Paul Thomas of Furman University is a clear-sighted analyst of education policy. He is fearless when it comes to calling out frauds. This post is a good example.
He writes:
“The administrations in charge,” write Gilles Deleuze in Postscript on the Societies of Control, “never cease announcing supposedly necessary reforms: to reform schools, to reform industries, hospitals, the armed forces, prisons” (p. 4).
Deleuze’s generalization about “supposedly necessary reforms” serves as an important entry point into the perpetual education crisis in the US. Since A Nation at Risk, public education has experienced several cycles of crisis that fuel ever-new and ever-different sets of standards and high-stakes testing.
Even more disturbing is that for at least a century, “the administrations in charge” have shouted that US children cannot read—with the current reading crisis also including the gobsmacking additional crisis that teachers of reading do not know how to teach reading.
The gasoline that is routinely tossed on the perpetual fire of education crisis is test scores—state accountability tests, NAEP, SAT, ACT, etc.
While all that test data itself may or may not be valuable information for both how well students are learning and how to better serve those students through reform, ultimately all that testing has almost nothing to do with either of those goals; in fact, test data in the US are primarily fuel for that perpetual state of crisis.
Here is the most recent example—2023 ACT scores:
I have noted that reactions and overreactions to NAEP in recent years follow a similar set of problems found in reactions/overreactions to the SAT for many decades; the lessons from those reactions include:
- Lesson: Populations being tested impact data drawn from tests.
- Lesson: Ranking by test data must account for population differences among students tested.
- Lesson: Conclusions drawn from test data must acknowledge purpose of test being used (see Gerald Bracey).
The social media and traditional media responses to 2023 ACT data expose a few more concerns about media, public, and political misunderstanding of test data as well as how “the administrations in charge” depend on manipulating test data to insure the perpetual education crisis.
Many people have confronted the distorting ways in which the ACT data are being displayed; certainly the mainstream graph from Axios above suggests “crisis”; however, by simply modifying the X/Y axes, that same data appear at least less dramatic and possibly not even significant if the issues I list above are carefully considered….
This crisis-of-the-day about the ACT parallels the central problem with NAEP, a test that seems designed to mislead and not inform since NAEP’s “Proficient” feeds a false narrative that a majority of students are not on grade level as readers.
The ACT crisis graph being pushed by mainstream media is less a marker of declining educational quality in the US and more further proof that “the administrations in charge” want and need testing data to justify “supposedly necessary reforms,” testing as gas for the perpetual education crisis fire.
Please open the link to read this excellent analysis in full.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The right wing and truth-influenced public policy, an oxymoron?
A review of the 2021 Sarah Schaife Foundation grant recipients
shows aligned groups which include the Thomas Fordham Institute.
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Others- EPPC, Becket Fund, Robert P George’s James Madison group, CNP, Daily Caller, Leonard Leo’s Federalist Society and Koch’s Heritage.
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Always be suspicious of graphs that zoom in on the Y axis.
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The scheme to undermine the common good began with ‘A Nation at Risk.’ It continued with NCLB, and test and punish syndrome. The end game in my view has always been to privatize our public schools and transfer public funds into private pockets. Today we are in the universal voucher phase of mass privatization, and it is the phase most cherished by billionaires that would like to dismantle public schools and make education a personal obligation instead of a state responsibility so billionaires can reduce their taxes.
Nothing related to so-called education reform is valid, not the testing, not the assertions, not the flawed, fake studies promulgated by conservative groups. It is mostly propaganda amplified by right wing think tanks and mainstream media that parrot the falsehoods as well as the many contrived, manufactured ‘crises.’ So-called reform is wholly a political power and money grab to use “testing data to justify “supposedly necessary reforms,” testing as gas for the perpetual education crisis fire.”
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Right on, rt! Not pulling any punches today I see.
