the nation's report card." The performance
levels that the NAEP deems as proficient are roughly equivalent to those
set by international organizations that estimate student proficiency
worldwide.
Data from both the NAEP and state tests allow for periodic
assessments of the rigor of each state's proficiency standards. If
the percentage of students identified as proficient in any given year is
essentially the same for both the NAEP and the state exams, we can infer
that the state has established as strict a proficiency standard as that
of the NAEP. But if the state identifies a higher percentage of students
as proficient than the NAEP, we can conclude that the state has set its
proficiency bar lower than that of the NAEP.
To be clear, high proficiency standards do not necessarily reflect
high student performance. Rather, good grades suggest that states are
setting a high proficiency bar--that students must perform at a high
level to be deemed proficient in a given subject at their grade level.
Grades gauge "truth in advertising" by indicating the degree
to which states inform parents of how well their students are doing on
an internationally accepted scale.
Dramatic Rise in Standards
Education Next has evaluated the rigor of state proficiency
standards each time results from both state and NAEP tests have been
available for the same year. This is the seventh in a series of reports
that grade state proficiency standards on the traditional A-to-F scale
(see educationnext.org/edfacts for a complete list of these reports).
Each state earns a grade according to the size of the difference between
the percentages of students identified as proficient by state and by
NAEP exams in 4th- and 8th-grade math and reading.
Previous reports (most recently "States Raise Proficiency
Standards in Math and Reading," features, Summer 2015) show that
states, on average, established proficiency bench-marks that were much
lower than those set by the NAEP and that state standards varied widely.
Furthermore, prior reports revealed that until 2011, states did not
markedly increase their proficiency standards nor did the variation
among the states narrow. If anything, trends drifted in the opposite
direction.
In Table 1, we report a grade for each state for each of four tests
(4th-grade math, 4th-grade reading, 8th-grade math, and 8th-grade
reading). An average of the underlying scores generating these grades
determines the overall grade for the state. (The differences between
state and NAEP proficiency rates, as well as the changes in state
standards over time, are shown in an interactive graphic available at
educationnext.org/edfacts). Table 1 also shows changes in standards over
three time periods: a) 2013-2015, b) 2011-2015, and c) 2005-2015.
The results are striking: The last two years have witnessed the
largest jump in state standards since they were established as part of
the federal accountability program. Overall, 36 states have strengthened
their standards since 2013, while just 5 have loosened them, and 7 have
left their standards essentially unchanged. In short, the Common Core
consortium has achieved one of its key policy objectives: the raising of
state proficiency standards throughout much of the United States.
Even more remarkable is that states are earning higher grades even
though it was harder to get an "A" in 2015 than ever before.
Education Next grades the individual states on a "curve" that
includes all observations from all years dating back to 2003. Until now,
state standards had changed so slightly from one year to the next that
the curve made little difference. Yet so many states raised their
standards before the 2015 administration of state tests that every state
in every year is being evaluated on a tougher scale. As a result, some
states that, for example, obtained an "A" in previous studies
have been downgraded to a "B+" in 2015.
The table and the interactive graphic on the Education Next website
display the grades under the tougher grading system that has evolved
because so many states have raised their standards. In the text,
however, we refer to grades as originally earned in prior years. This
yields slight discrepancies between the two metrics (see sidebar,
"Grading the States"). Note that the curve does not affect the
estimates of the percentage difference in state and NAEP proficiency
standards reported in the three right-hand columns of Table 1. These
columns reveal the exact estimate of the change in proficiency standards
for all states for which data are available.
