The ASCD published an eye-popping chart showing that NAEP long-term trend test scores for 17-year-olds were flat from 1971-2012. At the same time, economic productivity soared by 375%, and gross domestic product grew by 100%.
What do you make of that?
I have pointed out repeatedly that our students have never excelled on international tests. On the first international test in 1964, our students came in last of 12 nations. Yet as I explain in my book “Reign of Error,” over the next half-century we outperformed the other 11 nations who had higher test scores.
What do you make of that?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There are several possible explanations. Certainly capital deepening as well as the IT revolution have both increased labor productivity.
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What I make of that is that Raj Chetty may have to eat crow.
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Who knew that “Dr.” Steve Perry would nail this:
“Men lie and women lie but numbers don’t.” [ok, he was channeling rapper Jay-Z]
Does that mean that the standardized test scores of public school students don’t pose an existential threat to the US economy?
Wow… whodathunk?
😕
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The neoliberal idea that intelligence and skills are what lead to economic growth, and that the most educated and intelligent get the greatest rewards, is all wrong. Economic growth has happened in this country because of exploding consumerism. And the people who get ahead are not the smartest or who contribute the most — i.e. the engineers and scientists — but the CEOs, financiers, and lawyers who have all the connections.
Our focus in education should be on improving our society, not creating workers for corporations.
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I do think the whole dire straits stuff is BS, but I ‘d like to see the same graphs with immigrated and outsourced talent disaggregated somehow.
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What do you make of that?
Selective memory, ignorance, and a lack of comprehension and understanding of what the tests are.
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Productivity is not just a function of knowledge and the cognitive domain, but also (maybe even more so) one’s attitudes, values, habits and the affective domain. What good is a genius on tests who is lazy of noncompliant at work? What good is hard work, if the employee realizes the CEO or State Dictator keeps 95% of the profit, or in a communistic society hard work never gets one more personal goods, and lazy people benefit from the hard work of others.
So, maybe part of our “advantage” is having a Judeo-Christian heritage and value system where diligence and personal productivity have inherent meaning (because God cares about this), and are not just defined by the State or “market-values”.
In the same lines, what good are high test scores if the person then is going to live an immoral and unproductive life and end up being more of a social burden than social benefit? Who benefits society more (the value to risk, output to social cost, ratio): 1) the janitor who did poor on science-math tests, yet loves his wife and kids (and Jesus) and never uses drugs, never divorces, always is productive at work (does the same work as 2 lazy people), and whose kids never need social services because they are well-adjusted, or 2) the PhD engineer who aced all tests, but becomes substance-addicted, has 3 divorces, leaves a “wake” of damaged, maladjusted children and stepchildren (who require much social service, or create more social cost/burden)?
Just which person does benefit society more? Which person was predicted by test scores to be the more “successful” and better contribute to the GDP? So, if the correlation may be negative, then why obsess about test scores or use them as predictors? What ever happened to the education of the affective domain and the teaching of morals and ethics? Do we hide from our students (out of a misinterpretation of the “seperation of church and state”) the fact that without our Judeo-Christian heritage [the socio-cultural influence of the “salt and light” of the Bible, and Jesus], our society would be just as chaotic and violent as we see on many other continents, and only those that are more moral, just and righteous are so because of the influence of Scripture on them (ex. via missionary efforts)? Do we believe we only educate a mind disconnected from a heart, soul or spirit?
Do we point out that Hitler and Naziism were the logical implications and consequences of an evolutionary view of human “fitness” and socio-biological “progress” (which is an established historic fact)? Do we worship our capital, while ignoring the One who “gives us all things, delightfully to enjoy”?
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“So, maybe part of our “advantage” is having a Judeo-Christian heritage and value system where our god has sanctioned exploitation, stealing and killing of others who would stand in the way of that Judeo-Christian heritage and value system. Quite an advantage, eh, Rick?!?!?
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Duane, the Bible teaches to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you….to esteem others highly in love’s sake, better than yourself…to put the needs of others before your own…better to give than receive….to never oppress the alien or stranger…because God is no respecter of persons….to show no partiality or favoritism in justice or righteousness”..etc, ad infinitum..
