Sometimes events happen that seem to be disconnected, but after a few days or weeks, the pattern emerges. Consider this: On October 2, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that he was resigning and planned to return to Chicago. Former New York Commissioner of Education John King, who is a clone of Duncan in terms of his belief in testing and charter schools, was designated to take Duncan’s place. On October 23, the Obama administration held a surprise news conference to declare that testing was out of control and should be reduced to not more than 2% of classroom time. Actually, that wasn’t a true reduction, because 2% translates into between 18-24 hours of testing, which is a staggering amount of annual testing for children in grades 3-8 and not different from the status quo in most states.
Disconnected events?
Not at all. Here comes the pattern-maker: the federal tests called the National Assessment of Educational Progress released its every-other-year report card in reading and math, and the results were dismal. There would be many excuses offered, many rationales, but the bottom line: the NAEP scores are an embarrassment to the Obama administration (and the George W. Bush administration that preceded it).
For nearly 15 years, Presidents Bush and Obama and the Congress have bet billions of dollars—both federal and state– on a strategy of testing, accountability, and choice. They believed that if every student was tested in reading and mathematics every year from grades 3 to 8, test scores would go up and up. In those schools where test scores did not go up, the principals and teachers would be fired and replaced. Where scores didn’t go up for five years in a row, the schools would be closed. Thousands of educators were fired, and thousands of public schools were closed, based on the theory that sticks and carrots, rewards and punishments, would improve education.
But the 2015 NAEP scores released today by the National Assessment Governing Board (a federal agency) showed that Arne Duncan’s $4.35 billion Race to the Top program had flopped. It also showed that George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind was as phony as the “Texas education miracle” of 2000, which Bush touted as proof of his education credentials.
NAEP is an audit test. It is given every other year to samples of students in every state and in about 20 urban districts. No one can prepare for it, and no one gets a grade. NAEP measures the rise or fall of average scores for states in fourth grade and eighth grade in reading and math and reports them by race, gender, disability status, English language ability, economic status, and a variety of other measures.
The 2015 NAEP scores showed no gains nationally in either grade in either subject. In mathematics, scores declined in both grades, compared to 2013. In reading, scores were flat in grade 4 and lower in grade 8. Usually the Secretary of Education presides at a press conference where he points with pride to increases in certain grades or in certain states. Two years ago, Arne Duncan boasted about the gains made in Tennessee, which had won $500 million in Duncan’s Race to the Top competition. This year, Duncan had nothing to boast about.
In his Race to the Top program, Duncan made testing the primary purpose of education. Scores had to go up every year, because the entire nation was “racing to the top.” Only 12 states won a share of the $4.35 billion that Duncan was given by Congress: Tennessee and Delaware were first to win, in 2010. The next round, the following states won multi-millions of federal dollars to double down on testing: Maryland, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island.
Tennessee, Duncan’s showcase state in 2013, made no gains in reading or mathematics, neither in fourth grade or eighth grade. The black-white test score gap was as large in 2015 as it had been in 1998, before either NCLB or the Race to the Top.
The results in mathematics were bleak across the nation, in both grades 4 and 8. The declines nationally were only 1 or 2 points, but they were significant in a national assessment on the scale of NAEP.
In fourth grade mathematics, the only jurisdictions to report gains were the District of Columbia, Mississippi, and the Department of Defense schools. Sixteen states had significant declines in their math scores, and thirty-three were flat in relation to 2013 scores. The scores in Tennessee (the $500 million winner) were flat.
In eighth grade, the lack of progress in mathematics was universal. Twenty-two states had significantly lower scores than in 2013, while 30 states or jurisdictions had flat scores. Pennsylvania, Kansas, and Florida (a Race to the Top winner), were the biggest losers, by dropping six points. Among the states that declined by four points were Race to the Top winners Ohio, North Carolina, and Massachusetts. Maryland, Hawaii, New York, and the District of Columbia lost two points. The scores in Tennessee were flat.
The District of Columbia made gains in fourth grade reading and mathematics, but not in eighth grade. It continues to have the largest score gap-—56 points–between white and black students of any urban district in the nation. That is more than double the average of the other 20 urban districts. The state with the biggest achievement gap between black and white students is Wisconsin; it is also the state where black students have the lowest scores, lower than their peers in states like Mississippi and South Carolina. Wisconsin has invested heavily in vouchers and charter schools, which Governor Scott Walker intends to increase.
