Larry Lee, a close follower of education politics in Alabama and former board member in Montgomery, writes here about an ill-informed decision by Governor Kay Ivey. Over the objections of experienced educators, Governor Ivey vetoed a bill that would have delayed implementation of the Alabama Literacy Act by two years. The Act requires that third grades be retained if they can’t the third grade reading test.
Larry talked to some of the educators he respects most, and they were appalled.
The phone rang about 8 p.m. on Thursday night, May 27. The person on the other end was dejected and discouraged. I immediately recognized the voice of Hope Zeanah, a 40-year veteran educator, assistant superintendent of the Baldwin County school system and a former Alabama Elementary Principal of the Year.
In my book, Zeanah is one of the best educators anywhere. She has learned a lot in her 40 years and knows how to convey her knowledge in a way that makes sense and is guided by what is best for children.
“I just wish politicians WOULD NOT make educational policies and leave educating children up to educators,” she said “It makes us feel like they are saying we are not smart enough to make a decision for our students whether or not they should be promoted to the next grade. I feel like these type decisions are the reason we are seeing fewer young people going into education.”
Larry reviewed the literature about third grade retention and saw that it was not only controversial but some of the most respected experts thought it was detrimental to children.
But Alabama has been looking jealously at Mississippi’s NAEP scores and trying to copy the state next door. The secret to Mississippi’s success in fourth-grade NAEP is that it retains poor readers in third grade. That’s not really a strategy, it’s cheating. But it works for Mississippi. Apparently the illusion of success works as well as genuine success. A recent issue of The Economist lauded Mississippi as a national leader in literacy. But Mississippi gets those scores by retaining more third graders than any other state.
He writes:
“The so-called “Gold Standard” of all testing is the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). This test is given across the country every two years to a random selection of fourth and eighth graders. Only about 5,000 students in both grades are tested in each state. This is probably themost misunderstood and abused test in the U.S. (Especially by politicians who constantly want to break education down into only numbers.)
“(Go back to 2016 for a great example of misusing NAEP scores. The state school board picked a new state superintendent that year. Governor Robert Bentley had a vote and used it to be the deciding vote to hire Mike Sentance, a Boston attorney who had never been a teacher, principal or local superintendent. His reason? Massachusetts had the highest fourth-grade NAEP scores on math in the country. Sentance was a disaster and lasted only one year.)
“Truthfully, while no one pays much attention to retention info, they do like to compare NAEP scores.
“And Mississippi has done very well on NAEP in the last few years. In fact, they have made larger gains, particularly for fourth-graders, since 2013 than any other state. But it should be pointed out that Mississippi retains a higher percent of third-graders than any other state.
“So Mississippi is making sure its poorest performing kids are not taking the fourth-grade NAEP tests. It’s just like you told the third-grade teacher that you wanted to weigh all her students and get the average weight–but you can’t weigh the fat kids.“
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I smell RATS!
The people who “misuse” NEAP scores are all ed reformers. They all do it. Duncan crowed about a slight rise in 2015 and then (inexplicably) blamed public schools for the drop two years after that.
This is from The 74 (the ed reform echo chamber mouthpiece)
“Scores released today from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) held bad news for American schools, with trends that are essentially flat in mathematics and down in reading. Most states saw little or no improvement in either subject, with their lowest-performing students showing the most significant declines in scores. Whether the cause lies in hangover effects from the Great Recession, missteps in federal education policy, or some combination of these and other factors, there has been little progress to be assessed for over a decade.”
What I can’t figure out about ed reform’s misuse of NEAP scores is how the scores are never used to measure ed reform. We’ve been lockstep following the ed reform agenda for almost 30 years now. Shouldn’t the NEAP scores be going up?
If there’s been “no progress for over a decade” wouldn’t that indicate that we should perhaps think about no longer following the ed reform dictates on public education?
Instead we just double down. All their “choice” programs didn’t move the needle over a decade so they just massively ramp up “choice” programs. The test scores weren’t improving so they made the tests more difficult.
What about if we stopped hiring the same people with the same dogmatic (and ideological) lockstep adherence to “choice” and “accountability” and instead found and hired some people with different ideas?
If ed reformers live and die by test scores, then why don’t flat or declining test scores INFORM ed reform, and cause them to question “the movement”? If all they do is double down on the same agenda year after year we don’t need test scores at all.
“Scores released today from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) held bad news for American schools, with trends that are essentially flat in mathematics and down in reading. Most states saw little or no improvement in either subject, with their lowest-performing students showing the most significant declines in scores. Whether the cause lies in hangover effects from the Great Recession, missteps in federal education policy, or some combination of these and other factors, there has been little progress to be assessed for over a decade.”
If I were in the ed reform “movement” and I had been running US public education policy for the last 2 decades and the scores I use to determine if the system is getting better were “flat” for a decade, I think I would question my theory of improvement.
But they don’t. Instead they just double down on the public school bashing. Apparently scores may only be used to bash the public schools ed reformers oppose and hope to eradicate. Scores may never be used to measure the ed reform theory itself.
How long do they plan to continue this? In ten years will we look at flat or declining NEAP scores and still absolve ed reform and ed reformers from any responsibility or accountability for the scores, although they wholly dominate education policy?
When does ed reform itself get measured? Never? We MUST blindly follow these people and their theory of improvement forever, no matter the scores they say they use to measure improvement?
and “blindly” is an essential element: how shocking to still have leadership which appears to have no criticism
This is an example of the inability of ed reformers to examine their own agenda:
https://www.educationnext.org/betsy-devos-future-of-education-reform/
Jim Blew is an echo chamber member in good standing. His “ideas” for improving education? Exactly the same as all the other ed reformers, except doubling down and (predictably) ending up at a voucher system (because they all will inevitably end up at a voucher system- they’re half way there already).
