Did you know that the National Assessment Of Educational Progress used to test much more than reading and math, much more than academic subjects? Did you know that it was designed originally to assess student cooperation and behavior as well as skills? Did you know that the narrowing of NAEP testing is fairly recent?
Richard Rothstein knows what NAEP was supposed to be and he explained its history to the governing board of NAEP on the occasion of its 25th anniversary.
He wrote:
“Education policy in both the Bush and Obama administrations has suffered from failure to acknowledge a critical principle of performance evaluation in all fields, public and private—if an institution has multiple goals but is held accountable only for some, its agents, acting rationally, will increase attention paid to goals for which they are evaluated, and diminish attention to those, perhaps equally important, for which they are not evaluated.
“When law and policy hold schools accountable primarily for their students’ math and reading test scores, educators inevitably, and rationally, devote less instructional resources to history, the sciences, the arts and music, citizenship, physical and emotional health, social skills, a work ethic and other curricular areas.
“Over the last decade, racial minority and socio-economically disadvantaged students have suffered the most from this curricular narrowing. As those with the lowest math and reading scores, theirs are the teachers and schools who are under the most pressure to devote greater time to test prep, and less to the other subjects of a balanced instructional program.
“One way the federal government promotes this distortion is through its National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), an assessment administered biennially in every state, but only in math and reading. Government officials spend considerable effort publicizing the results. They call NAEP “The Nation’s Report Card,” but no parent would be satisfied with so partial and limited a report card for his or her child.
“Twenty-five years ago, Congress created the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) to create NAEP policy. At NAGB’s conference today celebrating its silver anniversary, Rebecca Jacobsen and I describe (in a presentation drawn from our book with Tamara Wilder, Grading Education. Getting Accountability Right) how NAGB’s disproportionate attention to math and reading was not intended when NAEP was first administered in the early 1970s.
“In those early years, NAEP attempted to assess any goal area for which schools devote, in the words of NAEP’s designers, “15-20% of their time…, [the] less tangible areas, as well as the customary areas, in a fashion the public can grasp and understand.”
“For example, to see whether students were learning to cooperate, NAEP sent trained observers to present a game to 9-year-olds in sampled schools. In teams of four, the 9-year-olds were offered a prize to guess what was hidden in a box. Teams competed to see which, by asking questions, could identify the toy first. Team members had to agree on which questions to ask, and the role of posing questions was rotated. Trained NAEP observers rated the 9-year-olds on their skills in cooperative problem-solving and NAEP then reported on the percentage who were capable of it.
“NAEP assessors also evaluated cooperative skills of 13- and 17-year-olds. Assessors presented groups of eight students with a list of issues about which teenagers typically had strong opinions. Students were asked to reach consensus on the five most important and then write recommendations on how to resolve two of them. The list included, for 13-year-olds, such issues as whether they should have a curfew for going to bed, and for 17-year-olds, eligibility minimums for voting, drinking, and smoking. NAEP observers rated skills such as whether students gave reasons for their points of view and defended a group member’s right to hold a contrary viewpoint.”
For the full presentation, written with Rebecca Jacobsen, read this.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“They call NAEP “The Nation’s Report Card,” but no parent would be satisfied with so partial and limited a report card for his or her child.”
Excellent observation.
Very interesting post.
Wow. I did not know this. It would be interesting to reinstitute these same tests and see if over time the results are different. Anecdotally, I can tell you that a 1st grade teacher friend of mine says that many of her students can’t cooperate at all because they have spent so much time in adult-directed activities or highly monitored “play dates” with only one other child. Listening and cooperation are skills that can (and need to be) taught if we are hell-bent as a society in taking away the environments where such skills develop more organically.
wow – this is the kind of information we should be sending all the reform groups (DFER, Stand for Children, etc.).
Good posting and comments about the current narrowing, distorting and eliminating of meaningful opportunities to teach and learn in the nation’s public schools, driven in large part by making the tail of measuring and assessing wag the dog of learning and teaching.
But—what happens when an educational institution is given the necessary resources to create an enriched teaching and learning environment? When big and broad goals are embraced by the self-styled “education reformers”?
