The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been measuring national samples of students in grades 4 and 8 (and sometimes 12) since the early 1970s. It has been measuring state samples since 1992, and began assessing a few urban districts in 2003. It assesses students every two years in reading and math, and every several years in history, science, civics, and other subjects.
NAEP has always collected background information, which is self-reported about students’ reading habits, television viewing time, teacher practices, and other quantifiable aspects of tea hing and learning.
Now, NAEP will add grit, motivation, and mindset to the background information collected.
It will be interesting to see how these noncognitive traits are measured. Will students judge their own grit? Are they good judges of their grit? Will we someday know which states and cities have students with the most grit? And once we know, will officials create courses in how to improve grit?
I am reminded of a strange finding that emerged from international background questions two decades ago. Students were asked if they were good in math. Students in nations with the highest test scores said they were not very good in math; students in nations where test scores were middling thought they were really good at math.
What does it all mean? I don’t know, but it satisfies someone’s need for more data.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Will they be the coarse 60 grit? Or, maybe the ultra-fine 120 grit? I guess it depends on the job.
LikeLike
How to grade your kid’s grit —
http://sizes.com/tools/sandpaper.htm
LikeLike
Thank you for this, Ms. Ravitch. If this weren’t so potentially dangerous, I’d probably still be giggling. Sounds like the NAEP has been picking up cues from watching and reviewing John Wayne movies.
LikeLike
No Roy, he had true grit!
LikeLike
No OT, he had Hollywood grit!
LikeLike
Roy: it is exceedingly dangerous; I am angry and cannot giggle much… quote: “If this weren’t so potentially dangerous, I’d probably still be giggling.” they have already tested 3,000 kids in Boston with their foolish “grit” questionnaire. It comes from an arrogance that starts out “I have more grit than you do and your kids are all lazy so I will test them an prove they don’t have any grit”… it’s the old “bootstraps” stuff in personality theory guise. There is a lot of disagreement in personality theory as to what it is and of course the operational definition of how to measure “it”… No construct validity. So they go in and pick up Angela Duckworth’s questionnaires for college students and rework them for middle school. You cannot measure these younger students in these ways — identity is stlll developing. We have had studies of “academic self-concept” for decades that show us students’ in their relationships/interactions in schools while learning science etc. But these arrogant fools just say “grit” is a personality trait they presume to measure. As I mentioned, it makes me exceedingly angry. It started with Fordham Instiutte and the Martin West “blue sky” report on “grit” in the 3,000 Boston students (mostly living in poverty and certainly less affluence than their peers in private schools). Because it is personality theory it is similar to a “church” or other place where they will indoctrinate you in the values that the leaders of the cult will determine what is a valuable attribute for a person/individual to develop. That is not the role of a school.
LikeLike
I am about ready to join the “Conservatives” and say get rid of the DOE. All of these data collection efforts cost money that goes to corporate America instead of children and schools. When will we say enough. Stop granting large contracts that often tell us nothing more than we know, the achievement gap continues. I live in Chicago by the way!!!!
LikeLike
educatorwhome…. I even voted for McGovern… I have been a life-long democrat… This surge of punishing schools has turned me against he democratic party. In my family I say I am the only republican (my sister in Houston and my sister in CA all raised republican children.) I have one nephew in London who says he is a socialist and I am joining up with them. I think I can feel what you are saying about Chicago….. these Rahm-type neo-linberals (or whatever label really fits) are taking us along into the super-hype of technology and competition with other nations… to the extreme . It is all marketing. I was reading a book by a woman from the Royal Shakespeare theater and she said when Rome fell we still had the Roman Church in authority and when America “falls” we will have the American church in domination and it is called the Corporation. Sadly, true. Most of her book was about Shakespeare but she had this one insight. “Grit” is how you proselytize your “churchy values” in the “reformy” spaghetti…. (you can see by all my words that the language fails me at times)
LikeLike
cx… I was the only democrat in my republican family…. sorry in my haste and anger I called myself a repub
LikeLike
Diane, I know you have great respect for the NAEP and I try to give it the benefit of the doubt because of that. But it’s getting hard to do. First they give legitimacy to the idea that “proficiency” is something that all kids need to achieve, yet less than 30% of kids do, giving support to the idea that American students (and, hence, American schools) are “failing”. And now they’re giving in to this “grit” nonsense. I’m afraid to ask what’s next.