The best single word to describe NAEP 2015 is stagnation. Contrary to President George W. Bush’s law, many children have been left behind by the strategy of test-and-punish. Contrary to the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program, the mindless reliance on standardized testing has not brought us closer to some mythical “Top.”
No wonder Arne Duncan is leaving Washington. There is nothing to boast about, and the next set of NAEP results won’t be published until 2017. The program that he claimed would transform American education has not raised test scores, but has demoralized educators and created teacher shortages. Disgusted with the testing regime, experienced teachers leave and enrollments in teacher education programs fall. One can only dream about what the Obama administration might have accomplished had it spent that $5 billion in discretionary dollars to encourage states and districts to develop and implement realistic plans for desegregation of their schools, or had they invested the same amount of money in the arts.
The past dozen or so years have been a time when “reformers” like Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, and Bill Gates proudly claimed that they were disrupting school systems and destroying the status quo. Now the “reformers” have become the status quo, and we have learned that disruption is not good for children or education.
Time is running out for this administration, and it is not likely that there will be any meaningful change of course in education policy. One can only hope that the next administration learns important lessons from the squandered resources and failure of NCLB and Race to the Top.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is a different view from a source I consider credible. I consider him credible because he’s never advanced the ed reform political narrative on how all public schools are failing and he’s never relied on these scores to promote an agenda, like Duncan did in 2013:
“New NAEP test scores are out for grades 4 and 8. Because the NAEP is such a trusted low-stakes test, you’re going to hear a lot about what these new scores “mean.” Maybe even from me! But here’s the one thing you need to know before you read anyone telling you that these scores prove that standardized tests are good (or bad) or that Arne Duncan is an idiot (or a hero) or that teachers unions are a mess (or a godsend): the change in test scores was tiny.”
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/10/reading-and-math-scores-changed-barely-all-year
Duncan’s response?
“This means nothing.”
“Stay the course.”
“It’s just a temporary dip. The scores will go our way ‘in the long run.’ ”
“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.”
Okay, only that last one was an exact quote, but all of that’s the gist of what he said in a phone call to reporters:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/us-student-performance-slips-on-national-test/2015/10/27/03c80170-7cb9-11e5-b575-d8dcfedb4ea1_story.html
—————————————–
WASHINGTON POST’S Emma Brown:
“U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan defended those policies in a call with reporters Tuesday, saying that massive changes in schools often lead to a temporary drop in test scores while teachers and students adjust. But the new standards and other policies, Duncan said, are poised to improve student achievement — and students’ lives — in the long term.
“ ‘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.’ ”
—————————————-
Nothing to see here, folks… move along… corporate reform’s workin’ just fine.
Well, award-winning principal and respected anti-corporate-reformer Carol Burris ain’t havin’ it:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/10/28/what-the-national-drop-in-2015-naep-test-scores-really-means/
—————————————–
WASHINGTON POST:
CAROL BURRIS:
“The 2015 scores for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are out, and the news isn’t good for those who think standardized test scores tell us something significant about student achievement.
“NAEP is often called the nation’s report card because it is the only measure of student achievement given periodically to a sampling of students around the nation. It is seen by many as a high-quality test though it has many critics, too, some of whom say that the NAEP definition of “proficiency” is unnaturally high, and that the test cannot measure many of the qualities students must develop to be successful.
“My Post colleague Emma Brown reports in this story that math scores for fourth-graders and eighth-graders across the United States dropped this year, the first time since the federal government began administering the exams in 1990.
“Reading scores weren’t much better; eighth-grade scores dropped while fourth-grade performance was stagnant compared with 2013, the last time the test was administered.
“Since 1990, scores had generally edged up with each administration, though achievement gaps between white and minority students have remained large.
“School reformers who have touted NAEP score increases in the past as evidence of their success are now trying to spin the newest results as anything but their the failure of their reforms. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in 2013 for example, credited Common Core implementation for higher NAEP scores in some states. He said:
. . . . . . . . . . . .
ARNE DUNCAN:
“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. Achievement among the largest minority group in our nation’s public schools—Hispanic students—is also up since 2011. And higher-achieving students as a whole are making more progress in reading and math than in recent years.
