Individual State Standards Don’t Bode Well For U.S. On World Stage

So many standards, so little time.

Connor Bleakley / Flickr

Wide variation in state academic standards makes comparison across the country - as well as internationally - difficult, according to new research.

That’s essentially the takeaway from the most recent national report on academic guidelines.

A report released Thursday by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) finds that what’s considered “proficiency” in certain subjects varies widely – not only across states, but also between the U.S. as a whole and its international counterparts.

The study compares performance standards for reading, math and science in each state with international benchmarks used in two international assessments – the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) – to gauge difficulty and global competitiveness of each state’s standards.

The results generally showed the percentage of proficient students in most states declined when compared with international students – and Indiana was no exception.

For example, 77 percent of students in the Hoosier were considered proficient based on state performance standards for 8th grade math in 2011. When those same students had their score compared to TIMSS benchmarks, only half of them (35 percent) were still considered proficient.

That means in Indiana, students only required a C- in order to be considered proficient. The same rang true for students testing in fourth grade math and reading.

Indiana was one of the highest performing in the nation in terms of reported proficiency. The state ranked twelfth in 8th grade math. Georgia occupied the top spot (87 percent) and, of the states reporting, Tennessee ranked lowest (35 percent).

The difference between the highest and lowest performance standards represents a huge “expectations gap,” says lead researcher and AIR Vice President Gary Phillips in a statement. He says that gap confuses policymakers and misleads the public into believing their students are proficient when they’re not.

“Fifty states going in 50 different directions is not a strategy for national success in a globally competitive world,” said Phillips. “It may look good for federal reporting purposes, but it denies students the best opportunity to learn college-ready and career-ready skills.”

Research shows the majority of Americans agree. A Phi Delta Kappa International (PDK)/Gallup poll released earlier this month showed that just shy of three-quarters of respondents think international comparisons are critical to helping improve schools in this country.

So why all the variation? When the federal No Child Left Behind law was enacted in 2001, it set a goal of having all students proficient in reading and math by 2014. Each state was responsible for setting their standards to measure and define the term “proficiency.”

Phillips argues this practice is flawed because it makes comparison across the 50 states – as well as nationally – impossible. Rather than allowing each state to focus inward, he says, the country should band together to focus on how state expectations stack up against one another, the nation and other counties.

One way states could do this, Phillips suggests, is by adhering to one uniform set of common assessments and standards – such the Common Core State Standards.

“It is not that each state should teach the same thing at the same time in every grade every year,” Phillips says. “Instead, we need to reduce the extreme variability that we now have, whereby some low-achieving states have low expectations and higher-achieving states have higher expectations. These huge differences in expectations deny students in states with low performance standards the opportunity to learn from a challenging curriculum.”

As of March, Indiana no longer adheres to the Common Core – the state adopted its own set of academic standards back in April. Many other states have followed suit, and the original 46 participating states has now been whittled down to 27.

Indiana is also in the planning stages for a new state assessment, which will be administered to students in spring 2015.