LikeLike
Now that this kind of ridiculous overreach is showing how unscientific psychometry really is can we relegate it to the dustbin of history along with phrenology, astrology, and reading the entrails of freshly sacrificed animals? That’s where it belongs.
This pseudoscience has gotten way too big for its departmental britches and needs to be reigned in. Pretending that you can measure invisible qualities that no one even agrees exist is little more outrageous than claiming you can tell if a child has learned anything through a bunch of multiple choice and short answer questions that are then graded by the otherwise unemployed and unqualified.
We created the monster that is Pearson (and all the others) by giving credence to the nonsense of testing, data, and measurement and they paired up with that other pseudoscience of economics and together they are destroying our profession.
Stop feeding the beast. Opt out!
LikeLike
OMG to Diane’s post. This is NUTS.
YES indeed Chiara. Your words ring true: Stop feeding the beast. Opt out!
LikeLike
Not only opt your child out but opt out yourself, refuse to give these abominations of educational malpractice.
LikeLike
The two dominant pseudo sciences in public education discourse pushed by edudeformers, economics and psychometrics. A deadly cocktail being foisted upon the gulping public.
Quite correct Chris, in that they should be and eventually will be put in the same category as phrenology, astrology, eugenics, etc. . . .
LikeLike
“unscientific psychometry really is can” it is all personality theory…. we should not be messing around in the personality of a young student whose identity is not fully formed; that is a cult…. It is also arrogant…. but there were articles at Christmas (2013) at Fordham Institute saying that christian students get higher test scores so that is a portion of where it is coming from… there are others who are just plain arrogant (doesn’t have anything to do with a label of being “christian”) but just a superior attitude that is very self-righteous…. it can be buried in the american “execeptionalism” when it is carried to an extreme viewpoint of winning is everything Uber Alles…..
LikeLike
Conservatives want to demolish public education. The American Enterprise Institute offers a 92-page plan: “An Education Agenda for 2016: Conservative Solutions for Expanding Opportunity.” Here are some highlights. Brace yourself.
1. Strengthen market-based education. Send federal funds for K-12 education to states for “follow the student” vouchers. These go to schools of choice, public or private, for-profit or non-profit, religious or secular. Schools that enroll children from low-income neighborhoods and districts receive more per student. Target the District of Columbia for a pilot program where unused public school vouchers are used to recruit students to other options. If the pilot works, scale it up. Allow unused voucher funds for current public school students to be invested in advertising and recruiting for “schools of choice.” Allow a portion of Title I funds (for high poverty schools/districts) to expand private school choice or help charter schools acquire buildings. Allow Title II funds (for “teacher quality”) to be used for “programs that prepare and support charter and private school teachers.”
2. Continue the testing regime. Support informed consumer choice with “valid, reliable, and easy to find” data on school performance, while taking care not to “narrow the curriculum or pedagogy of schools of choice by mandating a particular kind of test.“ Keep legacy requirements of NCLB with statewide tests in reading and math and subgroup reports. Keep NAEP assessments for comparisons across states. Report all school and district performance with measures with “cost adjusted” per-pupil spending and “return on investment metrics.”
3. Make Chapter 9 bankruptcy a tool for bold leaders of districts. Why? Local and state veto powers too often give “special interests (such as unions, retirees, and vendors) a …chance to stymie even the boldest local leaders.” A revised Chapter 9 law could help cleanse districts of “every bad contract provision a superintendent ever accepted and every inane school-board policy…” Allow districts that receive Title I funds and “deemed by their states to be performing inadequately” to “petition for relief from contractual obligations (to unions, vendors, and others) that constrain their efforts to improve schooling.“
4. Reallocate funds for research. “Congress could triple US investment in basic education science, say to $900 million, merely by redirecting 20 percent of the $3 billion spent on professional development under NCLB Title II.” “These funds would go to the Institute for Education Sciences …toward basic research that offers long-term benefits, such as that examining how fast the adolescent brain can absorb languages and which areas of the brain are associated with specific learning challenges” and other “areas that offer genuine promise—like cognitive science, applied-reading techniques, and brain imaging.” (Reduce funding for research on schools).
