CEP Releases 50-State Report on Student Achievement
Thursday, July 16, 2009

Student achievement, as measured by state test results in reading and math, generally increased at all three achievement levels between 2002 and 2008.

Contact:  Chloe Louvouezo - 202.955.9450

Student achievement, as measured by state test results in reading and math, generally increased at all three achievement levels between 2002 and 2008, according to the recently released 50-state study by the Center on Education Policy (CEP).

The report updates CEP's previous research on overall achievement for students in grade 4, grade 8, and high school, and expands on its previous analysis of achievement for students reaching the proficient level by also examining trends for students reaching the advanced and the basic levels. The study analyzed test score trends, where available, since 2002, the year the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) took effect.

The study, titled State Test Score Trends Through 2007-08, Part I: Is the Emphasis on "Proficiency" Shortchanging Higher- and Lower-Achieving Students?, found more states showed gains than declines for students reaching or exceeding the basic, proficient, and advanced levels of achievement. The size of the gains were larger, on average, at the proficient level than at the other two achievement levels. However, this may be partly due to a test-related statistical issue: When average test scores go up, the percentage of students at the proficient level tends to grow faster than at the basic and advanced levels because more students' scores tend to be clustered near the proficient level.

The report looks into concerns that educators may be responding to federal and state accountability demands by disproportionately focusing their instruction on getting students to reach the proficient level. The CEP study, however, found no persuasive evidence that NCLB's focus on targeting the proficient level is shortchanging students performing at the other levels.

"If accountability policies were indeed shortchanging high- and low-achieving students, we would expect to see stagnation or decline at the basic and advanced levels," said Jack Jennings, CEP's president and CEO. "Instead, the percentages of students scoring at the basic-and-above and advanced levels have increased much more often than they have decreased, especially in the lower grades."

The study found that the number of students scoring below the basic level, the very lowest-performing group, has decreased in most states. In addition, the number of states that made gains at the basic-and-above level and the advanced level exceeded the number with declines in all subjects and grades.

Achievement also improved in most states at all grade levels but achievement at the high school level still lags behind elementary and middle school achievement. A smaller percentage of states made gains in reading and math at the high school level than at the lower two grades. There may be several reasons for the divergence in performance between students at the lower and higher grades, among them that it is more difficult to engage and motivate high school students and that high schools receive fewer federal resources.

More gains have been made in math than in reading, according to the report. The size of the percentage gains across all states was greater in math than in reading, data which is confirmed by the results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Although CEP collected test data from all 50 states, achievement trends were included in the report only for states with at least three years of comparable test data through 2007-08 for a particular subject, grade, and achievement level. A change in test results was considered to be a "trend" only if it was based on at least three years of data in order to account for yearly fluctuations in test scores that are unrelated to students' learning.

The report is accompanied by online achievement data profiles for each of the 50 states, as well as other CEP publications are available at www.cep-dc.org.

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Based in Washington, D.C., and founded in 1995, by Jack Jennings, the Center on Education Policy is a national independent advocate for public education and for more effective public schools. The Center works to help Americans better understand the role of public education in a democracy and the need to improve the academic quality of public schools. The Center does not represent special interests. Instead, it helps citizens make sense of conflicting opinions and perceptions about public education and create conditions that will lead to better public schools.