The 2015 NAEP scores were released at midnight. For the first time in many years, the scores in math and reading were flat or declining. The story was the same across the nation. DC boasted of fourth grade gains but overlooked no gains in eighth grade and the biggest achievement gaps of any urban district in the nation.
Excepting the 4th grade gains in DC, the Race to the Top winning states made no gains. One of them, Maryland, saw significant declines. I will write in more detail in the morning.
Duncan said:
“Big change never happens overnight,” Duncan said. “I’m confident that over the next decade, if we stay committed to this change, we will see historic improvements.”
Bill Gates said the same thing a few years ago. Something like “it will take at least 10 years to know whether this stuff works.”
Should it occur to them that churn, disruption, and chaos are not good for children? The 2015 NAEP scores are a national commentary on the failure of what they call reform, but what others see as reckless experimentation on other people’s children.
Race to the Top is a flop. Let it go. NCLB failed. It left many children behind. Stop funding failure. Stop making excuses.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The vast amount of monies being spent on “reform” needs to be re-directed to the root causes of our children’s struggles: reducing poverty and socio-economic inequalities, more funding for improved child nutrition, better early intervention, more meaningful parenting classes, supports for single parents, pregnancy prevention, changing discriminatory policies and practices, providing assistance for children of incarcerated parents, assisting grandparents raising grandchildren, improving the foster children system, reducing the number of babies having babies, greater support for early literacy programs, and a host of other interventions that will allow our most needy children and their families to start school on equal footing with those of better means and to maintain proper attendance and achievement. Unfortunately, our policy makers have no interest in funding these programs as they are not attractive to the monied set. So we will plod along, wasting obscene amounts of time and money on unproven and, in many cases, damaging programs that have no basis in sound research. And in the meantime, we are losing a generation of children to the streets.
MORE FROM ARNE DUNCAN:
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-education
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POLITICO:
“Education Secretary Arne Duncan suggested there might be an ‘implementation dip’ as teachers and students adjust to higher standards and more rigorous tests.”
…
“Did the Obama administration time the release of its testing action plan this weekend to head off the bad news about NAEP?
“American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and Mark Schneider, a vice president at American Institutes for Research who served as NCES commissioner under former President George W. Bush, suspect that’s the case.
“Duncan said no, the efforts to combat excessive testing have been in the works for a while.”
…
“Baltimore and Maryland saw some of the biggest drops in scores, ‘but as counterintuitive as it seems, those are actually good news,’ Duncan argued.
“ ‘Why? Because some of those drops reflect the state including many more special-needs students.’ ”
——————
You mean those sadly disabled kids THAT NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN TESTED IN THE FIRST PLACE, and WHO ARE BEING TRAUMATIZED BY YOUR STUPID NOTION THAT TESTING THEM ON THINGS THAT ARE FAR BEYOND THEIR CAPABILITIES IS A GOOD IDEA?
So what? They’re now fair game for you to use to try and talk your way out of this?
Poverty is the problem and public education is only ONE of many strategies that should be employed to address the problem. Within education, we allow a crazy pendulum to swing instead of being grounded in strong, researched, and validated curricula and practices. No wonder the meme ‘education is the route out of poverty’ has been twisted to blame public education for poverty.
I have to admit I secretly supported NCLB because I was so sick of my kids’ reading failures under ‘whole language.’ In fact, NCLB helped us get great reading programs into our schools, and kids succeeded… but then the other shoe dropped and excessive testing has undermined our fragile teaching pool. But what has demoralized our teachers even more? RTTT and tying evaluations to narrow student outcomes. How can kids learn if we blame teachers instead of supporting them? We have to take care of teachers so they can take care of our kids.
Blame the GREEDINESS of the 1% and the corruption of politicians. Blame ourselves for even thinking we can play in the sandbox with the DEFORMERS and not get splattered with slime.
Funny, where was “wait a decade” when Rahm and friends wanted to use test scores to evaluate and fire teachers?
Here in Ohio, former House education committee members wanted to revoke teaching licenses based on a couple of years of VAM test scores. Imagine spending $100,000 on a college education to see it nullified by government action of a few clueless nincompoops.
What an amazingly insidious strategy: manufacture a teaching shortage with what I can only imagine are illegal revocations of licensing, thereby creating a perfect, TFA-sized void.
The main proponent of the idea was a country lawyer named Stebleton who was, thankfully, term limited out. I don’t know if he thought far enough ahead with the TFA angle, but his proposal raised eyebrows. Even amongst the education committee members who insist school are socialism (that is who is leading education now).