4. Expand digital learning. Allow “innovative and efficient” technology-based models of personalized and blended learning to flourish by dismantling federal and state regulations. Set up a “rewards fund” for Title I schools to earn technology funding “based on their ability to improve student outcomes on measures such as proficiency, achievement gaps, graduation rates, dropout rates, and the like.”
5. Modify support for early learning. Level the playing field for “disadvantaged infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.” Continue or increase funds for Child Care and Development Block Grants; the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting program; and Head Start. Reduce bureaucratic regulation of Head Start. Make it a block grant program. Allow it to “serve as a valuable federal laboratory to test what strategies are effective with disadvantaged kids and what’s critical to executing those strategies well.” (Most of this discussion condemns K-12 publics schools for making things worse for disadvantaged children and for unnamed “expensive boondoggles.”)
6. Make job preparation the priority for postsecondary education. Undo the Obama administration’s promotion of “college and career readiness for all” in favor of preparing all “for jobs that actually exist” and meet “the needs of employers ready to hire.“ “Incentivize students and employers to participate in …cost-effective training programs” instead of providing ”disproportionate incentives that bias students and federal dollars toward degree programs offered by traditional institutions of higher education.”
Support alternatives such as “Silicon Valley boot camps” (coding, hack academies), employer paid apprenticeships for jobs in high demand, and short-term training with “stackable“ and “portable” certificates for skilled trades and professions. “The federal government could better serve students and employers (and reduce taxpayer costs) by consolidating…programs under one agency with the mandate of advancing without bias all postsecondary education options.”
Enable the Office of Postsecondary Education to administer the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, Title II of the Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act and all job-related programs in the Departments of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, and Federal Highway Administration.
Student debt is caused by the absence of “personal responsibility” and the availability of federal loans. Solutions: Cap federal loans and require credit-worthy co-signers. Impose penalties for schools if their students default on loans (called skin in the game with the benefit of more selective admissions). Expand federal tracking of graduation rates, loan repayment, and earnings of graduates from public institutions. Publicize overpriced degrees.
Encourage “robust” private-market loan options “based on the type and quality of the program a student is pursuing and his or her likelihood of being successful in that program,” also “Income Share Agreements”— loans repaid based on after school income.
7. Use the presidential bully pulpit. Dismantle public education with a “trustbusting mindset.” Make Reagan-like deregulation the new normal.
Attack “the same tired canards” from opponents of school choice. “School choice drains money from public schools,” “Schools of choice cream the best students and leave public schools worse off,” “Low-income parents will make bad decisions for their children.” Call out “powerful cartel of unions and bureaucrats who have an interest in maintaining the status quo.” Undermine the credibility of the nation’s 14,000 school districts. Say they “function as monopolies.”
Contrast the plight of low-income students trapped in traditional, boring schools versus the opportunities in “numerous exciting and innovative models of schooling.” Offer examples: “Technology-rich hybrid models (Carpe Diem public charter schools), “no-excuses” schools (KIPP), religious urban schools with an academic focus (St. Marcus Lutheran, Milwaukee, WI) and others.
Ridicule “traditional” college curricula, tenured faculty, and middle class college students who “graduate from college completely unprepared to deal with the hazards, hassles, inconveniences, and disappointments of the real world.” Say that college educators “may see their students as mere children who are to be protected from the adult word, including through the use of strictly enforced, politically correct speech codes.” Portray colleges and universities as expensive venues that “offer whatever educational programs their tenured faculty are willing and able to teach, regardless of actual workforce needs.”
Continue hammering on “the achievement gap,” the “opportunity gap,” and the nation’s obligation to see that “all students have a full shot at the American dream.”