So, can you please give me a verse that allows for oppression or exploitation? All the nations were warring, stealing, exploiting, oppressing eachother, but they do so because of our sin nature, not because the Faith taught it.
The “empire” building of the Catholic church, or any denomination, is hypocrisy and heresy that contradicts the clear and explicit mandates of Scripture. Yes, people “twist the Scriptures to their own destruction”, but the error is human, not found in the inspired, inerrant and infallible Word of God.
So, Duane, maybe read the Bible before you “critique” others faith. True faith teaches, “love does no harm to its neighbor”, not take advantage of people, which hypocrites do.
PS – if you want to have some theological discussions, then email me: ricklapworth@gmail.com
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I was pleased to see that ASCD had published the chart. They have been cheerleading for reformist ideas ad nauseum. It has been hard to stick with them for the occasional useful article. I can smell reformist contamination without even opening their journal, and I frequently find myself closing it in disgust. With the growing criticism of CCSS and the mind numbing reliance on data that can be reduced to points on a graph, I have noticed a slight shift in their position. Perhaps they will speak for the profession again rather than their reformist pay masters.
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Had something in my mail box at school yesterday from ASCD and I could only find one very tiny, maybe a 5 font or so at the bottom of one page of 4-5 page color glossy brochure that stated what the ASCD acronym stands for. Got tossed right away. Any organization that isn’t proud enough to openly state who they are doesn’t deserve any more of my time than it took (2 minutes too long and wasted) to find who they are.
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You? The acronym king?! TAGO!
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Reblogged this on McAuliffe School and commented:
I’m glad that Jong Zhao has discerned patterns to help lift the fog off of some myths in education. This is particularly valuable as the trend to increase testing frequency in classrooms, in an effort to improve learning, continues at a staggering pace.
We know that the fast pace to “save” our children is the result of well intended, caring individuals. Sometimes it’s easier to jump on the bandwagon rather than stand in inquiry, look at what is happening that is working, acknowledge it, and then, together, tackle the challenges of areas that need improvement.
I’m reminded of John Medina’s reaction to the varied, untested, and unproven (yet touted as Best Practices in Brain Research) educational applications of brain research.
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“We know that the fast pace to “save” our children is the result of well intended, caring individuals.”
We do?
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Hi Dienne,
I tend to believe that most people in the world are good. I would also venture that most people who enter into the field of education to help children do so because they are well intended and care about children and learning.
So perhaps I should rephrase this to say just that. And will.
Thanks!
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“Gross DeTestic Product”
Gross DeTestic Product
Is what we need to track
And if we do, we’ll deduct
The latter is just flat
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SomeDAM Poet: I must obstruct, er, object.
I see your Gross Detestic Product and raise you a mangled Joyce Kilmer:
I think that I shall never suggest
That a tree is as lovely as a test.
A test whose hungry mouth is prest
Against $tudent $ucce$$’s flowing breast;
A test that looks at Gates all day,
And lifts its numbered arms to pay.
A test that may in LAUSD wear,
A billion bucks of iPads in its hair.
Upon whose ethics death has lain;
Who intimately lives with pain.
Tests are made by fools like Coleman.
But only Pearson can make a test item.
¿? You’re right. My bad. The original was much much better.
😧
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The “no correlation ” between scores on academic tests and the state of the economy is not big news. It is just counter to the dominant and longstanding narrative of billionaires who take charts and graphs and data points and too often think of these portrayals as if they are irrefutable facts..
History lesson:
The same rhetoric about the economy, productivity, international competition and so forth was present in the 1870s, fueled in part by international expositions of products made elsewhere, particularly in Europe.
Industrialists in Massachusetts, concerned about market share, pitched drawing–yes drawing– as the solution to enlarging the pool of competent draftsmen (language of the era) and designers to overcome the “quality gap” in American versus international product design.
In short order, Massachusetts made drawing a compulsory part of the curriculum. Walter Smith, the guru put in charge of “implementation,” brought over from Europe his knowledge of some academic exercises suitable for introduction by ANY classroom teacher and for ANY student who was learning to write…the only pre-requisite for learn rudimentary skills in drawing.
Smith’s program was packaged instruction with poster-size examples of drawing exercises for students to copy and instruction manuals for teachers. (Ohio State is one of several repositories of the original plates and the rest).
