The National Superintendents Roundtable has a message for the public: be fair when judging our public schools. Schools today are far better than they were 40 or 50 years ago, by all conventional measures. what they might have added was that schools made steady progress until about 2007 or so, when No Child Left Behind took hold, then things were made worse by Race to the Top and Common Core. The proliferation of choice has flattened the progress made from 1970 to 2007.
SEATTLE, Nov. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Give schools an honest grade. That’s the message to school critics from school superintendents who recently published an infographic urging the public to take a closer look at the real story about school performance.
It’s tempting to believe that schools were once better and that students used to learn more. But the data tell a different story, say leaders of the National Superintendents Roundtable and the Horace Mann League, authors of the infographic. Only about 50% of young Americans had a high school diploma in 1970. The figure stands at nearly 90% today. Test results show that all major ethnic groups—African-American, Hispanic, and White— are now scoring higher on achievement tests of reading and mathematics at ages 9, 13, and 17 than they were in the early 1970s.
“Schools aren’t perfect,” said James Harvey, executive director of the Roundtable. “As the graphic points out, we have a lot of work to do to equalize results for students of color and those with disabilities. But the numbers are encouraging. U.S. schools are up to the task.”
In fact, as the graphic shows, American schools educate a student population with the highest rates of student poverty among advanced nations and the lowest rates of financial support for families with children.
Worry about American competitiveness is overblown, said Harvey. Since 2015, according to the World Economic Forum’s analysis of 141 economies, the United States has never ranked below third place in competitiveness. In most years, the American economy trades first and second place with either Switzerland or Singapore.
Appeals to fear and to arguments that schools are causing the nation to fall behind divert attention from real problems that need attention, said Harvey. Research shows that out-of-school factors like poverty and its accomplices—homelessness, unemployment, substance abuse, community violence and lack of dental and medical care for children—are responsible for 70% or more of student achievement results. Closing achievement gaps requires paying attention to these complex challenges.
SOURCE National Superintendents Roundtable
Diane Ravitch's blog 
No, it’s not “time to give them an honest grade.”
Ay ay ay ay ay!
It’s time to reject the completely invalid concept of grading, not only schools, but teachers and students.
It’s time to reject those SupeAdminimals who continue to use such a false concept.
But then again, those SupeAdminimals have a monetary stake in using such specious and selective stats. Why they can become the superheroes to save American public education. . . NOT! They are at the center of the problem, they are a big part of the problem!
I was thinking the same thing, but I’ll accept anything that might stop the edu-raiders from calling public education failing and blaming teachers instead of free market capitalism for wealth inequality.
“Worry about American competitiveness is overblown, said Harvey. Since 2015, according to the World Economic Forum’s analysis of 141 economies, the United States has never ranked below third place in competitiveness. In most years, the American economy trades first and second place with either Switzerland or Singapore.”
You know, it might help if Americans actually did something ELSE about “competitiveness” other than blame everything on public schools.
This is very nice for our leaders, I must say. They evade accountability for literally everything else they could do to improve or benefit the country by all pointing to public schools.
It is the most cowardly thing I’ve ever seen and they all should be ashamed of themselves. They found a scapegoat and boy they couldn’t be happier about that.
No wonder ed reform is so wildly popular with elite politicians and business interests- it means they don’t have to change a SINGLE thing other than public schools. It is the definition of “self interest”.
We were told 20 years ago that this “movement” would IMPROVE public schools. ALL they work on is replacing public schools. They haven’t returned any value to any public school student anywhere in this country and yet they absolutely dominate policy. Why are we paying tens of thousands of public employees to eradicate our schools and replace with their ideologically preferred schools and systems? No one in the public signed up for that.
Are ed reformers ever going to apologize for the hundreds of millions of public dollars they sunk into VAM?
Can they defend setting up whole state measurement systems based upon a single economic theory from a single economist? What was that? Are they all lemmings? They followed the leaders off another cliff?
At what point do public schools stop listening to these people? I suggest “today”.