“While progress on the NAEP continues to vary among the states, ALL EIGHT STATES HAND IMPLEMENTED THE STATE-CRAFTED COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS AT THE TIME OF THE 2013 NAPE ASSESSMENT SHOWED IMPROVEMENT IN AT LEAST ONE OF THE READING AND/OR MATHEMATICS ASSESSMENTS IN 2009 TO 2013 — [Emphasis added]”
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“Fast forward to today, and Duncan has a different explanation for the lower scores. Brown reported:
. . . . . . . . . . . .
EMMA BROWN: “Duncan defended those policies in a call with reporters Tuesday, saying that massive changes in schools often lead to a temporary drop in test scores while teachers and students adjust. But the new standards and other policies, Duncan said, are poised to improve student achievement — and students’ lives — in the long term.
“ ‘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.’ ”
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“Here’s a look at what the NAEP scores mean — and don’t mean — as explained by Carol Burris, who retired this year as an award-winning principal at a New York high school. She is the author of numerous articles, books and blog posts (including on The Answer Sheet) about the botched school reform efforts in her state. She is also the head of the nonprofit Network for Public Education, an organization co-founded by Diane Ravitch that works to support the improvement of public education.
[U.S. performance slips on national test]
“Today’s National Assessment of Educational Progress score flop should come as no surprise. You cannot implement terrible education policies and expect that achievement will increase.
“NAEP is a truth teller. There is no NAEP test prep industry, or high-stakes consequence that promotes teaching to the test. NAEP is what it was intended to be—a national report card by which we can gauge our national progress in educating our youth.
“During the 1970s and ’80s, at the height of school desegregation efforts, the gap in scores between our nation’s white and black students dramatically narrowed. You could see the effects of good, national policy reflected in NAEP gains.
“The gaps have remained, however, and this year, the every so slight narrowing of gaps between white and black students is due to drops in the scores of white students—hardly a civil rights victory.
“It is difficult to see any real growth across the board since 2011, with math scores backsliding to 2009 levels, eighth-grade reading flat for four years, and a small uptick in fourth-grade reading that is not a significant increase from 2013, which, in turn, was not significantly different from 2011.
“Considering that the rationale for the Common Core State Standards initiative was low NAEP proficiency rates, it would appear that the solution of tough standards and tough tests is not the great path forward after all. For those who say it is too early to use NAEP to judge the Common Core, I would remind them that in 2013, Education Secretary Arne Duncan used NAEP increases to do a victory dance about the states that had already implemented the Core at that time—and I never heard any reformer complain.
“Two years ago, Duncan attributed Tennessee’s, Hawaii’s and the District of Columbia’s NAEP score increases to their enthusiastic adoption of Race to the Top. Likewise, he attributed increases in Kentucky, Delaware, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi and North Carolina to their early embrace of the Common Core.
“This year, the District of Columbia and Mississippi had fourth-grade score gains in mathematics, but the rest of Duncan’s superstars had mathematics scores that dropped or were flat. All of Arne’s superstar states had eighth-grade scores that dropped or did not budge.
“The District of Columbia, Mississippi, Kentucky and North Carolina had score gains in fourth-grade reading this year, but so did states like Oklahoma and Vermont that have resisted Race to the Top reforms. And in Grade 8 reading, all of Duncan’s superstars had scores that were flat or took a dive.
“Colorado, a state that recently received high praise from Bill and Melinda Gates for its implementation of corporate reforms, had reading scores that were flat and math scores that significantly dropped.
“NAEP scores were not the only disappointment this year. A few months ago, we saw a significant drop in SAT scores—7 points in one year alone.
“Although NAEP and the SAT were not designed to align to the Common Core, they measure what the Common Core Standards were supposed to improve—the literacy and numeracy of our nation’s students. Considering the billions of dollars spent on these reforms, one would expect at least some payoff by now.
“The fans of reforms are already beginning the spin. Some are blaming demographic changes (which conveniently ignores the drop in white student scores on 3 of the 4 tests), while others are attributing the stagnation to the economy (which was far worse in 2011).
The very folks who gleefully hold public schools accountable based on scores, evade using them to evaluate their own pet policies. For those of us who had first row seats to the disruption and chaos they have caused, we have one simple message—no excuses.”
Just cause Arnie says so doesn’t make it true. We all know this fact! Arne is reading the corporate speech given to him by the rich. He’s a “team” player for national politics owned by the rich. Arne is just following “marketing” orders.
So, we endured an enormous quantity of chaos and disruption for schools — which had huge negative consequences for children — for “tiny” changes (which don’t even go in the correct direction) ?