Historically AIE has been a major source of cabinet and program oficers for Republican administrations. The authors of this report are Chester E. Finn Jr., Michael Q. McShane, John Bailey, Frederick M. Hess, Katharine B. Stevens, Diane Auer Jones, Kevin J. James, and Andrew P. Kelly.
LikeLike
Thanks for the summary, Laura. You will find AEI fingerprints on much of the worst of the worst reforms.
Chester Finn is among the worst of the worst of the worse. Never met a fact or a proof that can dent his religious zeal for the failed standards movement, the failed Friedman economics fantasy, or the value of destroying teachers and their unions with economic theory and bogus testing.
He is evil in my mind. He is Sauron’s lieutenant. I know he is a former friend and colleague of Diane’s but he can be quite nasty as I remember drom the EDDRA listerv days.
LikeLike
These proposals read like a manifesto from the Third Reich. They want to deny Americans a democratic voice so they can control and dominate.
LikeLike
Well, it will be up to the public to stop them since lawmakers have “relinquished” public education to these think tanks and lobbying groups.
I think the trick is to get them to run on this. They don’t. It’s not what President Bush ran on or President Obama although this template is what they’re following.
LikeLike
Thanks for this important doc, Laura, found easily by googling title. The opening remarks are enlightening, particularly this one:
“Although conservative presidential candidates might be tempted to double down on rhetoric about abolishing the federal role in education, conservatives should instead offer a reform agenda that clarifies how to tap into the strengths of the federal system to foster educational opportunity for all.”
And there it is, the junction of the Republican split. We progressives occasionally find ourselves on the same side of educational issues as
conservatives. So those would be the ‘small-gov’ & libertarian conservatives – tho’ they buy into ‘school choice’/ charters/ vouchers, they are pro-local control, anti- fed intrusion in matters of education. Hence we are on the same page regarding Common Core & its assessments, pro- returning the classroom to the purview of indepedent-minded teachers. [Caveat: our conservative brethren are loath to put enough $ into the classroom to ensure quality teaching, let alone union protections such as due process].
In the above cite we see the intersection between neoliberal philosophy [what passes for ‘mainstream Democrats today’ – Obama, and the Clintons, but not Sanders] and ‘mainstream’ [read: tweaked far right of traditional] Republicans.
All these folks can be classified as ‘in it for the money.’ They are all following Milton Friedman down the rabbit-hole. Their campaigns are supported by big bucks from private enterprise– legal now thanks to Citizens’ United– and by corporate lobbyists corrupting every level of govt w/ unmonitored freebies (did a law change to allow that, or is it just unfunded monitoring?) — and they all propose self-serving policies drafted by & based on self-serving studies from ‘charitable’ tax-free think-tanks & activist groups, who owe their existence to changes in 501(c) law perpetrated via the same heavy-handed but recently-legal influence of big bucks.
The countering Democratic [progressive] platform must include, obviously, a return to democracy. This will ultimately require getting the money out, a large subject which will take much time & voter will.
But meanwhile… I have to question the power granted to the DOE (& perhaps to other executive agencies) within a functioning democracy.
Many seem to think the DOE was created to implement civil rights, i.e., equal access to quality education. However, civil-rights-era legislation was implemented under the old Dept of Health, Ed, & Welfare.
Carter’s DOE seems rather to have been created as an echo of the original 1867 DOE, “to collect information on schools and teaching that would help the States establish effective school systems. While the agency’s name and location within the Executive Branch have changed over the past 130 years, this early emphasis on getting information on what works in education to teachers and education policymakers continues down to the present day.” (Wiki). Carter’s DOE was re-created to focus an educational response to the decline of mfg due to the rise of a global economy.
Regardless of historical motivation, it seems clear the DOE has too much power, today, in the context of democracy. The digital revolution has made it possible– as evidenced by Common Core’s development from a draft in summer 2009, w/o a single vote cast, to a plague visited on national public schools by summer 2015– for an executive agency to change the very nature of taxpayer-supported public school education without so much as a howdy-do to the voting, taxpaying public.
