Reforming
or Replacing the NECAP Tests
New
Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont have combined their
achievement testing operations under the New England Common
Assessment Program (NECAP). As with most testing regimes in
the other states, the NECAP has a number of deficiencies.
Six major problems are:
1. The NECAP exaggerates or inflates the percentages of
children who are proficient- who have grade level or better
skills- compared to the NAEP tests.
2. The NECAP inflation levels are larger for children who
are disadvantaged. We call this differential inflation.
3. The NECAP exhibits false-gains with respect to 8th grade
reading proficiencies by showing year over year artificial
gains when the more reliable NAEP shows declining literacy.
4. The NECAP content standards appear to be a relatively
small subset of the NAEP content standards.
5. In Rhode Island, its Department of Education has a
structural conflict of interest given its roles as both the
manager of instruction and the manager of testing. New
Hampshire and Vermont may also have these conflicts.
6. The NECAP is not required to be taken by private school
students.
Asora's CEO, David Anderson, has been giving presentations
discussing these problems. One such speech, entitled,
"NECAP is Broken and How to Fix It," can be viewed
here. In
that presentation we discuss the NECAP'S failings and
how the test should be replaced by one that has a good
reputation (maybe the ACT) and then administer it
through an independent and possible private agency.