Even if you consider the scores “flat” — predicted by many — this is still significant news. Chaos and disruption are only OK with the certainty (or even possibility ?) of a BIG PAYOFF. Here, the verdict is in: no big payoff, period.
Well, no, and I probably agree with you, but my point was Drum is more credible when he says the scores shouldn’t be used politically because he HASN’T done that in the past. That’s why he’s more credible.
Here he is pushing back against the ed reform “movement” refrain that all public schools are failing, in 2012:
“STANDARDIZED TESTS may not tell us everything there is to know about a school like Mission High, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have their uses. And one of those uses is myth busting—in particular, the myth that America’s schools are in a state of terminal decline and students aren’t learning as much as those of a generation ago.”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/kids-school-test-scores-charts-kevin-drum
Check this graph:
https://www.google.com.pr/search?q=naep+test+scores+over+time&biw=1366&bih=599&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIpsqtiqflyAIVTOomCh1mEAn-#imgrc=zOlaxK7ntAeNzM%3A
Sorry, I put this in the wrong place !
Drum is right. But that will not stop the caterwauling.
I like & trust Kevin Drum, but he is underplaying the extent to which the long term trend for NAEP has been rather steadily, if gradually, up. Flat is worse than the historical trend.
In a perverse way, the so-called reformers are ass-backwards Marxists, pushing the Dialectic: the greater their failure – school closings, careers destroyed, children’s education disfigured, power grabs and outright looting – the greater their “success.”
Is this a problem for ed reform? Not the scores. Their use of the scores in the past to promote a political and ideological agenda:
“School reformers who have touted NAEP score increases in the past as evidence of their success are now trying to spin the newest results as anything but their the failure of their reforms. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in 2013 for example, credited Common Core implementation for higher NAEP scores in some states. He said:
“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. Achievement among the largest minority group in our nation’s public schools—Hispanic students—is also up since 2011. And higher-achieving students as a whole are making more progress in reading and math than in recent years.
“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. [Emphasis added]
http://790talknow.com/foxfeedspro/details/item_261764/what-the-national-drop-in-2015-naep-test-scores-really-means-washington-pos/
It’s very much a “Heads I win, tails you lose” dynamic.
Needless to say, had the NAEP scores gone up, the so-called reformers would be touting them. With the scores essentially stagnant, we’re told that “These things take time,” even though in other venues, when so-called reformers are trying to push through their privatization agenda, we are screamed at and told, “The kids can’t wait!”
Failure or success, test scores up or down, privatization proceeds full speed ahead, and the arrogant know-nothing’s who benefit from all this continue to gorge on public resources and pat themselves on the back while doing so.
What’s Duncan’s response?
“This means nothing.”
“Stay the course.”
“It’s just a temporary dip. The scores will go our way ‘in the long run.’ ”
“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.”
Okay, only that last one was an exact quote, but all of that’s the gist of what he said in a phone call to reporters:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/us-student-performance-slips-on-national-test/2015/10/27/03c80170-7cb9-11e5-b575-d8dcfedb4ea1_story.html
—————————————–
WASHINGTON POST’S Emma Brown:
“U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan defended those policies in a call with reporters Tuesday, saying that massive changes in schools often lead to a temporary drop in test scores while teachers and students adjust. But the new standards and other policies, Duncan said, are poised to improve student achievement — and students’ lives — in the long term.
“ ‘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.’ ”
—————————————-
Nothing to see here, folks… move along… corporate reform’s workin’ just fine.
Well, award-winning principal and respected anti-corporate-reformer Carol Burris ain’t havin’ it:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/10/28/what-the-national-drop-in-2015-naep-test-scores-really-means/
—————————————–
WASHINGTON POST:
CAROL BURRIS:
“The 2015 scores for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are out, and the news isn’t good for those who think standardized test scores tell us something significant about student achievement.
“NAEP is often called the nation’s report card because it is the only measure of student achievement given periodically to a sampling of students around the nation. It is seen by many as a high-quality test though it has many critics, too, some of whom say that the NAEP definition of “proficiency” is unnaturally high, and that the test cannot measure many of the qualities students must develop to be successful.
“My Post colleague Emma Brown reports in this story that math scores for fourth-graders and eighth-graders across the United States dropped this year, the first time since the federal government began administering the exams in 1990.
“Reading scores weren’t much better; eighth-grade scores dropped while fourth-grade performance was stagnant compared with 2013, the last time the test was administered.
“Since 1990, scores had generally edged up with each administration, though achievement gaps between white and minority students have remained large.