One should keep in mind that participation rates can affect our
estimates. Proficiency standards may appear more rigorous than they
actually are if lower-performing students are more likely to participate
in state testing, but less rigorous if higher-performing students are
more likely to participate (assuming that NAEP samples are
representative of all students). In 2015, advocates sought to persuade
parents in a number of states--including New Jersey, New York, Illinois,
Colorado, and California--to "opt out" of statewide tests. The
opt-out movement seems to have been particularly successful with high
school students. New Jersey, for example, reports that its highest
nonparticipation rates occur among juniors in high school. Our estimates
are based on the performances of 4th and 8th graders, making them less
susceptible to bias from opt-out activity. We are currently unable to
estimate patterns of participation in the opt-out effort, but to the
extent that many students who opted out were potential high scorers,
proficiency standards may be lower than our calculations suggest.
Reaching for an "A"
In 2015,24 of 49 states (including the District of Columbia) earned
an "A" grade. Since 2013, the average difference between NAEP
and state proficiency levels has plummeted from 29 percent to 11
percent, representing a dramatic improvement over the previous two-year
period (2011-2013), in which the difference dropped only 6 percentage
points, from 35 percent to 29 percent (see Figure 2). Clearly, states
are tightening standards more than ever since NCLB took effect. As
mentioned earlier, no fewer than 36 states have raised their proficiency
standards over the past two years, while just 5 relaxed them. Forty-five
states have boosted their standards since 2011.
In 2015, the following 24 states earned an "A" grade:
Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia,
Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana,
New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, and Vermont. In 2013,
nine states earned an "A," but of these, only New York,
Pennsylvania, and Utah remain in the elite group in 2015. The standards
for five of the other six high scorers from 2013--Kentucky,
Massachusetts, Missouri, North Carolina, and Tennessee--are among those
that slipped in 2015. North Carolina, however, is the only state where
the downslide (12.1 percentage points) exceeds 5 percentage points.
The slippage in Massachusetts suggests the importance of viewing
proficiency standards in context. In 2015, the state allowed local
school districts to choose between the established test, the
Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), or a newly
developed test from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for
College and Careers, dubbed the PARCC. To preserve continuity with prior
testing, we report results for the MCAS. The percentage of 8th graders
identified as proficient on the MCAS, however, is much higher than the
percentage identified as proficient on the PARCC. This could be because
PARCC standards are higher, or it may simply be that a greater number of
high-performing districts chose to retain the MCAS. The state department
of education promises to provide more specific information on the
students taking the two tests.
The lowest grade, a "D+," goes to Texas. Four years ago,
the Texas Department of Education promised to set in place a staircase
that would result in gradual increases in the state's standards.
The Texas commissioner of education at that time, Michael Williams, said
the "approach is intended to minimize any abrupt single-year
increase in the required ... standard for this school year and in the
future." By 2015, however, Texas had yet to move beyond the first
step of the stairs, though it promises to do so in 2016. According to
officials, the purpose of the delay was to give teachers and students
sufficient time to adjust to more-rigorous standards.
State Standards Converge
Not only have standards risen across the country, but the
differences in standards among the states narrowed considerably between
2013 and 2015. Figure 3 shows the distribution of the states according
to how much they vary from NAEP on the proficiency standard. The 2013
distribution varies widely, while the 2015 distribution is clustered
around the NAEP standard. In 2015, the range between the highest- and
the lowest-performing state was less than 50 percentage points, as
compared to nearly 65 percentage points in 2013. Even more impressive,
nearly 80 percent of the states' proficiency rates are within 15
percentage points of the NAEP rates, with only one state possessing an
average proficiency rate differing from the NAEP standard by more than
40 percentage points. By comparison, 25 percent of states differed from
NAEP by more than 40 percentage points in 2013.
Race to the Top
The rise in standards between 2013 and 2015 is not concentrated
among states that received Race to the Top awards. We do not find that
Race to the Top grant winners raised their standards more than other
states (results not shown). This does not necessarily mean that Race to
the Top was ineffective, however, as the remaining states later came
under similar federal encouragement to raise standards when they sought
waivers from NCLB requirements.