Just the barest taste of what is offered at Harpeth Hall [Michelle Rhee] during Winterim, described on its website as:
“Begun in 1973, Winterim is a three-week program of on and off campus opportunities meant to broaden the intellectual horizons of our students. Taking place every January, Winterim has become a hallmark of Harpeth Hall’s innovative curriculum.”
And now for the money quote:
[start quote]
Winterim offers students the very best in experiential learning, creating for them a chance to see their academic studies take a tangible, dynamic form. They are immersed in environments where they use language skills during a home stay in France or Argentina, math skills to design a model home, analytical and science skills in a Cryptography course, or writing and communication skills at a local or national news station.
During Winterim, juniors and seniors have traveled to Argentina, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Qatar, South Africa, and Spain. These academic trips and cultural exchanges have fostered a deeper understanding of the world and the world’s needs.
In New Zealand, students studied marine biology, ecology and native cultures while participating in service learning. In Japan, students studied the art and culture of that country, in South Africa, students were immersed in service learning and issues of global poverty. In England, Greece, and Italy, students experienced the rich history and culture of civilizations that have so impacted and shaped our own American heritage. In Argentina, France and Spain, students were immersed in the language of the three countries during home stays and while interacting with their exchange hosts at local schools in Bonpland, Paris and Malaga.
Stateside, students intern at more than 100 companies and non-profit in major cities around the United States, including Washington, D.C., Manhattan, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Portland, Maine, Palm Beach and Nashville. Internships range from hospitals to financial forms to television stations.
Freshmen and sophomores can choose from more than 50 challenging, project-oriented courses. In past courses, students designed aquatic robots, explored gender roles in history and literature, and discussed the Supreme Court and civil liberties.
For the Harpeth Hall student, Winterim is the fusion of vital classroom academics with the experience of a larger world. And that is exciting.
[end quote]
Link: http://www.harpethhall.org/podium/default.aspx?t=151822
What Richard Rothstein described is for what the self-styled leaders of the “new civil rights movement of our time” regard as OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN.
For THEIR OWN CHILDREN—Winterim and lots lots lots more of the same.
But shed no tears for the favored few and their advantaged children, for at the end of the rainbow of charters and privatization and vouchers is a big pot of $tudent $ucce$$. And when it comes to the most important data point of all, they are indefatigable in squeezing blood out of other people’s rocks—
“For greed all nature is too little.” [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
They are not going to stop on their own.
On to Austin!
😎
Enjoyed that Rothstein piece. Two points:
First, CCSS continues that narrowing to reading and math. Especially to reading. I don’t teach math but our math department claims that the questions are very long and often phrased in paragraph formats. I teach history and the CCSS for history are all related to reading and writing (with history linked material). Except it’s not the study of history. It’s how to write a thesis. And how to identify bias (which is a reading skill). And how to do research (more ELA). Yes these are things we do in a history class but writing the paper is only part of the goal, not exclusively the goal.
Second, when reading Rothstein’s ideas about collaborative problem-solving, I thought of a class I pitched in my district two years ago. I wrote a class that used a variety of strategy games (of gradually increasing levels). Some games were collaborative (Pandemic, Forbidden Island). Others were highly competitive (Suburbia, Concordia, Imperial). Some were card-driven (Dominion, Citadels, Illuminati). The idea was that students would work in groups and do an assortment of tasks (strategy analysis, technical writing, game review discussions) but that it always cam back to the games.
The district loved it but said that it didn’t really fit with the upcoming curricular expectations (not enough reading and writing). I found that interesting because I host an after school session where I teach these games to anyone that will show up. My average turnout ranges from 15-25. And it’s an eclectic group of brainiacs and smart kids who don’t like school, (and therefore underachieve). The class would be tough and fun.
But apparently, not CCSS enough.
(For those who are curious, the final project was that groups would complete a prototype game. Board, cards components and whatever else was necessary. So it had the collaborative and technological elements as well.)
Sounds like a fun class. I used to substitute for a teacher who used lots of role playing games in his 7 and 8 grade social studies classes. The two years were devoted to American history. I loved subbing for his classes. He prepared very carefully so that I could continue his curriculum. The classes used to fly by. He retired before the onslaught of testing and test prep.