LikeLike
I am a left winger in favor of eliminating the USDOE. NCLB and RttT are a plague on my house. The ESEA waiver for Newark has me investigating early retirement. While we are at it, let’s abolish the NJ DOE as well and send Chris Cerf back to Amplify. Hey, Joel Klein, will you take me up on my offer?
LikeLike
“It will be interesting to see how these non cognitive traits are measured. Will students judge their own grit?…Will we someday know which states and cities have students with the most grit?”
Is it possible that the “someday” and ultimate goal for the NAEP and all others collecting data may already be looming on the horizon…students “will” measure themselves with their own facial expressions via the computer camera.
http://rewrite.ca.com/us/articles/application-economy/software-that-knows-what-your-face-is-really-saying.html?intcmp=rewritearticlesmodule
LikeLike
My personal grit is waning. The measurement scale is purely subjective. Kids in Newark have plenty of grit in my estimation. It is usually not of an academic nature. It is developed from battling the environmental elements.
LikeLike
“Grit Loss”
Sand it hard
And grit falls off
Said the bard
Of sanding rough
Fail the kids
And confidence ebbs
Lose their grits
To Arnes and Jebs
LikeLike
“Moh(and Larry and Curly)’s Student Hardness (aka “grit”) Scale” (measured by NAEP with a VAMomiter — also known as a ‘VOMiter”)
0. Dick Cheney, Arne Duncan, Bill Gates….
1. Daisy
2. Pansy
3. Wimp
4. Average Joe.
5. Clint Eastwood
6. Rambo
7. Ahhhnold
8. Diane Ravitch
Note: it is a highly nonlinear scale (and there are many other reformers at Hardness 0, but the comment box was too small to fit them all. Dick Cheney (the equivalent of ultrafine sandpaper grit) is not really a reformer, of course, but merely acts to set the zero of the scale)
LikeLike
TAGO! (as usual SDP)
LikeLike
“. . . and other unquantifiable traits”
Like what a student knows? Or what actually happens in the teaching and learning process? Or the love one has for his/her parents/spouse/children/friends?
The “trait”, construct, ability, knowledge that standardized tests purport to measure (and of course we know that they don’t “measure” anything by any stretch of the meaning of that word) is never clearly defined, delineated nor is has any “standard” against which to “measure” nor is there any “measuring device” to do that supposed measurement. IT’S ALL A BIG HOAX, FOLKS, A BUNCH OF PURE EXCREMENT OF BOVINE ORIGIN!!! And the sooner all here realize that hoax and start fighting against that hoax the better off the students will be.
LikeLike
“It will be interesting to see how these noncognitive traits are measured. ”
NO! It won’t be interesting as there is no valid means to “measure” those “traits” whether cognitive or noncognitive!! It can only be a bunch of mental masturbation with a dash of obligatory onanism thrown in on the side.
LikeLike
Onanism? I had to look that one up Duane. Should I add it to my summer vocabulary list?
LikeLike
Make part of your year round vocabulary!
LikeLike
I got my grit the old fashioned way, by not adequately washing off the lettuce from my garden! Perhaps kids will be able to collect it over the schoolyear and mail it in for analysis.
Analysis is important, because while it may look and seem like grit, it might actually be silt, or even clay.
LikeLike
Spoken like a true geologist
BTW, does Harvard have a program in gritology because some of the most prominent gritologists (Arne Duncan, Bill Gates) seem to hail from there — though Gates never graduated, of course.
LikeLike
Isn’t NAEP the test that relies on samples?
So the next push is to test every kid every year on the ed reform definition of character because we’re told again and again samples aren’t sufficient right?
LikeLike
It all sounds like the probably genuine test question :
“Mentally multiply 25 and 17. Show your working”.
LikeLike
Why is Chris Christie launching his presidential bid from a public school?
Is it fair that politicians only show up in public schools when they’re promoting themselves? I thought they loathed our government schools. Now that he needs “regular guy” cred he parachutes into one?
