Archives for category: NAEP
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Good News! Excellent Results on NAEP Economics Test

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2013 //
25

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) just released the results of its Economics test for high school seniors.

Only 18% of students ranked “below basic,” which surely included high numbers of students who are English language learners and have serious disabilities.

82% are basic or above.

A remarkable 43% of students ranked “proficient” or above.

Proficient is excellent performance. Having served on the NAEP Board for seven years, I believe that a student who is proficient demonstrates A level performance.

3% of students rank “advanced.” This is A++ performance.

In any classroom where 43% of the students earn a solid A, great things are happening.

Congratulations to our high school social studies teachers!

Categories NAEP, Testing, U.S. education

What English Classes Should Look Like in the Common Core Era

By dianeravitch
January 19, 2013 //
31

Carol Jago is an experienced English teacher, author, and former president of the National Council of Teachers of English.

Jago writes here about what high school English classes should look like in the Common a core era.

She served on the NAEP assessment committee that set the ratio of 70-30 for test developers.

Here is the key point:

“What seems to be causing confusion are the comparative recommended percentages for informational and literary text cited in the Common Core’s introduction. These percentages reflect the 2009 NAEP Reading Framework http://www.nagb.org/content/nagb/assets/documents/publications/frameworks/reading09.pdf . I served on that framework committee and can assure you that when we determined that 70% of what students would be asked to read for the 12th grade NAEP reading assessment would be informational, we did not mean that 70% of what students read in senior English should be informational text. The National Assessment for Educational Progress does not measure performance in English class. It measures performance in reading, reading across the disciplines and throughout the school day.”

I would clarify further to say that NAEP was not designed to tell teachers what to teach or how to teach. That ratio of 70-30 is an instruction to test developers, not to teachers.

Categories Common Core, Curriculum, Education Reform, NAEP

A Teacher Has a Question for Hari Sevugan

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
5

Hari Sevugan, the ex-Obama spokesman and ex-StudentsFirst spokesman, has twice commented on this blog in defense of charters and high-stakes testing. In his comments yesterday, he pointed to Florida as a model of excellence, while putting down Massachusetts as not all that it claims to be. In my response, I compared Florida’s NAEP scores to those of Massachusetts. Massachusetts is consistently #1, while Florida ranks about average among the 50 states. I assume that Hari was promoting Glorida because Michelle Rhee ranked it at the top of her personal report card. It is certainly way ahead of Massachusetts in authorizing charter schools, for-profit charters, vouchers, high-stakes testing, and stripping teachers of tenure.

Today, I received a letter from a teacher in Nashville, who asked me to post the following questions to Hari. If he answers, I will post his reply.

“I am a teacher in Nashville Public Schools, who has been teaching for 14 years. I have to be honest that since I have been working on a Masters in Educational Leadership, current reform policies have been gaining my interest. I read Hari’s response on your message board, and I would like to ask him why he would slam Massachusetts’s NAEP results and in the same response hold TIMSS and PIRLS results for Florida as a progressing miracle.

“The same studies that he and the likes of him quote to put schools down and compare us to higher achieving nations are the same tests he uses to hold up academic progress for states that are using the current GERM model. I am fascinated with his spin and ability to turn the student achievement of a state rejecting (for the most part) GERM and yet in the same breath hold up a state that does not perform near Massachusetts as a model for reform.

“Please, have him explain his answer as to why bashing the progress of Massachusetts yet holding up Florida and Louisiana as the proof reform is working. In this country it is so hard to measure which reform is working due to all of the different reforms taking place. But, I do not believe Hari’s and StudentsFirst type of reform will give us sustainable results. So, this letter is really directed to Hari, I just don’t know how to get it to him.

“I hope all is well with you and the rest of your readers and please continue the good fight. The future of public education is relying on this conversation.”

Categories Florida, Massachusetts, NAEP, Rhee, Michelle

Hari Sevugan Responds: UPDATE!

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2013 //
34

A few days ago, I posted a letter from Hari Sevugan on this site, in which he defended Michelle Rhee’s agenda of privatization and high-stakes testing. Sevugan was (according to Wikipedia) the former national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee and was the senior spokesman for the Obama campaign in 2008. In June, 2011, he became vice-president of communications for Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.

I invited him to post again. I wrote:

“I hope he will write again to explain why he thinks that Rhee’s support for for-profit charters, for vouchers, and for the agenda of rightwing governors helps our society’s most vulnerable children.”

Rhee has worked closely with Governor Scott Walker, Governor John Kasich, Governor Rick Scott, and other Republicans who want to privatize education, curtail collective bargaining rights, and take away any job protections for teachers.