I agree with JEM.
Here in FL everyone from parents to superintendents are begging the FLDOE to suspend penalties based upon the new assessments given last school year since they were fraught with problems including more than one hacking attack during the testing process. Cut scores for exams taken last Spring will not be decided upon until December.
The governor’s puppet commissioner refuses though because all of Jeb Bush’s minions claim that taking a hiatus from bludgeoning teachers and schools with bad school grades and career-ending VAM scores will take the impetus out of the whole accountability circus. The legislature did pass a law preventing them from using the test scores to punish students.
The commissioner hired another for-profit testing company, under legislative pressure, to ‘prove’ that the exams were fair (although the company did note the many issues with testing and recommended the test scores not be used for evaluations exclusively.) She just ignored the inconvenient parts of the report in true ideologue fashion.
The reformists know that once the public sees that the world doesn’t end if 300 FL schools aren’t labelled as ‘failing’ because they serve poor children that the desire for their program will wane and eventually vanish.
This reminds me of the infamous Friedman Unit during the Iraq war. Friedman, a conservative columnist, kept claiming, again and again, that in ‘another 6 months’ things would turn around, weapons of mass destruction would be found, democracy would take hold, Iraqis would celebrate the invaders, etc., etc. Never happened. Never will.
The Friedmans and the Duncans of this world are incapable of admitting error, of taking responsibility, and of changing course. In other words, of being accountable. That’s for the little people. Their ideology is their everything.
nd so now we have Duncan Units where bogus educational reforms will miraculously ripen in ten years. Just like Bill Gates hopes!
“In another decade . . . .”
With all this talk about the “negative” NAEP scores, it’s interesting to see that the White House published an open letter from Obama to teachers and parents Monday, seeking feedback on the administration’s new plan to combat overtesting. “If you’ve got thoughts on this topic, I want to hear them,” Obama wrote: http://1.usa.gov/1RyrqpA.
Since he’s asking, it may be the time to tell Pres. Obama what we really think.
This is what they have planned next. Not good. http://www.pegwithpen.com/2015/10/opt-out-revolution-next-wave.html
they built the ccss – what evidence does he base his belief on other than the fact he will be 10 years out of office?
this is terrible thinking – why 10 years – why not 5 or 20? probably because it is long enough for ppl to put down their pitchforks
The problem with Arne now taking this position is that there’s too big of a track record of him making sweeping and bat-sh#%-crazy statements about how massive testing — and federal control of standardized testing — is needed ensure “equity” and “the civil rights” of public school children, particularly those who are poor and minority.
WTF???!!!
Read this article:
http://national.deseretnews.com/article/4189/education-secretary-arne-duncan-praises-senates-effort-to-reimagine-no-child-left-behind.html
In this article we get these gems from Arne:
(quotes that are quite infuriating when you consider where he sends his own children — the Chicago Lab School, which has no Common Core curriculum / test prep / testing… and where, at the time, he sent his children… a Virginia public school in an upscale neighborhood… a state where, once again, there is no Common Core curriculum / test prep / testing):
———————————————–
DESERET NEWS:
“In a wide-ranging conversation sparked by questions submitted by the audience, Duncan also addressed the testing controversies that hampered the Common Core roll-out in several states.
“Duncan, who sent his own children to public schools, said his family has not been stressed by tests …
ARNE DUNCAN:
“We don’t spend a lot of time worrying about (his own children’s testing). They do OK. It is not a traumatic event. It’s just part of kids’ education growing up.”
———————–
Really, you, your wife, and your kids “don’t spend a lot of time worrying about” standardized tests?
Well that’s because the Virginia public schools where — at the time he gave this interview, and, until recently Duncan, sent his children, DOES NOT FOLLOW THE COMMON CORE, OR GIVE COMMON CORE TESTS.
Therefore, his other comment that his kids’ testing “is not a traumatic event. It’s just part of kids’ education growing up” is completely bogus and misleading.
There’s more ridiculous pro-testing blather:
——————————————–
ARNE DUNCAN:
“When we fail to measure and let parents know how their children are doing, we do our kids a tremendous disservice.”
“This is really an issue about equity,” Duncan said of testing.
“This is not just about assessment. This is about a civil rights issue. We need to know where students are and whether those gaps are closing, or not closing.”
Whatever happened to the “fierce urgency of now”? Children can’t wait!
