Items on test score scales located at and below the Proficient cut score define the content area knowledge and skills required to achieve proficiency. Alternately, examinees who perform at the Proficient level on a test can be expected to be able to demonstrate that they have mastered most of the knowledge and skills represented by the items at and below the Proficient cut score. It is important that these items define intended knowledge and skills, especially increasing levels of knowledge and skills, on tests that are intended to portray achievement growth across grade levels. Previous studies show that coherent definitions of growth occur often as a result of good fortune rather than by design. In this paper, we use grades 3, 4, and 5 mathematics tests from a state assessment program to examine how well (a) descriptors for Proficient performance define achievement growth across grades, and (b) the knowledge and skill demands of test items that define Proficient performance at each grade level may or may not define achievement growth coherently. Our purpose is to demonstrate (a) the results of one state assessment program's first attempt to train item writers to hit assigned proficiency level targets, and (b) how those efforts support and undermine coherent inferences about what it means to achieve Proficient performance from one grade to the next. Item writers’ accuracy in hitting proficiency level targets and resulting inferences about achievement growth are mixed but promising.

Electrophilictrisubstituted ethylenes, fluoro ring-substituted ethyl 2-cyano-1-oxo-3-phenyl-2-propenylcarbamates, RC 6 H 3 CH=C(CN)CONHCO 2 C 2 H 5 (where R is 4-F-3-CH 3 , 2-CF 3 , 4-CF 3 , 2,4-diF, 2,5-diF, 2,6-diF, 3,4-diF, and 3,5-diF), were prepared and copolymerized with styrene. The monomers were synthesized by the piperidine catalyzed Knoevenagel condensation of ring-substituted benzaldehydes and N-cyanoacetylurethane, and characterized by CHN analysis, IR, 1 H-and 13 C-NMR. All the ethylenes were copolymerized with styrene (M 1 ) in solution with radical initiation (ABCN) at 70 • C. The compositions of the copolymers were calculated from nitrogen analysis and the structures were analyzed by IR, 1 H-and 13 C-NMR. The order of relative reactivity (1/r 1 ) for the monomers 4-CF 3 (5.4) > 2,6-diF (2.0) > 2,4-diF (1.7) > 2,5-diF (1.0) > 2-CF 3 (0.8) > 3,4-diF (0.5) > 3,5-diF (0.4) >4-F-3-CH 3 (0.3). High T g of the copolymers in comparison with that of polystyrene indicates decrease in chain mobility of the copolymer due to the high dipolar character of the trisubstituted ethylene structural unit. Decomposition of the copolymers in nitrogen occurred in two steps, first in 270-420 • C with residue (5-13% wt), which then decomposed in the 420-650 • C range.