Not There Yet
Although the overwhelming majority of states have established
standards that approximate international benchmarks, and no state set
standards so low as to receive an "F" grade, seven states did
earn a grade in the "C" range, and one a "D+,"
indicating a substantial divergence from the NAEP. Although proficiency
standards have climbed overall, an average difference of 10 percentage
points remains between the state proficiency levels and the
corresponding NAEP proficiency levels. Additionally, two states--Florida
and Wisconsin--had yet to report test-score performances at the time the
data for this report were prepared.
[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]
Since the inception of NCLB, the introduction of higher proficiency
standards has been fraught with political controversy. With a rising
proficiency bar, student performance appears lower even when it is the
bar itself--not student performance--that has changed. Indeed,
controversy rocked Florida and New York, two of the first states to
raise their proficiency bars after 2011. Amid the furor, the state
education commissioner in Florida resigned, and in New York, the tougher
standards fueled the parental opt-out movement.
Such political storms might be avoided in the future because states
no longer need to comply with many NCLB provisions. With the passage of
ESSA, which has eliminated NCLB sanctions for most schools, states find
themselves under less pressure to set lax proficiency standards.
Previously, districts had strong incentives to resist high proficiency
standards, as they feared their schools might be subject to increasingly
severe penalties for not producing improved test results. Because most
schools no longer need to worry about sanctions, the waivers from NCLB
and the subsequent passage of ESSA may facilitate the increasing rigor
of state standards.
If Common Core works as its proponents expect, higher proficiency
standards could propel schools to achieve at more impressive levels and
thus raise the nation's ranking on international tests. Of course,
it is imperative that parents, teachers, administrators, and
policymakers recognize the low levels of student proficiency now being
identified in most states as a serious warning that action is needed.
Otherwise, raising the proficiency bars will be for naught. Still, it is
a hopeful sign that standards have moved in the right direction. If
student performance shifts upward in tandem, it will signal a
long-awaited enhancement in the quality of American schools.
by PAUL E. PETERSON, SAMUEL BARROWS, and THOMAS GIFT
Paul E. Peterson, editor-in-chief of Education Next, is professor
of government and director of the Program on Education Policy and
Governance at the Harvard Kennedy School, where Samuel Barrows and
Thomas Gift are postdoctoral fellows.
GRADING THE STATES
IN EACH OF SEVEN YEARS (2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, and
2015), 4th- and 8th-grade students have taken both state and NAEP tests
in math and reading. The grades reported here are based on a comparison
of state and NAEP scores in 2015. For each available test, we computed
the difference between the percentage of students said to be proficient
on the NAEP and the percentage reported to be proficient on the
state's own tests for the same year. We also computed the standard
deviation of this difference. We then determined how many standard
deviations each state's difference was above or below the average
difference of all observations in the seven years on each test.
The scale for the state grades was set so that if marks had been
randomly assigned and were in a normal distribution for all grades given
in all seven years, 10 percent of the states would earn an A, 20 percent
would earn a B, 40 percent a C, 20 percent a D, and 10 percent an F. The
mark given to each state is based on how much easier it is to be labeled
proficient on the state assessment than on the NAEP. For example, on the
4th-grade math test in 2015, Idaho reported that 43 percent of its
students had achieved at the proficient level, but only 38 percent were
identified as proficient on the NAEP, earning the state a grade of B+.
The grade of B+ is based on the fact that Idaho's difference in
4th-grade math (43 percent - 38 percent = 5 percentage points) is 1.3
standard deviations better than the average difference between the state
and NAEP tests over the seven years for all states on 4th-grade math.
That average difference is 27 percentage points.
We do not reguire the meeting of any stipulated cutoff in the
differences with the NAEP to award a specific grade. Instead, we rank
states against each other in accordance with their current position in
the distribution of differences over all seven years. Because results
from 2015 are employed in calculating the average and standard deviation
for all observations, the grades for earlier years may change from those
assigned in previous reports.