The said something completely different in 2013. The scores went up slightly, and they attributed the increase to ed reform. Not just “ed reform”. Their specific policies and certain individuals they promoted:
President Barack Obama’s top education official on Thursday afternoon heaped praise on Republican Gov. Bill Haslam and his administration’s public school reform efforts in Tennessee.
Arne Duncan, secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, joined Haslam on a conference call with reporters following the governor’s announcement earlier in the day that Tennessee had earned the title of fastest improving state on the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress rankings.
Duncan delivered an express declaration of approval for Tennessee’s Department of Education commissioner, who’s been the target of sustained criticism by dissatisfied factions of teachers and district-level administrators unhappy with his methods and management approaches.
“Kevin Huffman is doing a fantastic job,” said President Obama’s education czar.”
http://tnreport.com/2013/11/08/u-s-education-czar-extols-tennessee-leap-naep-scores/
Ducan’s “Decade of Urgency” is disturbing. Why the Reformers decided to launch a grand experiment with no evidence, no justification, no proven effectiveness is irrational if looking at it from an educational and research perspective. From a profit driven, greed perspective, Ducan’s folly makes perfect sense.
They said something completely different in 2013, when the scores went up slightly:
“In 2013, reading and math scores edged up nationally to new highs for fourth and eighth graders. It is particularly heartening that reading scores for eighth graders are up, after remaining relatively flat for the last decade.
“While progress on the NAEP continues to vary among the states, all eight states that had implemented the state-crafted Common Core State Standards at the time of the 2013 NAEP assessment showed improvement in at least one of the Reading and/or Mathematics assessments from 2009 to 2013—and none of the eight states had a decline in scores.
“Given the rapid and comprehensive changes that America’s educators are implementing in classrooms across the nation, it is to their credit that we are seeing the strongest performance in the history of the NAEP.
“If America’s students are to remain competitive in a knowledge-based economy, our public schools must greatly accelerate the rate of progress of the last four years and do more to narrow America’s large achievement gaps. It is an urgent moral and economic imperative that our schools do a better job of preparing students for today’s globally-competitive world.”
http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/statement-us-secretary-education-arne-duncan-2013-naep-reading-and-mathematics-report-card
Back when this news of the Atlanta cheating scandal broke, what was Duncan’s take?
Mehhh, it’s no big deal.
ARNE DUNCAN (blase): “This is an easy one to fix: better test security.”
Watch the August 2011 video:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/atlanta-cheating-scandal-_n_892169.html
Oh, I’m so glad Arne got to the bottom of this whole problem, and identified the cure. We can all relax now.
This interview is great. Apparently, this was just some local Atlanta reporter, but she asked some pointed questions.
She asks him if the unrealistic expectations of NCLB are part of the problem, and he’s totally non-responsive… he doesn’t give a yes or no to this. Instead, he just says, “There are great teachers who are amazing… beating the odds… blah blah blah”
Later, she says that “a lot of this is about money”, and asks if punishments and monetary rewards “need to be de-coupled from student learning.” Instead of owning up and admit this obvious reality—painfully obvious, in the light of what just happened in Atlanta– Dun-an says… oh no… not at all. We need to do this MORE.
Check out this word salad (including the usual Duncan smarmy “snow job” of praising teachers and principles… the same folks whose profession Duncan has destroyed):
————————————————————–
DUNCAN: (at 02:30) “Well, I think rewarding teacher excellence is important. I think I would argue the opposite (i.e. don’t “de-couple”), that far too often we haven’t we haven’t celebrated great teachers. We haven’t celebrated great principals who are making a huge difference in students’ lives. You just want to make sure that they’re doing it honestly, and again, the vast majority of teachers are doing an amazing job, often in very difficult circumstances, in helping students beat the odds every single day. I think we need to do a better job of spotlighting that, and incentivizing that, and encouraging that, and learning from that.
“In education, we’ve been far too reluctant to talk about success. We just need to that. We just need to make sure that we’re doing it with integrity.
“Not too hard to do.”
————————-
Really Arne? “Not too hard to do”? “Merit pay” and basing personnel decision on test scores has been tried countless times for over 100 years, and it has always failed.
What you claim is “not hard to do” HAS NEVER WORKED.
IT WILL NEVER WORK.
In fact, when it’s tried, it actually causes severe harm—narrowing of the curriculum, turning schools into test prep factories, etc.
Duncan’s corporate reform masters need testing to drive privatization, corporate profteering, and union-busting, and so Duncan will defend to the death the misuse, the over-emphasis on testing, the massive over-testing in general, etc.
Great! Heck of a job, Arne!
