Is the federal definition of Proficient & Advanced meant to include MCAS categories of Needs Improvement, Proficient and Advanced?
No Child Left Behind leaves it up to states to define at least three performance levels in their assessment systems. Proficient, a lower performance level and a higher performance level. Some states have five or more performance levels. Massachusetts, since 1998 has had four. Needs Improvement, which is the minimum standard for graduation, is still well short of what our standards setting committees deemed to be proficient student work. Massachusetts’ Proficient level is similarly challenging to the Proficient level defined by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NCLB calls on states to use their NAEP results “to confirm” state standards.
