ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the near-certainty that students receives mixed messages about their level of postsecondary readiness throughout their K–12 educational careers. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Initiative and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) represent current thinking on standards-based educational reform. Students receive feedback on their level of academic preparation through a variety of separate channels. It is reasonable to suspect that even within individual courses, students may receive conflicting information about their level of academic mastery. Owing to variations in grading policies and class compositions, it is difficult to draw inferences from comparisons of mathematics grade point averages (GPAs) across students, courses, and schools. As the number of sources of information increases, the likelihood that conflicting information will be provided increases, especially when the assessments vary on important dimensions such as: constructs assessed, intended uses, cut scores and performance levels, populations, and consequences.