“School reformers who have touted NAEP score increases in the past as evidence of their success are now trying to spin the newest results as anything but their the failure of their reforms. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in 2013 for example, credited Common Core implementation for higher NAEP scores in some states. He said:
. . . . . . . . . . . .
ARNE DUNCAN:
“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. Achievement among the largest minority group in our nation’s public schools—Hispanic students—is also up since 2011. And higher-achieving students as a whole are making more progress in reading and math than in recent years.
“While progress on the NAEP continues to vary among the states, ALL EIGHT STATES HAND IMPLEMENTED THE STATE-CRAFTED COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS AT THE TIME OF THE 2013 NAPE ASSESSMENT SHOWED IMPROVEMENT IN AT LEAST ONE OF THE READING AND/OR MATHEMATICS ASSESSMENTS IN 2009 TO 2013 — [Emphasis added]”
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“Fast forward to today, and Duncan has a different explanation for the lower scores. Brown reported:
. . . . . . . . . . . .
EMMA BROWN: “Duncan defended those policies in a call with reporters Tuesday, saying that massive changes in schools often lead to a temporary drop in test scores while teachers and students adjust. But the new standards and other policies, Duncan said, are poised to improve student achievement — and students’ lives — in the long term.
“ ‘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.’ ”
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“Here’s a look at what the NAEP scores mean — and don’t mean — as explained by Carol Burris, who retired this year as an award-winning principal at a New York high school. She is the author of numerous articles, books and blog posts (including on The Answer Sheet) about the botched school reform efforts in her state. She is also the head of the nonprofit Network for Public Education, an organization co-founded by Diane Ravitch that works to support the improvement of public education.
[U.S. performance slips on national test]
“Today’s National Assessment of Educational Progress score flop should come as no surprise. You cannot implement terrible education policies and expect that achievement will increase.
“NAEP is a truth teller. There is no NAEP test prep industry, or high-stakes consequence that promotes teaching to the test. NAEP is what it was intended to be—a national report card by which we can gauge our national progress in educating our youth.
“During the 1970s and ’80s, at the height of school desegregation efforts, the gap in scores between our nation’s white and black students dramatically narrowed. You could see the effects of good, national policy reflected in NAEP gains.
“The gaps have remained, however, and this year, the every so slight narrowing of gaps between white and black students is due to drops in the scores of white students—hardly a civil rights victory.
“It is difficult to see any real growth across the board since 2011, with math scores backsliding to 2009 levels, eighth-grade reading flat for four years, and a small uptick in fourth-grade reading that is not a significant increase from 2013, which, in turn, was not significantly different from 2011.
“Considering that the rationale for the Common Core State Standards initiative was low NAEP proficiency rates, it would appear that the solution of tough standards and tough tests is not the great path forward after all. For those who say it is too early to use NAEP to judge the Common Core, I would remind them that in 2013, Education Secretary Arne Duncan used NAEP increases to do a victory dance about the states that had already implemented the Core at that time—and I never heard any reformer complain.
“Two years ago, Duncan attributed Tennessee’s, Hawaii’s and the District of Columbia’s NAEP score increases to their enthusiastic adoption of Race to the Top. Likewise, he attributed increases in Kentucky, Delaware, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi and North Carolina to their early embrace of the Common Core.
“This year, the District of Columbia and Mississippi had fourth-grade score gains in mathematics, but the rest of Duncan’s superstars had mathematics scores that dropped or were flat. All of Arne’s superstar states had eighth-grade scores that dropped or did not budge.
“The District of Columbia, Mississippi, Kentucky and North Carolina had score gains in fourth-grade reading this year, but so did states like Oklahoma and Vermont that have resisted Race to the Top reforms. And in Grade 8 reading, all of Duncan’s superstars had scores that were flat or took a dive.
“Colorado, a state that recently received high praise from Bill and Melinda Gates for its implementation of corporate reforms, had reading scores that were flat and math scores that significantly dropped.
“NAEP scores were not the only disappointment this year. A few months ago, we saw a significant drop in SAT scores—7 points in one year alone.
“Although NAEP and the SAT were not designed to align to the Common Core, they measure what the Common Core Standards were supposed to improve—the literacy and numeracy of our nation’s students. Considering the billions of dollars spent on these reforms, one would expect at least some payoff by now.
