New CEP Report: Will Oklahoma's NCLB 'Balloon Payment' Come Due?

Like many states, our "100% proficiency" plan was based on the premise that the world would come to its senses. It has not. CEP has a report that explains the problem in detail.

From the press release:

When the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) became law in 2002, states were charged with the controversial goal of bringing all students to “proficiency” within 12 years. This year, halfway to the ambitious 2014 deadline, that challenge is about to become much more difficult for about half of all states, according to a new report from the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Education Policy (CEP).

The report finds that while half of all states (25 states and the District of Columbia) have
adopted incremental achievement goals that assume steady progress toward the 100
percent proficient goal, the other half of the states have taken a “backloaded” approach
that will soon mean dramatically higher—and potentially unreachable—achievement
goals.

Twenty-three states have taken the backloaded approach, generally setting lower
expectations for the percentages of students reaching proficiency between 2002 and 2008
in contrast to much steeper expectations later on. The higher goals are now becoming a
reality for states, which in some cases will need to increase the percentage of students
reaching proficiency on state assessments by 10 points or more each year between now
and 2014.