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This report by Paul Thomas is terrific. And there’s a gem buried in it that just went into my favorites folder: click on link at “Loveless 2023” (see #2 under “ILEC Concerns”) – the most thorough analysis by far of any I’ve seen on the meaning of “NAEP Proficient” et al descriptors as regards reading ability.
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There are lots of people who grasp the limitations of state and standardized testing. There are LOTS of others who do not. There are also LOTS of people willing to disguise and distort data and to flat-out lie about it.
Sadly, it seems that either lots of those who report on public education and school testing data either do not understand much about testing, or are lazy and unwilling to learn much about it, or deliberately fudge the information they present.
The Axios graph depicted above comes from a blurb of an article by a real newbie at Axios, April Rubin. The graph was prepared by “Axios Visuals.” Was it prepared for easy visual depiction, or was it deliberately distorted? Maybe only the person(s) who prepared it can say.
The April Rubin blurb article was a followup to another blurb article the previous day by another relative newbie, Erin Doherty. That article quotes the chief executive officer of the ACT, and makes this statement:
“The decline in scores is the latest indicator of the pandemic’s detrimental effects on the nation’s students — and underscores the extent to which graduating high school students are ill-prepared for college.”
Complete and utter hokum.
But, hey. Ask people in a local suburb what the SAT stands for, and they’ll probably tell you. Most will be wrong. Ask them what the SAT “measures,” and they’ll tell you that too. Again, the big majority will be mistaken. Ask the teachers and guidance counselors — or students — in most middle and high schools what the SAT or ACT is and what it “measures,” and see what they say.
The problem is widespread, and that’s a gross understatement.
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So many reports are coming out about our so called reading programs that are not supporting our students. P.L. Thomas is one of those researchers.
The Science of Reading movement:The Never-Ending Debate and the Need for a Different approach to Reading Instruction by P.L. Thomas
FORTY YEARS OF FAILURE: WHEN CARICATURE DRIVES EDUCATION REFORM IN POST-TRUTH AMERICA by P.L.Thomas
“‘Our Perpetual Crisis in Education’ is Fueled by Unreliable, Invalid Text Scores”
P.L. Thomas was an English Professor who taught English in high school before he started teaching at Furman University.
However, NYTimes 11/3/23 just published: “Ohio Lawsuit Punches Back in Battle Over How to Teach Reading.”
While teaching reading over a period of many years, attending many state and local workshops and conferences and reading regularly books, journals, I finally found a successful way.
Reading is a: Constructivists Process -the interaction of the reader with visual/perceptual (text, pictures, and graphics) and non visual/conceptual which includes background knowledge along with knowledge of the language structure: semantic, syntactic, and graphophonic systems. The reader uses these two sources of information to construct meaning.
We need a balanced reading program. Shared Reading (Assisted Reading), Guided Reading (Instruction Reading) 90-95%word accuracy, Read Aloud (Listening to more complex language structures), Familiar Reading (easy reading-) 95%- 100%w word accuracy.
Phonics is important but phonics instruction should never dominate reading instruction. At lest half the time devoted to reading should be spent reading connected text-stories, poems, plays, trade bo etc. Constructivist have always placed emphasis on higher order thinking skills/critical thinking: beginning with the child ( bridging his prior knowledge to the text at hand) and ending with the child- helping the child make connections.
The Constuctivists want the children to be active learners inn lieu of rote learners. Through scaffolding- teachers guidance- children learn to interact with text. The teacher guides them in observing the visual(text, pictures, and graphics) and non visual /conceptual which includes background knowledge along with knowledge of the language structure: semantic, syntactic, and phonics systems. The teacher guides the students to use these two sources of information to construct meaning. She/he guides them bringing together experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities. She/he guides the students inn using these strategies before reading by activating prior knowledge, questioning, and predicting about the text and then they read to verify their predictions.