“The fans of reforms are already beginning the spin. Some are blaming demographic changes (which conveniently ignores the drop in white student scores on 3 of the 4 tests), while others are attributing the stagnation to the economy (which was far worse in 2011).
The very folks who gleefully hold public schools accountable based on scores, evade using them to evaluate their own pet policies. For those of us who had first row seats to the disruption and chaos they have caused, we have one simple message—no excuses.”
I certainly hope that this whole deform to reform movement gets killed, permanently but Hilary probably won’t be the leader to do it. Who will? Bernie? Before we support these politicians, we need their commitment to public education. Opt Out Lives on a national level, could this be the deform killer?
On Times’ Treatment of NAEP Results– Of course, this doesn’t apply to you, Diane.
Koretz Syndrome – Vague spewings from academics, particularly tenured Ivy Leaguers, who never have enough empirical data to determine anything.
Example: See New York Times Nationwide Test Shows dip in Students’ Math Abilities (Oct. 28, 2015):
Some educators suggested that some of the changes have sowed confusion among teachers and students that could be reflected in the national test scores. “Right now, what’s going on [with the common core curriculum] in many states is a wholesale change in math instruction,” said Daniel Koretz, a professor of education at Harvard. “We don’t know what’s happening with that in classrooms.”
A better title for the entire article would have been: The Blind Men and an Elephant.
I know what’s happening in classrooms. Chaos. Crazy math. Reading of text excerpts instead of whole stories — Oftentimes on ditto sheets in fonts that are impossible to read. Questions that demand “critical thinking” as long as it mirrors what the writers expect kids to say. Math assignments “aligned to the common core” featuring “gotcha” questions in which “tricky” is passed off as “rigor” .
Most parents could tell you this education was unlikely to lead to high test scores. How do kids raise scores in math when they are taught these silly methods? How do reading scores rise when they rarely read beyond excerpts?
I live in one of the wealthiest zip codes in my state. (A celebrated rttt winner, to boot) We have no books, no source materials, only an endless stream of often low quality worksheets. All because no one can keep up with all the change.
All this chaos, disruption and poor education for an entire generation of kids… all in the name of raising test scores. Which aren’t being raised. The emperor has no clothes.
So true Christy! Imagine being forced to make data out of creative process? Yes… any teacher in a creative field must MEASURE student growth via nonsensical data-making. Reading??? Students cannot identify with the human condition and reflect deeply on timeless issues when forced to read excerpts or when denied opportunity to read quality literature because “non fiction” is now suddenly deemed the only worthy reading material. Even when reading excerpts you are right… they are forced into canned responses. There should be life in prison for those orchestrating this national abuse of our children that has gone on since the late 80’s and has hit hysterical proportions in the past decade.
Exactly, Christy: even by their own debased standards, these people are frauds and failures.
He who lives by the test, dies by the test.
“You NAEP what you sow”
“You NAEP what you sow”
And NAEPed has been Arne
His testing, you know
Was really balarney
I’ll venture that the latest NAEP score release will be used to buttress all kinds of “reform,” from Common Core to the National Math and Science Initiative to STEM.
And guess who’s tied into all of those?
The College Board and the ACT, and their products. And ExxonMobil. And the National Association of Manufacturers. And the Gates and Dell and O’Donnell Foundations, along with others.
Arne’s response is classic. He’s right if they go down, and right if they go up !
Transitioning from “classic”.
The answer from Fordham’s Petrilli (given his financial backers), was priceless. USA asked him (because reporters never attempt to quote anyone but Fordham), for a cause of the decline in scores. His reply, “When families are hurting financially, its harder for students to focus on learning.” Uh….Gates opposed raising the minimum wage and the Waltons are the poster children for the exploitation of working families.
I’m giving his response an A+, for its display of oligarch-trashing. Is there no reporter who is capable of or, willing to, connect dots?
It’s impossible to find an article about this that isn’t littered with reformer excuses. So fascinating for a crowd that doesn’t tolerate excuses. They say lots of stuff:
NAEP isn’t linked to CCSS
Implementation was messy
Schoolchildren are poorer now (think about that right-wingers; so less middle class?)
Higher minority populations
But, none of these fly. RttT and CCSS were touted as the reasons for the uptick in 2013. But after two more years it’s somehow going worse? I thought poverty wasn’t a valid excuse? I guess it is now.
I’ll paraphrase John Kasich: “If I were king for a day, the first thing I would do is prevent education foundations from meeting or having national events. That way they wouldn’t be able to sit around and say, ‘It isn’t our fault.'”
