National School Testing Urged

Jay Matthews:

Many states, including Maryland and Virginia, are reporting student proficiency rates so much higher than what the most respected national measure has found that several influential education experts are calling for a move toward a national testing system.

A recent study by Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, found that states regularly inflate student achievement. In 12 states studied, the percentage of fourth-graders proficient in reading climbed by nearly two percentage points a year, on average.

Kevin Carey [Ed Sector, Hot Air: How States Inflate Their Educational Progress Under NCLB] and the Fordham Foundation have criticized Wisconsin's state standards.

Andrew Rotherham has more:

Sherman Dorn weighs-in on Jay Mathews much chattered about Sunday front page Washington Post splash on national standards. Sherman raises the issue of cut scores on tests. This recent ES Explainer looks at that issue, which doesn't get the attention it should.

What I think is unfortunate is that Mathews' article has set off something of a false debate, namely about whether all these people who support using NAEP as a national test are right or wrong. Thing is, the Fordham report (pdf) looked at a multiple routes to national standards including my favored route of common standards developed by the states themselves. I actually think using the NAEP for this is a lousy idea and that the states are not going to enforce anyone else's standards anyway, hell they mostly won't enforce their own now under No Child. Worth reading the entire report not just the clips.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 3, 2006 6:29 AM
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