South Carolina’s State Superintendent of Education, Inez Tenenbaum, has a letter in the Wall Street Journal today defending the Palmetto State’s improvements on the SAT and NAEP over the past decade. She also defends South Carolina’s performance on its own state tests by admitting that far too few students are proficient at their grade level, and then adding:
But it is also true, as eight independent national studies have confirmed, that our standards for proficiency are among the highest in the nation. What most states pass off as ?proficient? earns only a ?basic? score in South Carolina, making other states look better without actually achieving better scores.
There is no doubt in my mind that Tenenbaum was thinking especially of her northern neighbor here. North Carolina?s standards are pitiful, as discussed here. South Carolinians have simmered for years about the positive national press for NC schools, which teach many fewer poor children than SC schools and manipulate the statistics to a far greater extent.
