H. Hurley, a reader of the blog, left the following comment, which places NAEP hysteria into context:
The cherry on the journalistic cup cake related to recent NAEP reporting was an interview by Stephanie Ruhle on her 11:00 pm MSNBC program where she rushed in, of all people, ARNE DUNCAN, to discuss the CRISIS OF THE DROPPING NAEP SCORES. Her URGENCY in her set-up and interview was almost reported as a 3 alarm fire. Poor Arne. He actually tried to calm her reactions. But her hysteria is typical related to student test scores.
Nuts!
It’s obvious to real educators that a pandemic, million COVID deaths, ZOOM schooling, kids alone at home, banning books, masking, vaccing…anti vaccing, limited computer/Internet access, Jan6, school shootings, politics, chaos everywhere….shall we go on?
On top of this craziness, when children are finally returning to school, we TEST. We test & react in horror that children didn’t know the grade level content or skills. Scores dropped….who knew? Who could have predicted that?
ACTUALLY…….Anybody with some sense!
Children living in war, migration, fleeing, homeless, famine, rising fascism, massive crime, poverty, lead poisoning, hunger, job losses, craziness, etc…..are then tested under the WORST CONDITIONS.
Meanwhile, journalists hold up those results as if our children were living under heat lamps in incubators to be educated under the best conditions.
Stop the testing madness, end poverty, stop the political madness, allow families to raise their children with proper wages, fund schools, stop destroying public schools & use the election spending zillion$ on real people for a healthy nation.
My 2¢ worth!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
After a time of unprecedented challenges for schools–after a nationwide pandemic acerbated by erratic and sometimes nonexistent leadership–we had declines of 1.0 percent and 1.6 percent in ELA and Math (5 and 8 points, respectively, out of 500 possible).
Ask the idiots reporting on this whether they know how many points are on the NAEP scale. Here’s my bet: They won’t have any idea. This is the level of the study of the results that they have done. Almost none.
Declines this small after a situation that dire? There should be freaking dancing in the streets and a great big shout-out to our nation’s educators for a job exceptionally well done.
You’re right, Bob.
MSNBC is WRONG. So much of the news is sensationalism …to the MAX and just to boost the number of their viewers.
And…
Wish Arne would just GO AWAY…forever. He’s no educator or expert re: education.
Left leaning MSM LOVES Obama and his former administration and trots them out as the face of true Democracy and “right think”. Sorry….I don’t feel the same way. Obama was a “pretty facade” for a rotten administration that propped up Wall Street/Banks over Main St. leaving many people homeless and bankrupt. Arne doubled down on Shrub era NCLB policies that propped up big tech/ education lobbies and diverted tax dollars (via loopholes) for the De-formsters. Once the Teachers Union signed on to Common Core/standardized testing and the “Gates Initiative”, public education went too far down the rabbit hole. The Obama administration killed off public education and I don’t think there is a way to return public education to its glory days.
Thank you, Diane, for this, and for all you are doing to right the wrongs of our educational world! It’s too bad we didn’t put a stopper on the testing madness before it got out of the bottle.
In the 1980s, the governors and President Bush and the Congress fell in love with testing as a cure for everything.
true, and here we are forty years later playing at the exact same game: year after year, President after President
Diane, et. al. I hope it’s correct to say that was their motivation, “love” of testing. But circumstantial evidence also points to a desire to undercut “public” schools in favor of private–where lots of leaders’ kids go. Also, there was their need to reign in the teachers’ unions, which had become a big part of the labor movement, with about 3 million members–at a time when the wealthy anti-union folks had the private sector unions on the ropes. In addition, public schools were also seen as being too slow to integrate racially. So, some liberals, such as Sen. Ted Kennedy–a powerful sponsor of NCLB–got on board what they may have thought–being generous–was an honest effort to improve public schools. Tellingly, surveys at that time of great criticism of our “failed” public schools found citizens generally believing that public schools had failed around the nation, but not in their hometowns. Apparently, they knew their local schools and teachers by visiting, and from the experiences of their own kids and grandkids. But, as the media beat a steady drum about America’s failed schools, folks thought they had failed elsewhere.
Finally, let’s not overlook the tempting idea which came to politicians, especially of the conservative or Republican stripe, who wanted to run for office on a promise of school improvement, but didn’t want to raise the taxes to actually pay for any improvements. And, no doubt some of those politicians then got campaign contributions from the testing company owners or the business people who generally wanted to hold taxes down.
Most of what I’m saying here is based on many years of service in education as a teacher and as Executive Director of the (then)5000-member Columbus (Ohio) E.A. I also served as the legislative agent for SEIU in Ohio. I saw how these things actually worked. Our schools had not failed. Some politicians knew that, and some didn’t. But our media fed the problem with the drumbeat about our failed schools.
We can’t make this testing system work–we have to get rid of it before it destroys public education.
Jack,
You are right in every particular.
But one thing more.
Governors decided by group think that teachers were no good.
The state needed to have an “independent” means of judging how students were doing because the teachers could not be trusted.
So the testing was both a way of judging students and demonstrating that teachers could not be trusted.
One, the testing took evaluation away from teachers.
Two, governors assumed that the scores in every grade had to be higher, for the same grade, or the schools were failing.
Three, the testing companies made the tests harder. I doubt there is a governor or legislator who could pass the eighth grade math test today unles they were mathematicians or engineers.
Exactly!
My head nearly exploded when she had Arne Duncan on. Diane Ravitch needs to be the MSNBC scholarly consultant on all topics of education.
Agreed
Please write MSNBC.
Arne unleashed hypertesting and promoted charters in almost every state. Never acknowledged the many charter scandals. Did he speak out against vouchers? I don’t recall.
Arne Duncan is the voice of education squalorship.
Only fools and idiots give a damn about NAEP scores.
Poor Arne. He actually tried to calm her reactions”
If Arne Duncan is the voice of calm and reason, you know you are in trouble.
Totally agree- stop the testing, let teachers teach & stop using standardized tests to measure children. They are individuals not cookie cutter stepford children.
Cable news is 100% corporate propaganda, not news. Test scores are 100% corporate propaganda, not achievement data. Got it. Corporate propagandists were wrong about the NCLB, wrong about Common Core, wrong about charter schools, wrong about online education, wrong about, well, everything. Thank goodness for Betsy DeVos providing a light to shine on just how “progressive” the bull was for a while by acting as Arne Duncan’s identical twin secretary of education. MSNBC and Arne Dun-can kiss my rear end.
Thank you and I agree- it’s NOT learning loss but a slightly slower progression towards pre-determined benchmarks. Education ( especially math) spirals so each year these kids will get a little closer to ‘on track ‘… but we should celebrate gains rather that tell the kids how terrible they have done on some standardized test ( as a math educator I had had plenty of experience filling in ‘gaps’ and have found that a positive attitude and willingness to slow down until the kids ‘get it’ is so much more effective than ‘forging ahead’)
I’m assuming that you are retired? There is NO slowing down with Common Core math. Much like the ELA standards, there is an objective every day or week that must be met. If kids don’t “get it”….too bad….it’s full steam ahead until test time. The scores on the tests are all that matters.
NAEPsteria
“Scores are flat”, or even worse
“Scores are down”, a “score reverse!”
NAEP is falling, so is sky
Growth is stalling, why oh, why?
If John Dewey were alive today
he’d be turning over in his grave.
“Learn by doing,” his legacy,
so kids today learn to take tests,
learn to get grades,
learn how little
we value them,
how bright we are.
from “No Child Race to the Top”
American schooling is the antithesis of everything Dewey taught.