The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in perceptions regarding students' proficiency in reading and writing skills between 12th grade English teachers and college English Composition instructors. A purposive, nonrandom sample of 12th grade English teachers and college English Composition instructors from West Tennessee were surveyed using an instrument whose indicators were based on the Common Core Reading and Writing Standards. The high school teachers rated how proficient students are in these reading and writing skills at the end of the two semesters of instruction. The college instructors identified what percent of students were proficient in these same skills at the start of the semester. An analysis of the frequency and percentages of the responses was conducted. In addition, a "mixed" analysis of variance with repeated measures analysis of variance was used to explore the "within" groups results. The results of this study indicated that significant differences in perception of student proficiency in reading and writing exist between high school and college English instructors. Overall, the high school teachers deemed more students proficient on every reading and writing standard than the college instructors. A significant difference was found across the means of the reading standards for the high school and college instructors combined. A significant difference was also found when the groups were contrasted. Student proficiency in understanding a text's craft and structure was rated highest by both high school and college groups. There was no significant "within group" difference for either the high school or the college respondents on the writing standards. There was a significant difference between the high school and college respondents. A multivariate and univariate analyses of variance indicated a significant difference between experienced and inexperienced teachers for how students understand key ideas and details within a text. In addition, a significant difference was found between the ways suburban and non-suburban high school teachers rated students' ability to create different types of texts. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]