Many readers of the blog wrote responses to Sevugan. He responded with a letter this morning (I confess I missed it and read it first on the Huffington Post). He did not answer my questions, but he did respond to a letter from a Florida teacher and parent. I am updating this post because I did not see his comment on the blog (unlike Rhee, who has a large staff, I have no staff, not even a secretary; I read all comments myself, and I write all the responses myself, I write all my own tweets, all my own articles, all my own books, no ghostwriters).

In his comments to Huffington Post, Sevugan scoffs at the success of Massachusetts and Maryland because “only 40-50%” of students in those states are proficient on NAEP. I don’t think he knows much about NAEP’s achievement levels. “Proficient” on NAEP is not above average. It represents solid achievement. I spent seven years as a member of the NAEP governing board. Proficient on NAEP is like getting a B+ or an A. Massachusetts can be proud that half its students have such outstanding performance.

Sevugan fawns all over Florida, because Rhee gave Florida and Louisiana her highest grades. (He doesn’t even try to defend Louisiana, one of the nation’s lowest performing states on NAEP.)

But why is he so admiring of Florida? True, it is overrun with charters, both nonprofit and for-profit. But it doesn’t come close to Massachusetts (or Maryland) on NAEP.

Florida (whose education policies are tightly controlled by Jeb Bush) is far behind Massachusetts on NAEP. In fourth grade math, for example, an astonishing 59% of students in Massachusetts rank proficient (which is outstanding), as compared to 37% in Florida (slightly below the national average of 39%).

In eighth grade math, an impressive 51% in Massachusetts are proficient, compared to 28% in Florida (well below the national average of 34% proficient).

In reading, the story is the same. Massachusetts students far outperform those in Florida. In fourth grade, 51% of Massachusetts students are proficient, as compared to 35% in Florida (the national average is 32%).  In eighth grade reading, 46% of students in Massachusetts are proficient, compared to only 29% in  Florida.

Michelle Rhee gave one of her highest grades on her report card to the D.C. schools, despite their low test scores, low graduation rates, and scandalous achievement gaps. Michelle Rhee and her successor have been in charge of the D.C. public schools since 2007, yet the black-white achievement gap and the Hispanic-white achievement gap there are the largest of any city or state in the nation and they are even larger now than when Rhee took over.

If Michelle Rhee knows how to reform schools, why did she fail to do so in D.C.?

Sevugan’s letter is just more of the public school-bashing and teacher-bashing that StudentsFirst has perfected. He thinks our nation and our schools are failing. He is wrong. Our nation is the most powerful, most creative, most innovative in the world, and 90% of Americans were educated in public schools.

Sevugan obviously has never  looked at NAEP scores. If he had, he would know that the scores for black students, white students, Hispanic students, and Asian students in 2011 (the latest NAEP) were at their highest point in history.

Sevugan has a lot to learn about education. I’ll be happy to help him. The first thing he needs to learn is that the doom-and-gloom narrative of the corporate reformers is wrong. It is factually untrue, and I’ll demonstrate how wrong it is in my next book.

We have heard the same doleful complaints since the 1950s, and the peddlers of decline have been wrong every time. They are wrong now too.

Diane

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, Massachusetts, NAEP, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

Common Core and the Fiction/Non-Fiction Question

By dianeravitch
December 31, 2012 //
29

Education Week has an article by Catherine Gewertz saying that defenders of the Common Core are out in full force to quell the uproar about whether CC will mean less fiction.

It is interesting that the two loudest voices defending CC are Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Educational Excellence and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, both quite conservative groups.

The way the issue is framed unfortunately misses the point, at least the point that I and others have raised.

Why do the CC standards mandate a proportionate split between fiction and non-fiction?

Who thought it was necessary to turn NAEP’s instruction to test developers into a mandate for teachers?

Who will police the implementation of the arbitrary ratios of 50-50 or 70-30?

If the ratios apply to all courses, can’t we assume that students will read “informational text” in math, science, civics, history, and other subjects, leaving teachers of English language arts to assign as much fiction or non-fiction as they want?

In the interests of clarity, here’s what I want: the ratios should be eliminated. They are an overreach. They have no basis in research or experience. There is no justification for imposing them.

I urge this not as a partisan of fiction or non-fiction, but as a partisan of common sense.

Diane

Categories Common Core, Curriculum, NAEP, Testing

A Question for Mitt Romney

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2012 //
16

Mitt Romney likes to boast that Massachusetts is number 1 in the nation in academics, and he is right. Massachusetts is the highest scoring state on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in math and reading, in fourth and eighth grades.

Now, as we know, Mitt is very anti-union. His educational platform excoriates the bad teachers’ unions, that allegedly protect bad teachers and drive down educational quality.

But, wait a minute! Massachusetts has a completely unionized teaching force. How can this be?

