A 'Proficient' Score Depends on Geography

By Lynn Olson

When Colorado officials reported that only 14 percent of 10th graders scored at the "proficient" level or higher on the state math test last year, the news seemed grim—until a group of local superintendents asked researchers to figure out what "proficient" means in Colorado.

The analysis, released this month, concludes that the content of the Colorado exam is "substantially more difficult" than the SAT and "more difficult" than the ACT, the two leading college-admissions tests. Teenagers who performed at the proficient level on the Colorado exam, in fact, scored at or above the 90th percentile on PLAN, a test the ACT designed to predict students' performance on its admissions exam.

Colorado's experience illustrates just how slippery a term "proficient" can be. What exactly does proficient mean? The answer, it appears, depends on where you live. Yet how states define the word is at the heart of the reauthorized Elementary...