The teacher models how to think by thinking out loud. She/he uses clues from the text to hypothesize about a character’s feeling, actions,, beliefs, or values. The teacher encourages the children to make picture in their minds,, to imagine what is happening so that they can better understand what the characters see, hear, feel, taste, and smell.
While reading, students continue to question, predict, and read to verify. A discussion follows guided reading during which the higher order thinking skills of evaluation, application/connection, synthesizing and summarizing are developed. Graphic organizers help visualize their thinking. Through discussion the teacher helps children learn about life. Each story is like painting a picture of some aspect of life.
Discussion of stories help develop values of honesty, loyalty, courage, empathy, compassion and understanding of others’ feelings, likes and dislikes. Through guided discussion the teacher helps student understand the meaning of humanness/ diversity. Responding to a text takes on many other forms instead of just answering questions. Activities such as writing, illustrating, drama, choral reading follow guided reading. Children need to make connections to self, another text, and the world around them. With all the strategies children are made active learners in lieu of rote learners.
Kindergarten and first graders are capable of higher order thinking. Young children will readily tell you if they like the main character of a story; why or why not?- Evaluation. Kindergarten and first graders love to have their brains picked. Their responses and contribution to a Venn Diagram – comparing their life to the life of the characters- will knock your socks off.
Dramatizing fine tunes their awareness, interpretation, and imagining skills, helping them step into the shoes of the characters. Marie Clay developed a very successful reading program. She believed in teaching to a child’s strengths, not to their weaknesses if we want them to succeed. She initiated the conversational tone with emergent readers while placing new vocabulary in their ear as she did her “Picture Walks.” Marie Clay with her Reading Recovery, gives all the support a child needs so he/she will not make a mistake. ( The Arkansas Program for one, adapted the tenets of Reading Recovery to be use with a group.) Also important to Marie Clay were the following conditions: happy environment, freedom to explore, confidence, feeling of success, a challenge that can be met, hands on, modeling, along with utilizing all senses.. Also, the emergent reader should have a new story each day to read unlike anthologies that provide one story a week.
“Reading is about mind journeys and teaching reading is about outfitting the traveler: modeling how to use the map, demonstrating the key and the legend, supporting the travelers as they lose their way and take circuitous routes until they are off on their own.” (Ellin O.Keene and Susan Zimmerman in “Mosaic of Thought”)
6 Principles to Guide Policy
“1. Young children learn through active, direct experiences and play.
2. Children learn skills and concepts at different times, rates, and paces. Every child is unique.
3. Young children learn best when their cognitive, social, emotional, and physical selves become highly engaged in the learning process.
4. Assessments of young children should be observational in nature, ongoing, and connected to curriculum and teaching. They should take into account the broad-based nature of young children’s learning, not isolated skills, and the natural developmental variation in all areas of young children’s growth and development.
Assessments in early childhood should be as infrequent as possible to maintain high program quality. Standardized tests are highly unreliable for children younger than 3rd grade and should not be used in early childhood settings. The linking of test scores to teacher evaluation or to program evaluation leads to an increase in standards and test-based instruction, and less developmentally appropriate play-based, experiential education. Administrators need to emphasize quality educational experiences and teaching, not test scores in the early years.
5. The problems of inequality and child poverty need to be addressed directly.
6. Quality early childhood education with well-prepared teachers is the best investment a society can make in its future.”
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The test scores are invalid because the test writers and curriculum writer believed kids were being taught to read and write. My middle-class struggling reader did poorly on tests until he started attending a school for dyslexic students and learned to read and write in 5th grade. Now he’s in college doing well.
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Yes, the test scores are invalid and for numerous reasons. A standardized test will not give the teacher the instructional level of the student. Plus, students should be assessed with an appropriate tool in a quiet, calm setting. When children sit in fear, start crying, vomiting, running to the bathroom the test has already been invalidated.
Albert Einstein stated, “I believe in standardizing automobiles. I do not believe in standardizing human beings. Standardization is a great peril which threatens American culture.”
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