While Arne Duncan and ex-Superintendent Tony Bennett were celebrating Indiana’s gains on the 2013 NAEP, researchers at Indiana University said the gains were no different from the state’s performance in past years on NAEP.
“Relative to the 1-point gains in mathematics and reading for the nation as a whole, the 5- and 4-point gains for Indiana fourth-graders appear impressive,” said Peter Kloosterman, the Martha Lea and Bill Armstrong Chair for Teacher Education and a professor of mathematics education. “However, state samples are relatively small, and thus scores tend to fluctuate more than national scores. In 2000, Indiana was 9 points above the national average in math, but that dropped to 4 points above in 2007 and 2009 before going back to 9. In reading, Indiana has fluctuated from 2 to 5 points above the national average since 2000.”
In addition:
“Regarding the latest Grade 8 results, Kloosterman said gains for Indiana students are comparable to recent years.
“Indiana is now 4 points above the national average in mathematics as compared to 2 points in 2011,” he said. “Since 2000, however, Indiana has been as high as 9 points above and as low as 2 points above. In reading, Indiana eighth-graders are now 1 point above the national average, the same as 2011 and within the window of 1 to 4 points above the national average for Indiana since 2000.”
Although Indiana remains above the national average, it is not in the top tier of U.S. students. “In brief, we see substantial gains in mathematics across the nation with fourth- and eighth-graders in 2013 achieving about two grade levels above their counterparts in 1990,” Kloosterman said. “There have been gains in reading at both levels, but they are much less than a grade level. Indiana is consistently above the national average, but not at the level of the highest-performing states. These trends have held throughout all the state and national education policy changes over this period.”
Kloosterman is available to respond to questions about how to interpret the latest NAEP results. He can be reached at 812-855-9715 or klooster@indiana.edu.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Why are they talking about the National Average?
NAEP is not a norm referenced test. Either the scores went up
or went down.
Comparing to the National Average is odd since the National Average
could have gone down.
Joseph,
Criterion referenced tests have a strange tendency to turn into norm-referenced tests. When the NAEP tests are constructed, the psychometricians know exactly how every question will function. And NAEP is far from perfect.
Once the results of tests like NAEP go public, there are a host of edufrauds like Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and ex-Superintendent Tony Bennett that will use them in ways for which they are not appropriate.
This is partly due to the fact that they are interested in labeling, sorting and ranking whenever it appears [however slightly] to favor their drive to charterize and privatize public education. It also helps that they are studiously uninformed and misinformed about standardized tests.
For an excellent example of same, read Duncan’s speech to the April 30, 2013 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association for a major disconnect between the words of his speech re standardized testing and his actions as Secretary of Education:
Link: http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/choosing-right-battles-remarks-and-conversation
It also helps to keep things in perspective. The latest NAEP results are very far from being game-changing rises or falls. In such situations sometimes it is best to simply shrug one’s shoulders and ask a very simple question: “So what?”
Edubullies don’t like that way of proceeding. Critical thinking might be activated and people might end up thinking the “wrong” thoughts.
“Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.” [Oscar Wilde]
😎
It made news in my hometown both on local tv news and in the newspaper that Alabama students still have a long way to in regards to improvement improve based on NAEP scores. In turn, I am now seeing Common Core supporters use this as a reason why Alabama so desperately needs to be using Common Core in our schools. I am hoping that after spring testing with ACT’s Aspire, more parents will begin to see that they need to get involved and that enough is enough. Sure, there is room for improvement, but this reliance on test scores is not the way to go. I teach in a Catholic school (yes, we are using Common Core) so don’t have the End of Quarter Tests that my county’ s public schools do, so I’m not completely sure of what is going on, but I do know for sure that the Superintendent of the Public School System of my county told Principals not to average in EQT scores as part of students’ first quarter grades. Apparently, there were a LOT of low scores this time.