According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which administers NAEP, the determination of proficiency in any given
subject at a particular grade level «was the result of a comprehensive national process [which took into account]... what hundreds of educators, curriculum experts, policymakers, and members of the general public thought the assessment should test.
But whatever you think about that issue, it is absolutely clear that states vary widely in the proficiency standards they set, i. e., the amount they expect a student to know before they deem the student proficient in
that subject at a particular grade level.
A standards - based progress report lists the most important skills students should learn in
each subject at a particular grade level.
Not exact matches
Since a state or country may have specific strengths or weaknesses in certain
subjects,
at specific
grade levels, or on
particular international testing series, our trend estimations use the following procedure to hold such differences constant.
Many school systems have gotten the message that they need to be more data driven, and they are now awash in data - not just yearly student test scores, but figures on how different groups of students are doing in
particular subjects or
grade levels, how successful a school is
at attracting and retaining teachers or closing the achievement gap among disadvantaged students, or how equitable funding is from school to school.