When the U.S. Department of Education used an alternative method to
estimate the 2007 state proficiency standards, its results correlated
with the Education Next results at the 0.85 level (see Paul E. Peterson,
"A Year Late and a Million (?) Dollars Long-the U.S. Proficiency
Standards Report," Education Next Blog, August 22, 2011).
Rigor of State Proficiency Standards (Table 1)
Standards have strengthened in the majority of states over time, and
roughly half of the states received a grade of "A "for their standards
in 2015.
Strength of state
proficiency standards 2015
4th grade 8th grade
Rank State Math Reading Math Reading
1 Rhode Island A A A A
2 Colorado A A A A
3 Maryland A A A A
4 New Mexico A A A A
5 Arkansas A A A A
6 New Jersey A A A A
7 Kansas A B A A
8 North Dakota A A A A
9 New York B+ A A A
10 District of Columbia A A A A
11 Illinois A A A A
12 Montana A A A A
13 Alaska A A A A
14 Vermont A A A A
15 Utah B+ A B+ A
16 Mississippi A A B+ A
17 New Hampshire A A A A
18 Arizona A A A A
19 Maine A A A A
20 Georgia A A B A
21 Connecticut A A A A
22 Pennsylvania A B+ A B
23 South Dakota B+ A B+ A
24 Idaho B+ A B+ B+
25 Nevada B A A B
26 West Virginia A B+ B + B+
27 California B+ A B+ B
28 Massachusetts A A B C
29 Michigan B+ B B+ B+
30 Louisiana A A B- B+
31 Washington B+ B+ B+ B
32 Wyoming A B B- B +
33 Delaware B B+ B+ B+
34 Oregon B+ B+ B B
35 Kentucky B+ A C+ B+
36 Tennessee B A C+ B+
37 Alabama C+ A B B
38 Hawaii B B B B
39 Minnesota B- B B B+
40 Missouri B B B B
41 North Carolina B B B B-
42 Indiana B- C+ B- C+
43 South Carolina B C B + D+
44 Ohio C+ C B- C
45 Nebraska C- C- C- C-
46 Virginia D+ C D+ C-
47 Oklahoma C- C C- D+
48 Iowa C- C D+ C-
49 Texas C C- D D
Florida
Wisconsin
Overall averages
by year
Rank State 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015
1 Rhode Island B C+ C C C C A
2 Colorado D D- C+ C+ B- B- A
3 Maryland B- C- C- D+ C- C A
4 New Mexico C+ C+ C C+ C+ A
5 Arkansas C+ B- C D+ D D A
6 New Jersey C C- C C C C+ A
7 Kansas C D+ C- D D D+ A
8 North Dakota C C- C- C- C- C A
9 New York C+ C C D+ C+ A A
10 District of Columbia C C C C C- A
11 Illinois C c D- D D- C+ A
12 Montana C- C C C C C A
13 Alaska C- D D D D D+ A
14 Vermont B- B- C+ C+ A
15 Utah D+ D+ D+ A A
16 Mississippi D- D- D- C C- D+ A
17 New Hampshire C+ C+ C A C A
18 Arizona B D+ D+ D+ C- C- A
19 Maine A A C+ C C C A
20 Georgia D- F F F F F A
21 Connecticut C- C- C- C- D+ D+ A
22 Pennsylvania C C C C- C- A A
23 South Dakota C- D+ D+ c- D+ C- A
24 Idaho C- D D D- D- D- A
25 Nevada C C C C C B+
26 West Virginia F c B- B- B- B+
27 California B B- B- C C C B+
28 Massachusetts A A A A A A B+
29 Michigan C D+ D D- D- B- B+
30 Louisiana C- C- D+ D D D B+
31 Washington C+ C C+ C+ C+ B- B+
