Someone explain to me how this makes sense

[pnwmom]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1665512,00.html?imw=Y

"About 700,000 students across the U.S. in grades 4 and 8 participated in NAEP reading and math exams, which were given last winter. The results show national trends, but also provide a window on how students in each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., are doing.

"Since each state creates its own reading and math tests, NAEP provides a rare opportunity to compare, say, how kids are doing in Massachusetts (great) to how they are faring in the nation's capital (improved but still appalling)."


QUESTION: Since each state creates its OWN tests, how can they be compared at all? And doesn't that just encourage states to write easier tests?

[Gormy Cuss]

1. I think it's saying that NAEP is the nationally comparable test

unlike each state's own exams.

It took me a couple of readings to come to that conclusion however. It's an oddly constructed set of paragraphs.

[pnwmom]

2. Thank you. It does make some sense, read that way. n/t

[sandnsea]

3. The irony

An article about education standards is so poorly written we have to read it multiple times to understand it.

[Blashyrkh]

4. It simply lacks a proper description of what NAEP is.