Proficiency

As the chart below shows, what's "good enough" to qualify as "proficient" may vary widely from state to state. Education Week compared the percent of students who scored at or above proficient on the National Assessment of Educational Progress and on state assessments in mathematics in 2000. Only the 25 states that participated in the state-level NAEP in 2000, tested students in math in the 4th or 8th grade that year, and reported test results by proficiency levels were included in the analysis. In every state, the percent of students performing at the proficient level on state tests was used, except where the state employs a different, but similar, term. See also the accompanying "What's Proficient" chart for 4th Grade Math.

I wondered if my students were in as much pain as I was for them. It was time for the BSAPs, the Basic Skills Assessment Program tests used throughout South Carolina to show how much students have grown academically from one year to the next. For 90 minutes each morning for five days, students in grades 2-5 stopped learning and began bubbling in circles, an arduous task in itself for some, whose chubby, short fingers tried mightily to color within the lines, a task not yet mastered even with big-page coloring books.

Fourth grade with Mrs. Voyer: I was one of her 48 students in a combined 4th/5th grade class. An ambidextrous teacher, Mrs. Voyer taught one grade aloud while the rest of us were working on seatwork that kept both our minds and fingers occupied.

New Jersey's education commissioner has urged the state board of education to set proficiency levels for core courses in all public high schools.

In addition, Commissioner Saul A. Cooperman told the board this month, the state should test students regularly to ensure parents that their children's schools are preparing them to meet the new standards.