The Atlanta Journal Constitution – Maureen Downey
“A new report by the national education advocacy group Achieve finds Georgia sets the lowest bar in the country for student proficiency in math and reading. The study compares the percentage of Georgia students scoring proficient on the CRCT in 2013-14 against those attaining a proficient level on the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress, better known as NAEP. Considered the gold standard, NAEP sets its bar for proficiency much higher than most states, but no state has as large and as consistent gaps across grades as Georgia. A national test given to select students in every state, NAEP is the only nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subject areas. Because students across the nation take the same NAEP assessment, state-to-state comparisons can be made. “Proficient” on NAEP means a student is performing at the top levels of what could be expected for the grade. The discrepancies between the performance of Georgia students on NAEP and the CRCT could be due to several factors. NAEP could too hard, although that wouldn’t explain why students in some states do well on it. It could be the CRCT is too easy or the cut score for proficiency is set too low in Georgia.”(more)