Report: State proficiency standards vary by as much as four grade levels

The gap in what students are expected to know in each state varies so greatly that the difference in student expectations between the states with the most rigorous assessments and those with the least stringent is twice the size of the national black-white achievement gap, according to a new report by the American Institutes for Research (AIR).

For comparison, while black students are falling nearly two grade levels behind their white peers in knowledge and achievement, what students are expected to know in one state may be up to four grade levels behind the expectations set in another state.

The report, International Benchmarking: State Education Performance Standards, compared the proficiency standards in each state with international benchmarks used in two international assessments to be able to compare states to each other, using a common standard, and to compare U.S. student performance with that of their peers in other countries. The full report is available at the AIR website.