In today's economy, preparation for career or college is essential. Yet too few students graduate with the knowledge or skills to directly enter college or a career. The time students spend in on-the-job training or catching up in remedial courses cost students and their families more both in time and money. Many of these students are caught off guard because until this point, they received signals that indicated readiness for their next steps. The signals that schools send to students and families should be accurate and honest representations of preparedness for postsecondary options. One important measure is the annual assessments administered to students in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics. Historically, states have set low performance standards on those annual assessments, inflating the number of students who meet grade-level standards and sending signals of readiness to students who may not have reached a level of college and career readiness. This trend has changed over the last few years as states adopted rigorous, college- and career-ready standards and developed high-quality, aligned assessments. With the recent release of the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores, Achieve is releasing an updated report on the proficiency gap. Across states, the gap between 2015 and 2017 on average has remained roughly the same (+/- 3 points), though there are several concerning outliers where gaps are now considerably larger than in 2015. While some states have transitioned state assessments, most have retained performance standards on those assessments that have not significantly widened the gap between proficiency on state and NAEP assessments from our last report with 2015 proficiency rates. A majority of states have narrow proficiency gaps of 15 points or fewer between state and NAEP proficiency in both 4th grade and 8th grade English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics, with nearly all states having a narrow gap in at least one grade or content area. Smaller gaps indicate that states are more accurately reflecting student proficiency. [To view the Proficient vs. Prepared 2016 report, "State Test Results Are Getting Closer to Student Achievement on NAEP: Parents, Students, and Teachers Benefit," see ED583095.]