Thirty years of blindly following these people and US public education will be “vouchers”
We could have skipped all the testing- we were going to end up at the ideologically determined end point- vouchers- anyway.
It’s tragic. I think the public will look back at this as a catastrophic error- the kind of error that can’t be undone.
After all the thousands of highly paid ed reform “experts”, the hundreds of millions of students who sat for their mandated tests, the tens of billions of dollars, they are going to end up at “hand every family a low value voucher”.
I don’t know why they wasted all of our time and didn’t just take the system private in the first place. That was always the end game.
I really only have one question- when ed reform succeeds in privatizing K-12 will they THEN take responsibility for their work? They won’t have public schools to blame. Someone will be held responsible for this engineered, ideological experiment they’re conducting. Will it be them, or will they dodge accountability for that too?
Once public schools are gone and education labor unions are abolished, will the Arne Duncans and Betsy Devoss and Jim Blews who promoted this look at “results” and take responsibility?
The privatized system they all envision and work towards will be THEIR system then. Who do they blame?
I don’t think they will take responsibility because they don’t take responsibility in the states they run. Ohio has blindly followed this “movement” for 20 years. Every ed reform demand was met. The state slips in national ranking every single year. The response from ed reform? “Double down! More charters! More vouchers! More defunding and demonization of public schools!”
The latest Ohio ed reform funding formula leaves public school investment flat and includes huge increases in charter and voucher funding and promotion and marketing. No analysis of their work of the last 20 years at all- instead just dial the same old ideas up to 11 and REALLY stick it to the public schools!
Maybe Ohio can sink faster- I don’t know but based on past performance of ed reform in this state I don’t put it past them.
There’s no accountability in the “ed reform movement” itself. They’ve exempted themselves from being measured on their OWN agenda.
Chiara, you are correct: “There’s no accountability in the “ed reform movement” itself. They’ve exempted themselves from being measured on their OWN agenda.”
Wonder WHO the deformers paid and do pay for all this nonsense against our young, who can’t defend themselves.
People need to just send their kids to public schools, one of our National Treasures along with our Public School Teachers.
Year after year after year we plod along in Ohio following these people. Every year is the same. They expand charter and voucher funding and come up with a tweaks to the public school measurement system.
They have not made a single positive contribution to any public school in the state for 20 years, but they have an absolute lock on state policy.
This year is no different. The ed reform plan for Ohio includes a huge increase in vouchers, a more modest increase in charters, and nothing for public schools.
Public schools should go their own way. Following the anti-public school “ed reform movement” for another 20 years will not serve public school students and isn’t fair to them. Look elsewhere.
Now that education has been monetized, many business types, politicians and profiteers all feel entitled to insert themselves into curricula, methodology, content, and administration of public education None of the aforementioned groups has the expertise to make these decisions. They generally foist their bad ideas on our young people. Retention is more failed policy that yields poor results. Retained students are more likely to drop out. A decision made in third grade may negatively impact students for life. Students and public schools were far better off before so-called reform. While politicians have always made negative comments about poorly funded public schools, they did not insert themselves and attempt to micromanage public schools and teachers. Bad policies like en masse retention will never yield long term positive results.
We need to allow experienced educators like Ms. Zeanah to make decisions based on evidence, not politics.
‘When does ed reform itself get measured? Never?” After over twenty years of public school bashing and privatization experimentation, nobody has made a thorough examination of so-called reform policies. Sending public money to unaccountable schools without any way to study the results is reckless policy that continues to undermine the public schools most students attend.
Of course, those left back 3rd graders eventually take the 4th grade test. Do they do any better? On the other hand they are far more likely do drop out. So the damage is far reaching.
And I believe THIS IS THE POINT of ALL NONSENSE. YES, “…the damage is far reaching.”
Being promoted without learning to decode fluently is damaging too. I have seventh graders who cannot decode. They fail all their classes except PE.
Of course, students who find themselves lacking in the abilities needs to move forward academically is debilitating. However, the preponderance of the evidence suggests that grade retention is not an effective solution.
Can you point me to that evidence? Is it good evidence?
I see social promotion as a disaster. Why do we have so many 6-12th graders who are de facto dropouts –yes, they’re physically IN school but they’re mentally checked out? It’s because they have learning deficits that prevent them from being able to do upper grade work, and they give up (this is one of the main drivers of classroom misbehavior). I wish we had a device to measure the amount of learning kids get each year because we’d see that a shocking number learn ZERO or close to it. It’s the Matthew Effect that E.D. Hirsch talks about –those who have shall gain more; those who don’t have shall gain nothing. The shocking number of kids who skipped Zoom classes this past year –this was not a surprise to many of us teachers, because we know they were already AWOL even while they were in the classroom. It is possible to sit through 8 hours of schooling per day and learn nothing. It happens all the time. We haven’t figured out how to remedy these kids’ deficits while simultaneously teaching the grade-level students. All the babble about “differentiation” and “intervention” and “equity” has just been a smokescreen –it merely gives the appearance that we’re seriously addressing this problem. The root problem is that kids don’t have the foundational knowledge (such as decoding –that’s knowledge) to do upper grade work. They have despaired.
That’s why i say Stop Politically Driven Education
Historians look back on the turn of the 20th century and call it the Progressive Era. One day, the first quarter of the 21st century will be called the Regressive Era, a time when citizens not part of the moneyed cultural elite lost nearly all agency over our lives.
The two progressive members of my school board have been force-turned. They are now going along with the billionaire-backed board majority in support of using data to rank schools and segregate classes because of California came out with the LCAP, Local Control and Accountability Plan. Students of color will be placed in separate classes with scripted intervention curricula while students of privilege will receive more elective/enrichment classes.