Are states cheating on their standardized tests?

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) provides a standardized program for comparing the educational record of states. It’s been around for over 30 years.

Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), states must meet certain targets for academic achievement, or else certain measures of school choice kick in, causing much political consternation.

While NCLB has 100 percent proficiency as the ultimate goal, it gives states some leeway along the way. For one thing, they don’t have to use the NCLB assessment to comply with the law; they are free to use their own.

As a result, states face some perverse incentives. On the one hand, there’s not much they can do about the NAEP test. On the other hand, they could conceivably dumb down the scoring of their state tests to elevate the scores for No Child Left behind.

Whether that has happened or not, you will see a number of states in which the percentage of students scoring proficient will be a lot higher than those scoring proficient on the NAEP.

The Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute compares the NAEP with the Dual Purpose Assessment (DPA), the test used by Arizona for its own purposes. Goldwater has produced a review of the academic literature and a discrepancy between the two assessments. "The combined evidence strongly supports the notion that Arizona’s DPA contains deep flaws, providing an inaccurate view of school performance in Arizona."