Something to watch this summer

EdWeek is right to highlight the struggle nearly half the states will be facing in the coming years. Twenty-three states, as identified in a recent CEP report, back-loaded their performance targets for reaching the goal of 100% proficiency by 2014. That allowed them to reach relatively easy goals for the early years of NCLB, but now they must meet dramatically rising targets.

NCLB imposed some strange restrictions on the states as they wrote their plans. States must make all increases equal, but they were allowed pauses of up to three years where no improvement was required (for a more complete explanation, see here). Half the states chose steady progress over time. The other half created strange stair-step patterns that will really hurt them in coming years.

This chart shows California's English proficiency goals for elementary and middle school students. The state implemented the NCLB provisions slowly with a modest goal of 13.6% of its students proficient. By keeping these numbers low through 2006-7, they ensured only moderate amounts of school and district failures. But look at the numbers for this year, and the year following. From now until 2014, California's elementary and middle schoolers must improve 10.8% every year.

California hasn't released its 2007-8 performance scores yet. When it does, and when those of other stair-stepping states come out too, we're in for some eye-popping numbers.