And, seriously, Mike Petrilli. The last paragraph of your piece is a disgrace.
“To be sure, some will use these results to attack education reforms, including Common Core, charter schools, vouchers, teacher evaluations, and anything else they don’t like. And in fairness, some reformers would have committed misNAEPery to bolster their arguments had the trends gone in the other direction. The most intellectually honest approach today is to urge patience…”
Yes, you would have declared victory. But now you want patience. What about the urgency of now? Going the Gatesian route to wait out that decade? Cowards and hypocrites.
If you want some good laughs, read University of Arkansas Walmart-guns-for-hire guys like Ladner and Greene who are cherry-picking like there’s no tomorrow. Touting those 4th grade DC reading scores (but no mention of PARCC c=because the charters lost that battle.)
Gotta admit, I like seeing the reformers scramble against their own metrics.
Your last line:
TAGO!
But don’t expect anything different from such enthusiastic, if unwitting, fans of John Steinbeck:
“Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.”
😎
Interesting, CEO: Forrest Claypool in Chicago just released a letter to all employees that Chicago’s scores were great and that scores went up in both Reading and Math. It states:
Dear CPS Staff,
We’re very pleased to share with you the news that later today, CPS will release outstanding results on our students’ academic progress. We wanted to make sure that you – the school leaders, educators and staff who are driving that success – were the first to hear the news.
According to results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), CPS students are outpacing their state and national peers in academic growth for both Reading and Math. Often called the nation’s report card, the NAEP test is administered every other year to a sampling of fourth and eighth-grade students around the country. The 2015 results show Chicago’s students growing in every category measured and posting gains that were some of the largest in the nation.
Our eighth graders achieved the greatest Math growth in the country among their urban peers, while our fourth graders ranked third in Reading growth among students in that same category, maintaining the second best achievement in Reading growth among urban school districts since 2003.
This news is a definite indication that we are on the right track academically, and that the hard work that each of you are doing every day is having a tremendous impact on our students’ achievement.
Is this true? These days its hard to tell.
Will any of the republican candidates be questioned about this clear failure of ed reform at the debate tonight? Probably not. Will the next President, either Hillary or Bernie, be asked to state clearly what they plan to do about K-12 education and the growing classroom sizes and teacher shortages? Probably not. Will the assault of standardized testing on our schools and students end when either is elected next year. Probably not. The race to the bottom, as Bernie likes to say when referring to all the union bashing which is happening here, is not limited to workers’ wages; it is what ed reform is all about, and we are heading there with the tacit cooperation of our unions.
This article has a few choice comments from a couple of deform cheerleaders: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/10/28/naep-math-scores-down/74696238/
You just know the rheformers are going to spin this to support their agenda – that the public schools are failing – see, look at the NAEP scores, here’s proof.
Don’t expect them to take any responsibility for stagnant or falling scores.
Check out Kevin Welner’s (NEPC) great commentary on this subject:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/newsletter/2015/10/naepscuses
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé.
Massachusetts scores went down for a few years after they raised standards. I think a few years of moderate ups and downs is to be expected during any major change. Time will tell. FWIW, I didn’t think anyone should have used NAEP scores to justify anything 2 years ago either.
I agree, John. Except for the fact that the reformers are always so ready to point at any success (real, perceived or cherry-picked). But the moment it isn’t good, there’s all of this hedging.
They don’t get to celebrate and then two years later evade.
SteveK,
I agree, but two wrongs don’t make a right. There are plenty of people calling this a disaster for reform, which is just as disingenuous as those calling out causes for the NAEP differences last year.
“FWIW, I didn’t think anyone should have used NAEP scores to justify anything 2 years ago either.”
I sympathize with your position, and I’ve made the same point here many times.
But I think you do need to go back further than two years to get the full scope of idiocy of the great NAEP debates. NAEP scores were used in the mid-90s (maybe the 80s, too) to justify a lot of arguments for fundamental reforms in standards, curriculum, pedagogy, and accountability. And the argument wasn’t that NAEP scores were declining every year; that would have been a compelling story, but it wasn’t happening. Nor was the argument that NAEP scores had declined in one particular year; that did happen some years, but it didn’t make for a compelling reason for broad, systemic change. The argument was that over the long term, NAEP scores were staying about the same, i.e. they were “stagnant.” That meant today’s kids were no smarter than (or, as some put it, just as stupid as) their parents. And that kind of stagnation just wasn’t going to cut it in the new global economy: NAEP scores must go higher! And there was no time to wait to act, because every day was another lost day of a child’s education.