LikeLike
I think where he launches from is much less important than where he launches to.
If I had a vote, it would be to Mars — or at least the moon.
LikeLike
Chiara,
Livingston High School is like a Hollywood set for Christie. Did you see all the teachers out there protesting? They were primarily from suburban districts. Those of us in urban districts have tired of him to the point that protesting appears a complete and utter waste of time. Let the national media investigate his antics.
LikeLike
This, coupled with the other subjective, “data” collection I’ve seen first-hand is deeply troubling. I not only worry about the fact that this is being done, I also worry about who will have access to the data and wonder what it means when a student doesn’t understand a question because of language barriers or because the question is confusing or not well written.
LikeLike
My elementary school will be implementing a course in grit and mindset beginning next year. My school district added 30 minutes to school day. Each school got to choose what “specials children would get… extra science, extra art, etc. My school voted on grit and mindset. The answer to poverty. Teach them how to stick to it and try harder.
I’m in a 90% poverty school.
Sit and learn Grit.
Sigh.
Raz
LikeLike
I don’t suppose you’d wish to share your region/ locale?… I am vastly curious as to the content of a ‘grit and mindset’ program, & hope you will share what it’s all about as it unfolds…
LikeLike
Why do I see a young waif asking for more gruel, please? The David Copperfield School of Grit. Makes me want to barf, actually.
LikeLike
Is science considered a “special” in your district? Back in the day, science was considered a core subject. That predated the emergence of the Common Core. I show my age more and more each day. I am being showered with senior discounts despite not really being entitled to them.
LikeLike
Excellent piece! I believe we’ll be moving more towards NAEP (replacing SBAC & PARCC?) it’s important to have less testing, but also QUALITY testing- valid, reliable, peer reviewed and measuring ACADEMICS.
I’d like to see Dr. Gary Thompson, clinical psychologist out of Utah, speak on this and, what it means for kids to be given psychometrics….without HIPAA, without parental knowledge, without parental consent.
This is big.
Thanks for starting folks thinking about this.
>
LikeLike
The sad part about this is the concept of fixed mindset and having grit actually is very interesting, but going the testing route is not the way to foster grit! As a teacher of gifted students, I often have to help the students to develop a growth mindset with their learning. Many either are perfectionists that hold themselves back in fear of failure or have given up trying to push their learning forward because they realize that it is easier to just do the minimum to get an A. Having a test that measures grit will only foster a fixed mindset. Ironic isn’t it? I am presenting for the first time a professional development session in my school district this summer on how to foster a growth mindset. It is trickling down to schools and it is very exciting, but I agree that it is virtually impossible to quantify grit into numbers and the approach of the NAEP is very concerning.
LikeLike
Uuuuggghhh!
Chris Gabrielli is a gadfly venture capitalist who imagines himself as some kind of innovator and the HGSE is his enabler. (It seems as if the HGSE may have merged with the B School, ¿qué no?)
“About Chris Gabrieli:
Chris Gabrieli is the co-founder of three non-profit education innovation and reform initiatives and a lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. As the co-founder of Massachusetts 2020/the National Center on Time & Learning, he has been at the forefront of the movement to expand learning time for disadvantaged students. He co-founded Empower Schools to align student results with community needs and is a Partner Emeritus at Bessemer Venture Partners where he started in the entrepreneurial healthcare software and biotechnology field. He has served in numerous higher education advisory board roles at Harvard HAA, Boston University’s School of Public Health and Clark University.”
http://www.mass.gov/governor/press-office/press-releases/fy2015/governor-appoints-new-members-to-higher-education-board.html
So Charlie Baker, our new ( R ) governor named him to the Board of Higher Ed in a show of “bi-partisanship”. I had not thought that when there existed a monolithic view of an issue, like how to skim money from public education, there was any “bi” about it.
LikeLike
This is the antithesis of what grit is all about. Why are they going down this road? Somethings are not meant to be measured.
LikeLike
The results of the international math scores support the contention that the US suffers from the Dunning-Kruger effect, wherein competence and confidence are inversely correlated.
LikeLike