Did anyone ever tell Romney that the highest scoring states in the nation on NAEP–Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey–have strong teachers unions and collective bargaining?

Did anyone tell ALEC, which has model legislation to bust teachers unions?

Categories Accountability, NAEP, Unions

A Hero of American Education: Richard Rothstein

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2012 //
3

When writing about Richard Rothstein, I scarcely know where to begin.

He has written several major books. Anyone who wants to understand the challenge of poverty in our society must read Rothstein’s seminal work, Class and Schools.

He was responsible for drafting the EPI paper that brought together nearly a dozen scholars to explain why value-added assessment–or judging teachers by student test scores–was riddled with problems.

I got to know Richard many years ago when he wrote a regular column for the New York Times. We used to meet and disagree, but he never lost his cool, and he never stopped trying to explain patiently why I was wrong. Over time, I discovered, he was right on almost everything about which we had disagreed.

He understands the importance of public education. He objects when people defame public education, especially when they have no facts. If you want to get a flavor of his careful, thoughtful, judicious approach to issues, read this response to Bill Gates’ claim that educational achievement has been flat for many years. Richard Rothstein refuted what he said with clear and persuasive evidence.

For his courage, for his intelligence, for his dedication to democratic ideals, Richard Rothstein joins our honor roll as a hero of American public education.

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Honor Roll, NAEP

Jeb Bush: There Should Be No Public Sector Unions

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2012 //
9

Jonathan Pelto reports on Jeb Bush’s recent visit to Connecticut. While there, he saluted the “reforms” pushed through the legislature by Governor Dannell Malloy, especially his efforts to curb teachers’ tenure and seniority. And he boasted about Florida’s achievement (he didn’t mention the class size reduction initiative, which voters approved and he tried to roll back). And choice, choice, choice!

Funny that no one mentioned that Connecticut is one of the top two or three states in the nation on NAEP, even though it has strong teachers’ unions, seniority and tenure. It is far ahead of Florida. Since when does a state whose students are ABOVE the national average (8th grade math, NAEP) take lessons from one that is well below the national average?

Categories Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Florida, Malloy, Dannel, NAEP

Conservative Pundits Pummel Chicago Students

By dianeravitch
September 11, 2012 //
12

Jersey Jazzman calls out the conservative pundits who, in an effort to embarrass Chicago teachers,try to show how awful student perormance is in that district and paint it in the worst possible light.

If they are casting stones, you kinda wonder why they don’t throw them at Arne Duncan and Mayor Daley, whose policies determined what happened in the schools.

What they do is akin to blaming the war in Iraq on the soldiers, not the policymakers.

Categories Chicago, Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, NAEP

Here is My Interview on CNN

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2012 //
36

Many readers have contacted me to ask why CNN has not posted Randi Kaye’s interview with me, rebutting Michelle Rhee’s assertions.

This reader, Michael Brocoum, made a copy of the interview and posted it on Youtube. Here it is.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the interview began with a question about the National Assessment of Educational Progress (you will note that it is misspelled by CNN as the National Assessment of Educational Process). I don’t recall the precise wording, but the question went like this:

“You claim that test scores on NAEP are at their highest point in history, but how do you explain that the scale score for fourth grade reading is only 221? That’s 221 out of 500. That’s less than 50%. Isn’t 50% a failing grade?”

I then tried to explain that scale scores don’t work like that, that the question itself was a completely erroneous interpretation of scale scores. NAEP has a vertical scale, and scale scores in the 4th grade are lower than in the 8th grade. They can’t be converted into a grade in the way that Randi Kaye asserted, although they are useful as measures of progress.

Consider this: the average scale score for 4th grade is 221, but students scoring at the 90th percentile–our top students–have a scale score of 264. By Randi Kaye’s fallacious reasoning, they are failing too! In 8th grade reading, the students at the 90th percentile had a scale score of 307 (on a scale of 500). She would convert that to a grade of 61, which is borderline failing.

Wouldn’t you think that the editor or research staff at CNN would have prevented Randi Kaye from making such absurd assertions?

But it was of a piece with all the questions that followed. I felt as if I were being interrogated by someone who worked for StudentsFirst, not by a reporter seeking to ascertain either my views or the basic facts.

Rhee said at the outset of my interview that the answer to what she thinks is the terrible performance of our schools is merit pay. So Randi Kaye drilled in on that with two questions (one of them was dropped from the show before it aired). She ended up with a quote from someone named Lucas who said he wanted merit pay. That wasn’t exactly definitive, since I was able point out that merit pay has been tried again and again and has always failed to make a difference.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Michigan, NAEP, Privatization, Ravitch, Diane, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Teachers and Teaching, Testing
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