32 Wyoming A A C- C D+ C- B+
33 Delaware C C- D+ D+ C C- B+
34 Oregon C C- D+ C- C B
35 Kentucky B- C+ C C C B+ B
36 Tennessee F F F F B B B
37 Alabama D- F F F F B
38 Hawaii B+ B B C C C B
39 Minnesota C+ C+ C+ B C+ B
40 Missouri A A B+ B+ B B B
41 North Carolina D- F D C- D+ A B
42 Indiana C C- C- C- D+ D+ C+
43 South Carolina A A A D+ D+ D+ C+
44 Ohio C C C- C- D+ D+ C+
45 Nebraska D- F F C C- C-
46 Virginia C- D D- D C C C-
47 Oklahoma D- D- F C- D+ D C-
48 Iowa D+ D+ D C C- C-
49 Texas F D D- F F D+ D+
Florida C C C C C B
Wisconsin D D+ D+ D D+ A
Change in difference
between state
and NAEP
Rank State 2013-2015 2011-2015 2005-2015
1 Rhode Island 37.3 36.5 30.6
2 Colorado 27.6 27.7 55.6
3 Maryland 36.5 42.8 40.1
4 New Mexico 26.1 24.2 25.3
5 Arkansas 47.6 46.9 22.2
6 New Jersey 27.7 29.5 37.2
7 Kansas 42.9 37.2 41.2
8 North Dakota 35.2 37.5 36.9
9 New York -3.5 24.2 31.8
10 District of Columbia 35.8 31.1 29.9
11 Illinois 23.1 48.7 33.6
12 Montana 33.3 33.0 27.2
13 Alaska 40.6 41.2 41.5
14 Vermont 21.5 16.9 (*)
15 Utah -1.4 39.2 38.9
16 Mississippi 37.1 30.8 47.3
17 New Hampshire 23.2 18.2 18.7 (*)
18 Arizona 31.7 31.5 38.0
19 Maine 22.4 21.2 -2.0
20 Georgia 51.2 50.8 46.4
21 Connecticut 34.2 33.1 30.3
22 Pennsylvania -1.9 29.8 22.7
23 South Dakota 29.1 31.7 35.0
24 Idaho 40.4 41.4 39.1
25 Nevada 19.1 21.4 18.9
26 West Virginia 10.3 10.2 44.7
27 California 17.0 19.0 11.9
28 Massachusetts -2.6 -3.8 -12.2
29 Michigan 9.9 40.3 28.1
30 Louisiana 35.8 33.4 25.0
31 Washington 8.8 10.4 20.0
32 Wyoming 23.5 27.5 -7.0
33 Delaware 23.8 14.9 23.3
34 Oregon 17.4 25.5 16.7
35 Kentucky -4.1 20.3 11.4
36 Tennessee -0.1 0.6 47.4
37 Alabama 44.1 40.2 37.1
38 Hawaii 18.2 18.2 -1.4
39 Minnesota 7.8 6.3 8.7 (*)
40 Missouri -2.3 0.7 -15.2
41 North Carolina -12.1 24.5 38.1
42 Indiana 18.3 19.8 17.2
43 South Carolina 19.1 18.9 -20.7
44 Ohio 16.3 16.9 9.3
45 Nebraska -0.5 -3.1 14.5
46 Virginia -8.8 10.4 6.9
47 Oklahoma 0.4 4.1 13.2
48 Iowa -3.5 5.9 4.4
49 Texas -0.6 10.8 3.3
Florida
Wisconsin
(*) 2005 data are missing; change is calculated from 2007.
NOTE: A positive number indicates narrowing the difference between the
NAEP and state exams.
SOURCE: Authors' calculations based on NAEP and state exams
Charting the Dramatic Improvement in Standards
(Figure2)
The average difference between the percentages of students achieving
proficiency on NAEP and state tests decreased from 29 to 11 percentage
points nationwide.
Average difference between
NAEP and state
proficiency levels
2005 35
2007 36
2009 37
2011 35
2013 29
2015 11
NOTE: Figure starts with 2005 because many states did not participate
in 2003 accountability program.
SOURCE: Authors' calculations based on NAEP and state exams
Note: Table made from bar graph.
