Oklahoma Falls Short of Closing the “Honesty Gap”
State Earns “Honesty Challenged” Status for Continuing to Inflate Proficiency Rates, Giving Parents and Teachers an Inaccurate Measure of Student Readiness
Oklahoma continued to report student proficiency rates significantly above those found by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), according to a newly released follow-up analysis by Achieve, an independent education advocacy organization.
Oklahoma receives the “Honesty Challenged” designation for reporting state proficiency rates that exceed NAEP by 37 percentage points in fourth-grade reading and 30 percentage points in eighth-grade math.
Click here to view the state’s previous results.
A Look Back: Last May, Achieve released an analysis that identified discrepancies in student proficiency rates reported by state tests and those found on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as “the Nation’s Report Card.” The analysis – deemed the “Honesty Gap” – found more than half of all states demonstrated a 30 percentage point or more differential between proficiency rates calculated by state tests and NAEP. That meant states were not being straightforward with parents and educators about students’ preparedness for high levels of learning, and ultimately for college and careers—often with serious consequences.
Of the Oklahoma students that require remediation at four-year colleges, only 30.6 percent go on to earn a degree within six years. Similarly, only 9.2 percent of community college students in remediation complete a degree within three years.4
Prioritizing Accurate Information and Transparency: For the first time this year, most states administered tests aligned to rigorous academic expectations. As a result, most began reporting proficiency results that more closely reflect the rates identified by NAEP. The Collaborative for Student Success identified Massachusetts, New York, and Utah as “Most Honest” for significantly closing the Honesty Gap and reporting proficiency rates nearly identical to or even more rigorous than NAEP.
Additionally, 26 states are recognized as “Significantly Improved” for closing their Honesty Gaps by at least 10 percentage points in either fourth-grade reading or eighth-grade math. Twenty-four states, including Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin, earned the status of “Top Truth Teller in 2015” for having Honesty Gaps of fewer than 5 percentage points in one or both subjects.
Oklahoma’s Lack of Progress: In 2010, Oklahoma adopted college- and career-ready standards in English language arts and math, but lawmakers passed a law repealing those standards in 2014. Last spring, Oklahoma administered Oklahoma Core Curriculum Tests (OCCT). The OCCT results indicate significant gaps remain between state-reported proficiency rates and those identified by NAEP, and policymakers should continue to tighten the state’s definition of proficiency. By doing so, they will provide parents and teachers with honest information about how well prepared their child is to move onto higher level material based on college- and career-ready standards.