If CAD (computer-aided design/drafting) had been available in that era, it is likely that every student in Massachusetts would have been compelled to learn it, at least at a rudimentary level.
Now of course, there are make-it-yourself printers that can produce 3-D prototypes of products, and the like. STEM and STEAM programs (the A is for art) are not proliferating at the rate the industrialists from another era would have required.
At least they were closer to investing in the idea of knowledge and skills perceived to be relevant for a new economy.
Of course, the whole “manufacturing sector” has become of less interest than a churn of entrepreneurial activity, especially in financial markets and in tax-subsidized sectors of the economy once envisioned as vital components of the “common good” including public schools.
What is striking to me is the lack of imagination in policy-makers who have pushed the test score of kids as the mighty engine of the economy.
It really an absurd notion.
Not that I am eager to see our schools co-opted for careerism, work-force-training and greater influence from vulture capitalists.
I do want to point to a huge disconnect between the significance attached to scores on standardized tests and the real work of educating this generation so they have some understanding of what life offers and requires beyond learning to take tests, especially tests where the questions are asked by others and all of the “right” answers have been reduced to single, summative score.
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The value of imagination is only lost on those who lack it.
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The US economy generates vast wealth despite average student test scores b/c education does not control the economy–the economy controls education(and the political system). The billionaires busily looting and deranging public schools for their own private benefit also run the economy and government for their own private benefit. The school-to-college-to-work pipeline ends now in mass unemployment, underemployment, low-wage jobs with no benefits, contingent employment, and debt that will take years to pay off. Having us fight over school policy keeps us at arms distance from fighting the 1% over economic policy.
Educational debates are political debates about money and power. How will we spend our vast wealth, how much on whom in what ways, and who will profit most from such policies? The outcome of this battle so far is in front of our faces: a society with multiple unequal school systems depending on race, class, region, location, etc., with the private independent schools in the calm eye of the hurricane.
The elite protect their own kids from the hurricane they impose on public schools by safeguarding them in test-exempt private units. This is consistent with the elite-imposed inequality betw pvt/pub sectors–While the elite live in a protected private sector(private housing, health care, schools and colleges, camps, spas and gyms, beach and mountain resorts, limos, jets, security and bodyguards and concierges, country clubs, etc.)the 99% get a chronically underfunded and over-regulated public sector–threadbare, over-crowded, unkempt, long waits and locked doors.
In the disfavored public sector, mass education confirms and extends the inequalities each kindergarten is born into. At the end of the education pipeline, kids from the richest homes come out on top, having started out on top. Some high-achieving kids from the lower ends of the scale do indeed climb up to join the born winners. Most do not climb.
The great mass of students is trained to fit in, to be compliant with the way things are.
Our job as public advocates is to invite students of all ages to be defiant, not compliant. Invite students to become democratic activists in classrooms, in communities, in society as a whole, grow up to build democratic rights, equality of conditions, environmental protections, and peaceful relations. The great mass of folks at the bottom will have to invent democracy, equality, ecology and peace because the small group now in charge will never deliver such humane conditions to us.
For the moment, best way to interfere with the 1% is to go all for Zephyr Teachout in the Sept.9 NY Dem Primary for Governor. Wall St Governor Cuomo deserves to be thrown out of office. If Teachout loses, everyone for Howie Hawkins for NY Gov in Nov on the Green Party ticket. More lies ahead afterwards.
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Amen, Ira…the bias and favoritism shown to the rich 1-5% in the US is a stench before the Almighty, who commands in all actions of justice and righteousness “no favoritism, no partiality…treat all equally regardless of wealth and social status”….oh, how we sin in this nation.
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If all kids can do these days is take tests, then watch GDP and productivity plummet in the future.
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Can’t agree. GDP is not a function of high-stakes standardized results. Student outcomes do not determine economy.
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Several factors may contribute to increased productivity. Technology plays a big part. In addition to computers, manufacturing has increased productivity through increased automatization, and use of robots. Many customer service jobs use technology rather than a person resulting in cheaper operating cost. With the decline of unions, companies are free to consolidate sites and stretch workers to the max. None of this benefits the remaining workforce other than at least they have a job. The next step is the job is sent overseas. The companies make more money, and the shareholders smile.
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