If public school leaders want to be the experts on public schools, and I agree they should be, they are going to have to take back that expertise from the collection of snake oil salesman they gave it to. Stop hiring them. Find other consultants.
(VTDigger, 11-19-2019)
Andrew Stein, Vermont’s Deputy State Auditor, called an opinion piece that disparaged public schools a, “shallow analysis built on a false premise and racial assumption.” Stein wrote, “Let’s Not Discount Vermont Schools with Cheap Shots”.
Stein’s a professional evaluator of public programs and institutions and, a person who serves his community as a school board director. He described his duty as searching for different measures for use as evaluation tools- ones that provide a full picture. He criticizes those who intentionally misuse NAEP findings.
Libertarians and the religious right, along with their billionaire masters have no ethics. They misuse and falsify data. And, they deliberately mislead about research results. To them, all is fair in the attempt to destroy the government of the people, by the people and for the people.
By and large, it’s not the public that is unfair to public schools and teachers.
It’s most of the politicians of both major parties, billionaires like Bill Gates and Eli Broad, deformers like Arne Duncan, Michelle Dude, Campbell Brown and Betsy Devos and the think tank wankers like Chester Finn and Rick Hess who are willing to say anything for their employers.
These people are a very small minority but have a very big mouth and a whole lot of influence because of their money.
Self correct changed Michelle Rhee to Michelle Dude
Ha ha ha. She IS pretty much a dude. Or maybe douche.
The problem is these people have a gilded platform on which to spread their propaganda. They can afford a whole cottage industry of lobbyists that work to keep giving a larger portion of public money to the unaccountable corporations. Facts and truth do not enter into the equation.
key word: industry. This is not a whim or a passing phase.
The child poverty statistics for the U.S. always jar me no matter how many times I see them. What a national disgrace.
I was talking to a colleague last June who was griping about how teachers are viewed. Why would anyone expect our government to treat teachers with respect, I replied. Look how this country treats our children!
(Yeah, I tend to state the obvious. Which, in a way, makes me a good bellwether -not in the sense of being a trendsetter. But if I’m thinking it, I find that a good number of people out there are in the same place as me. As in, if I go to sell stocks, you can bet tons of other people are doing the same.)
SomeDAM is correct. If only we had a leader who could craft a coherent message that would unify us around the idea helping the next generations then maybe we could agree on something in this country. Maybe. Of course, too many “leaders” are making hay by dividing us up. School teachers and kids are easy pickings for those of a Machiavellian bent.
As I’ve said on here before (sorry), Bush blew it in 2001. And, Trump, screwed up big time in 2017. Both guys had an opening to do something game changing. Of course, they were WAY too small for the moment. In Trump’s case, way, way too small. And, he is also… (fill in the blanks, I’m so tired of talking about him: _______________, _______________, ______________, and _____________.) Yeah.
Obama was jammed up with a near Great Depression 2.0. And, I need to take a hiatus from even thinking about the Clintons, too.
I do like to see school administrators out there plugging away for public education.
Anyway….the weather is rotten up here. Take care if it’s the same where you are.
While a few administrators have supported teachers and criticized so-called reform, many others have been more than happy to be complicit executioners.
Which makes it especially important when some stick their necks out and do something positive. But, yeah, I hear you, retired teacher. Take care.
Make no mistake about it.
Do not deny it isn’t happening.
We the people are in a war against sick, evil, greedy ideologies that will stop at nothing to achieve their corrupt goals: neo-liberalism on the left, neo-conservatism on the right, Koch Libertarism from left to right, Trumpisim, and the Dominionist plot to turn the United States into a theocratic kleptocracy that will bring back the inquisition of the middle ages.’
When will these factions from the dark side start to turn on each other?
Political Research Associates wrote in their post at The Public Eye,
“Where conservative and neoliberal feminists agree…neoliberal feminists don’t want women to organize”.
In that area, Melinda Gates agrees with her prosperity Catholic church. And, in typical disingenuous, rich person illogic, she tells the public that she loses sleep over gender inequality.
It seems that when they live in the bubble of wealth and power, their brains have been corrupted by a malignant brain-hacking virus.