Missouri lawmakers add grade-level performance to standardized test results

By Annelise Hanshaw

Missouri Independent

Missouri parents may soon have a better understanding of whether their child is performing at or above grade level on the state’s standardized test under a sweeping education bill awaiting the governor’s signature.

The legislation contains a provision that would require the state’s education department to add a fifth category to Missouri Assessment Program results, reporting “grade level” in addition to the current levels of “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” and “advanced.” The new provision would include students in grades 3 to 8.

 

State Rep. Brad Pollitt, a Sedalia Republican and former school superintendent, introduced the bill to make student performance more transparent to parents and lawmakers.

As an educator, he learned that students at grade level score at the upper end of “basic,” but many people incorrectly assume “proficient” means performing at grade level, he told The Independent.

“In order to have accurate conversations about where our students are at, we need to know what grade level is,” he said.

The Missouri Assessment Program, often referred to as the MAP test, began in the 1990s with five scoring thresholds. But in response to the federal No Child Left Behind Act, state lawmakers required the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to align MAP with federal performance standards.

In December 2005, educators met to determine the new standards in line with the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP. They set thresholds based on the percentage of students scoring proficient on the NAEP so that the proportion of students deemed proficient on the state test would be close to the amount reported by the national test.

The National Center for Educational Statistics and the NAEP’s governing board have repeatedly clarified that proficiency reflects “solid academic performance” and “does not signify being on grade level.”

But policymakers, parents and other stakeholders speak about proficiency and grade level interchangeably. And candidates for public office, misinterpreting what proficient means, have used MAP data to push anti-public-education policies.

During former state Sen. Bill Eigel’s run for governor last year, he told ABC17 that “less than a third of our children are able to do reading, writing, arithmetic at grade level.” At the time, 33% of Missouri fourth graders scored proficient or advanced in reading on the NAEP, and math had higher performance levels.

Despite the test’s administrators explaining that this is not a measure of grade level performance, politicians and media reports still repeat the misrepresentation.

“Part of my frustration has been that people criticize public education pretty hard and say we’re failing our kids because 35% of our students in third grade or fifth grade are proficient or advanced in reading,” Pollitt said. “We may have 35% that are above grade level, but maybe 60% of our kids are at grade level. And I think that changes the conversation.”

In a House committee hearing in January, lobbyists for public-education groups spoke in favor of the bill.

Brandt Shields, director of governmental relations for the Missouri School Boards’ Association, said a fifth category would be more “informative” for stakeholders.

“Having only four categories is almost a crude way of trying to differentiate how those scores are interpreted,” he said.

No one spoke in opposition, but the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s lobbyist warned that the change would require work groups to set the new standards, which is estimated to cost just over $1 million.

The language passed by the legislature exempts the department from having to employ work groups, but Pollitt said it is up to administrators to decide.