Achieving ever-increasing NAEP scores is an impossible standard. It may even turn out that a meaningful one-time increase that holds over time is an impossible standard. But that’s the standard that the reform movement set. It’s understandable that reform’s opponents throw that standard back in the face of the new establishment whenever they can. The argument isn’t that the latest NAEP scores mean that much by themselves. I think what many commenters here are saying is essentially: “You lied to take control over education policy. Admit it and give it back.”
FLERP, as a longtime student of NAEP scores, I agree with you. Years ago, people assumed that NAEP scores showed what kids of a certain age could do. They didn’t assume that every year the scores would go up and up and up. I don’t know if today’s fourth-graders are smarter than those of the same age 20 years ago. Maybe they are. I do know that the math that 8th graders are expected to know today is far beyond anything I ever learned in high schools decades ago, when the schools were allegedly better.
John
You can give it 20 years and the needle still won’t budge. Using tests to improve test scores that are normed is a joke. The dog chasing his tail has a better chance.
This is an excellent summary of the current education picture. It needs to get to mainstream media. PBS is doing a series. It’s worth a try. Thanks for all you do.
I have to say, arguments about NAEP scores are like arguments about the weather in San Diego.
At the end of the article Diane writes, “Time is running out for this administration, and it is not likely that there will be any meaningful change of course in education policy.”
Please follow the link below to add your name to the petition to President Obama to bring Diane Ravitch to the White House to help with meaningful change in education policy the last year of his presidency.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/441/312/837/
Please post to your social media contacts.
Bravo!
Of course, these people have learned nothing from the past. When they started the test-them-til-they-scream policy that has made their administration infamous, we had already had 10 years of NCLB and, ahem, “test-based accountability” (which, you will remember, was going to make ALL students proficient by, ahem, last year).
They looked at an obviously failed policy and said, “We need to do a lot more of that.”
And not actually being in any of the schools that they make policy for, they had no clue about the extent to which testing had ALREADY entirely warped ALMOST EVERYTHING in our schools–
how often, for example, kids were missing class in order to take baseline tests and makeup tests and interim tests in preparation for THE TEST;
how often lessons were taking the form of test prep;
how many textbooks and curriculum plans had given up on having any rational organization and content to make room for prep for THE TEST;
how much learning was not taking place in the tested areas because those areas were being devalued or distorted to become extensions of the tested areas;
and, of course, they didn’t have a clue how invalid and unreliable their tests were and how absurdly conceived were the purported “standards” supposedly being tested by THE TEST.
And now, the masters of THE TEST tell us that there is too much testing. The only proper reaction is derision.
Arnie, Barack: You reap what you sow.
I do not understand what is going on. This year’s NAEP report seems to contradict this blog entry.
For example, http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/tn/2016/10/26/tennessee-1-in-nation-in-growth-on-national-science-exam states that
Tennessee outpaced almost all other states in gains on a science exam administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, between 2009 and 2015, according to results released on Thursday.
On average, fourth- and eighth-graders across the nation posted 4-point gains on the 300-point test, administered to a sample of students in most states in 2015. Tennessee students saw their scores grow twice as fast.
From http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/science_2015/#?grade=4
The average NAEP science scores for the nation increased 4 points between 2009 and 2015 in both grades 4 and 8, but did not change significantly at grade 12. Scores for most student groups at grades 4 and 8 were higher in 2015 compared to 2009, but were not significantly different at grade 12. At grades 4 and 8, Black and Hispanic students made greater gains than White students, causing the achievement gap to narrow in comparison to 2009.
The post referred to math and reading scores.
Tennessee, Duncan’s showcase state in 2013, made no gains in reading or mathematics, neither in fourth grade or eighth grade. The black-white test score gap was as large in 2015 as it had been in 1998, before either NCLB or the Race to the Top.
Thanks, Diane. Is it true that, in most states, yearly standardized tests focus mainly on math and ELA?
Mate,
NCLB required annual testing only in math and reading. ESSA continues that
Sooooo: in subjects which have year-end standardized tests, NAEP scores drop. In a subject where these tests are not mandatory, there are gains in NAEP scores.
A sane person would think about the usefulness of standardized tests.
Or the difference in science and math-ELA scores could be due to Common Core in math and reading?