If Medicine was Like Education
Let’s apply this strategy to medicine. I have a couple of semesters of chemistry. I am going to appoint myself a pharmaceutical expert. With people still getting sick, it is clear that we need to raise the bar, eliminate all disease in the next decade, and fire all these doctors in failing hospitals and practices.
With a few million from some billionaires, I’m going to visit my local CVS. Being now a medical expert, I can grab a few items off the shelves. The flashier the packaging the better. In a big bucket left over from a painting project, I can mix together my finds and produce the next miracle cure.
My next step is to open a clinic in a strip mall and start injecting patients with my concoction. I’ll start with ill, poor patients because they have the least representation in government and can’t lobby Congress. I’m not sure this will work, and if patients get sicker, well, at least I tried. Besides, we need to keep using my unproven cure for another decade or so to see if it is effective.
In the meantime, I will just blame doctors, PAs, and nurses for everyone’s medical challenges.
Heck of a job, Arne!
Well done.
“Stop funding failure.”
But, Diane, failure is so lucrative!
For me it solves the mystery of why they did the big push last week to pretend they were re-evaluating their testing beliefs.
If there are ambitious reporters out there the one thing I would love to know about ed reform is the level of cooperation in marketing efforts between this administration and the various “movement” lobbying groups and foundations.
It is absolutely remarkable how the administration marketing and spin always lines up perfectly with “the movement” marketing and spin.
What is the extent of the coordination on “message” between the Obama Administration and “movement” ed reformers? How completely captured is this administration?
A couple of weeks ago there was a big star-studded event to “transform” high schools. I think it’s funded by the widow of one of the founders of Apple. This week the administration announced they are “transforming” high schools. Are they coordinating these marketing campaigns?
Diane, what do you make of the recently released “Breaking the Curve” report from the Urban Institute on NAEP scores?
http://www.urban.org/research/publication/breaking-curve-promises-and-pitfalls-using-naep-data-assess-state-role-student-achievement/view/full_report
Pages 9-13 look at gains on NAEP from 2003-2013 adjusted for changes in the student population. It shows solid improvement in NAEP scores. The author will be updating the report based on the 2015 NAEP release soon.
I agree that test driven accountability has been harmful to students and public education. Just think how much BETTER things would have been under state and federal initiatives that focused on supporting schools and providing resources to students!
I think American educators are doing a very good job in a troubled system. Teacher commitment to students is high. Teacher qualifications are high. Teachers are working very hard. I look at the curriculum in place today compared to when I started 25 years ago and the progress is notable. We have our problems for sure, the top down policy framework is the most pressing, but I don’t see a stagnant system.
I’m amazed at how resilient public schools are in my state. They haven’t had any political support for a decade- half our political leaders have made careers out of bashing them- and they’ve filled in gaps, tapped local funding to replace lost state funding, and made do with less.
We had 16% unemployment in this county at the height of the recession. They were feeding kids at the public library. There were lower income areas where half the houses were in or headed to foreclosure. I have never seen it so bad, and I;m 53 years old.
What were our political leaders doing during that period? Launching a political campaign to strip teachers of collective bargaining rights.
It goes beyond “out of touch”. They live in a different country.
Unfortunately, Chiara, they live in this country, and what they did/are doing is all too predictable: waging class warfare, and attempting to bring about a new “enclosure movement,” in which the Commons/ public resources are stripped for private gain and power.
Ohio was hit hard in the recession. We are still thousands of jobs down from 2008 and a quarter million jobs down from the 2002 downturn. Kasich, when he is lucid, still clings to the fantasy of the Ohio Miracle, quoting unemployment stats. Of course, those numbers are low because so many people have dropped out of the workforce. Median income is dropping, new jobs few and menial. Strickland left Kasich with a rising Ohio economy. The Republicans took over and instead instituted cold war era trickle down, supply side policies. All we have now are the wealthy getting richer, and everyone else seeing their situation stagnant or falling.
And I’ll add in our middle class area, food banks were visited by neighbors and many homes also taken over by banks. There was a large, silent middle class population moving to poverty, temporary or not.
Wait a decade is like “Waiting for Godot.” Maybe Duncan thinks most schools will be charters in ten years, Then, wait for the miracle!
“Waiting for Wadda-dough”
Waiting for a wadda-dough
Will get you really far
Robbery is very slow
But Arne’s in the car
“There are lots of theories out there I’m already hearing, from resources to demographics, and I’ll try and give you my best preliminary thinking. But I would caution everyone to be careful about drawing conclusions with so many variables,” Duncan said. “People need time to dig into this thoughtfully. Anyone who claims to have this all figured out is pedaling a personal agenda, rather than an educational one.”
