Results on student performance at the state level have been available since 1990. We did not give states a letter grade on their NAEP results. If we had, all would have failed. Some states chose not to participate in NAEP state-level tests in 1992 and 1994. Neither they nor we know how their students perform compared with those in other states or nationwide.
States also do extensive testing of their own, using a variety of assessments that vary in quality.
And many states have reported student progress on their state-level tests. We did not include the results from state testing programs here because there is no way to compare the results across states. At best, these test scores can tell us whether students in one state are doing better or worse than the average for another group of students who answered the same set of questions. The tests cannot tell us whether students have mastered a challenging body of knowledge and skills because norm-referenced tests only compare students to each other and not to an unwavering standard of performance. Student scores on the SAT also are invoked to compare the quality of education in one state with that of another.