This is a strong statement by Randi Weingarten. Please note that 10% of New York City’s public school students are homeless; students in many other districts suffer trauma, including homelessness, lack of access to medical care and basic nutrition, and inadequate housing. These figures should be appended to NAEP reports in the future.
AFT President Randi Weingarten’s Statement on NAEP Report Card |
WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement in response to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Report Card:
“What we see in this data snapshot, while disappointing, is not surprising: Our students are still bearing the brunt of two decades of austerity, competition and test-based fixation that have failed to prioritize the needs of students, including the 90 percent of kids who attend public schools. Twenty-one states still spend less on public education than before the Great Recession, and during this decade of disinvestment there has been little to no change in either the math or reading performance of our highest-risk students.
“What the survey data doesn’t tell us in detail is why. Almost half of America’s kids have trauma, and they’re going to school in classrooms without nurses and counselors. For years, we’ve been advocating that children need comprehensive social and emotional supports so they’re able to engage in meaningful learning in safe and welcoming environments. It’s vital to meet kids where they are and to do what evidence shows works for improving student well-being and achievement.
“Since the enactment of the Every Student Succeeds Act just four years ago, some states and districts have started stepping up to the plate to use evidence-based strategies that are tailored to their communities, and we’re already seeing incremental gains in high school graduation rates. So why stop now, when our work is just starting to pay off? Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos ignores the real issues that plague our classrooms and student achievement, presumably because they disrupt her political agenda to siphon public money into private hands and expand private school vouchers and for-profit school ventures. But the evidence on achievement in voucher programs has not found statistically positive gains for students using vouchers, and most large-scale studies have found that students actually saw relative learning losses. DeVos has been putting her thumb on the scale against public schools and public education since Day One—cutting the very programs that help kids the most.
“So, our answer to the question of how we help students succeed shouldn’t be to go back to the competition-and-austerity era, or to pull the rug from the strategies that we know are starting to work and have potential to grow. We have to push forward and continue fighting for the investments that prioritize children’s well-being; provide wider access to high-quality instruction and learning experiences; and engage parents, communities, educators and students in making our public schools safe, welcoming environments where teachers want to teach, parents want to send their kids, and students want to learn.” |
Agree more data and data cross tabs would be interesting and (maybe) useful.
Re: the following:
That statement may or may not be true (in real dollars? nominal?). But as for NYC . . . . in 2008, the NYC Department of Education budget was around $17 billion. Today, it’s about $24 billion (excluding pension and other spending). So an increase of more than 40%.
Another interesting NYC factoid from the NAEP tests, courtesy of Chalkbeat’s writeup:
As implied by Diane’s post, I don’t think NAEP provides economic or other indicators that might correlate with the test scores, but it would be interesting if it did. Why are the scores of “Asian” students increasing so much while those for every other “racial group” aren’t? Why are “Asian” students scoring so much higher than “white” students — who from what I hear are the gold standard of privilege and affluence. NAEP is no-stakes, so it can’t be a matter of test preparation. And if NAEP scores do nothing more than track family wealth and education levels, then are “Asian” families markedly more wealthy and educated than “white” families in NYC, and has their wealth and education risen sharply in the last few years? Seems unlikely, given that Asians are by some measures the most impoverished racial/ethnic group in NYC. But what is going on?
Betsy DeVos doesn’t care about facts. Her true agenda is a religious one – her far-right religious beliefs that would force all children into schools created in her vision.
Read this excerpt from Gary North, who works/has worked with Betsy DeVos:
Gary North explains why getting students out of public schools is key to the Christian dominionist camp. “So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political, and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.”
This is what Betsy DeVos is really working for.
Exactly! Bien dicho.