This stern lecture is coming from the person who attributed slight gains in 2013 to his policies and certain individuals in the ed reform “movement” that he was promoting politically. He has done nothing BUT use student test scores to advance an agenda.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/naep-scores_562fd4fde4b06317990fcf74
Here’s a basic rule for leadership: Don’t claim credit when scores go up a bit, unless you take responsibility when they go down a bit.
http://www.arthurcamins.com
The NAEP scores went down almost everywhere
This is the first decline in math NAEP since 1990
The winners of Race to Top funding dropped with everyone else
Duncan has to denounce his reliance on these scores in 2013 to make his explanation for the scores in 2015 credible. He can’t have it both ways.
Or not, I guess. They can just continue to lose credibility and say whatever best advances the “movement” agenda. That’s an option.
Yes. Poverty is a factor, but many predictive studies have suggested that the Common Core would not show significant gains in performance. The predictions appear to be holding true. When combined with poverty, our challenges are even greater.
Wait 10 years = enough time to forget about my role in bring this about.
Outside of this blog, who remembers Spelling? Rod Paige was left off a recent litany of ed Reform heroes. The last thing Secretary Duncan wants is accountability for his own education policy decisions.
Except they always get promoted. Always. Spelling has done great. She ran Bush’s lobby shop which pushed “online learning” into every state in the country and now she’s moving on to privatize public colleges. Kids in cybercharters in this state actually lose ground, and then cycle back into the much-maligned and defunded public schools.. Everyone loses.
It doesn’t matter. The promotions and accolades continue. I don’t think one can get a job in education policy unless they’re a member of this club. They completely and utterly dominate at every level. It’s career suicide to question this.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/10/26/unc-presidential-pick-margaret-spellings-highlights-systems-desire-political-acumen
Exactly, Chiara. And that’s what Secretary Duncan is banking on. Or should I say that’s what Governor Duncan is banking on?
I love the way Mile Petrilli is the go to guy for NYTimes comments. I’ll remind everyone that as per Mike Petrilli, he “is an award-winning writer and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, one of the country’s leading education-policy think tanks.”
His degree is in political science.
The Fordham Institute, of which Mike Petrilli is president, was paid millions by Gates to promote CCSS.
We have the same thing out here in Los Angeles, with the astroturf group Educators Excellence, and its unelected leader Ama Nyamke or whatever her name is. The media quote her on a par with UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl.
Ama represents no one, or almost no one, as her group is a Gates-funded farce with pre-selected policy from above imposed on them, while they claim its springing from the ground up through what are bogus committees.
Meanwhile, Alex represents, and was elected by 37,000 teachers FOR REAL.
Yes, Julie Tran – and they are now in our early childhood centers and preschools – using kids for experimentation – because the FED Dept of Ed has been delivering funds for it. Under the guise of community outreach they get public funds because they find parents stressed with making ends meet…and somehow think the best solution is to ask them to find time to sit down with therapists to discuss it?
Diane this was yet your finest post. Every word so true. Stop with the excuses already!!
Give Dunkenstein a message: S.I.T.Y.S. You screwed American education.
“Big change never happens overnight,” Duncan said. “I’m confident that over the next decade, if we stay committed to this change, we will see historic improvements.”
“Big change never happens overnight,” Beverly Hall said. “I’m confident that over the next decade, if we stay the course, we will see historic improvements.”
Prohibition “Just Needs More Time”, Say Gangsters
The Soviet Union needed more time. 70 years was not enough to prove the theory.
“I’m confident that over the next decade, if we stay committed to this change, we will see historic improvements.”
I guess that means we can rest easy. Whew…I was getting a little worried there.
Gates isn’t quite so sure, but he’s willing to give it a 10 year shot.
It reminds me of that commercial with Buster Posey, star catcher for the San Francisco Giants, showing up in full uniform, ready to deliver a woman’s baby in the hospital.
“Uh…NO…!”
If only we could say the same.
GENUINE innovation, creativity, and thinking outside the box are important components of a teacher’s arsenal, but there’s no substitute for experience.
Checked Arne’s credentials, recently? On what is he basing this wonderful, feel good claim?
Don’t be fooled by the rhetoric.
Headlines in today’s San Jose Mercury News is that test scores are horrible. Again, will these responsible for this testing frenzy be held accountable?
Duncan’s Dottiness Displayed Daily!