Archives for category: NAEP
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Peter Greene: DeVos Picks Soul Mates for the Governing Board of NAEP

By dianeravitch
November 16, 2019 //
10

One of the perks of being Secretary of Education is that he or she selects member of the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), which is the oversight body for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The board is designed to be bipartisan and to represent people from different walks of life. As the NAGB website states, The Governing Board is made up of 26 members, including governors, state legislators, local and state school officials, educators and researchers, business representatives, and members of the general public. Members are appointed by the U.S. secretary of education.

When I was appointed to NAGB by Secretary Richard Riley on behalf of the Clinton administration in 1998, the board was truly representative and diverse and collegial. We worried constantly, as did Congress, about keeping “politics” out of the decision making process.

That was then, this is now. Now we have a Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, who is actively hostile to public education. It is reasonable to assume that she wants NAEP to show public schools in the worst possible light to provide ammunition for her crusade to destroy them. No one questions whether her selections are “political.” Of course they are. Unlike Secretary Riley and other secretaries, no one she selected disagrees with her dire diagnosis of public education.

Peter Greene writes here about her choices for NAGB here. Here are the folks who will shape future assessments. My only hope, as a former member of the board, is that their ability to mess up NAEP will be constrained by the professional staff, unless she has replaced them with rightwing zealots and by the limited nature of the decisions that the board makes (whether and when to test the arts or history or civics or “grit”).

After four years in which to replace retiring members, DeVos will have put her stamp on NAGB. Perhaps the standards will become so high that no one reaches NAEP Proficient, not in public schools or charter schools or religious schools, and we can declare all of American education a disaster and throw up out hands in feigned despair. Greene sees the slant of this board as reason not to take NAEP results seriously in the future. The media, however, will continue to see NAEP as the gold standard, so I am hoping the new additions will not render it useless.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Education Reform, NAEP, Testing

Nancy Bailey: Who Is to Blame for Poor NAEP Reading Scores? Here Are Their Names

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2019 //
75

Nancy Bailey read a list of organizations who were blaming teachers for not adhering to the “science” of reading and thus blaming teachers for NAEP reading scores.

She got steamed and pointed out that none of these individuals or organizations criticizing teachers are known as teachers themselves.

She got so steamed that she names names in this post. 

These are the organizations, she says, that have the sheer audacity to blame teachers for what they themselves can’t do!

They write the policies that constrain teachers but take no responsibility when their policies fail.

Busybodies! When are they held accountable?

After listing the groups, she concludes:

This conversation should take place, because something is wrong when parents are unhappy with their child’s schooling. It isn’t a debate that will be won by yelling at each other on social media, but by working together at the school level.

It should include a state department of education in each state that investigates problems and isn’t about getting rid of public education. The U.S. Department of Education should also be working to better address the controversy surrounding reading and what’s behind denying students with reading disabilities their IDEA rights.

Universities should review how they teach reading, but they also shouldn’t be forced by these groups to destroy reading practices that have worked for years.

It is, however, difficult to do this at this time. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and the previous education secretaries, never taught, never studied reading in a university setting or worked to remediate student difficulties, and have themselves been about the business of destroying schools and de-professionalizing the teaching profession.

If you think the NAEP scores are poor, look at the groups mentioned here. It has been a rigged game for years!

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, NAEP, Privatization

Laura Chapman: The Disrupters Refuse to Slink Away Despite Massive Failure

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2019 //
9

Last night there was a grand event at the Kennedy Center where veterans of the Bush and Obama education world joined together to wring their hands about the crisis at hand. The crisis is not the mess they made of American education for the past 20 years. The crisis is that the tests are not hard enough, the punishments are not tough enough, and the nation needs to buckle down and keep on testing and firing and demanding more from everyone. Except them. Of course.

Our reader Laura Chapman explains what was behind the big party:

“I wanted to look past the PR for this one event. The event is a launch for a new campaign capitalizing on “stagnating” NAEP scores and persistent gaps among students “who have been underserved.”

“The reformists are calling for “evidence based” methods of teaching using only “high quality, standards-aligned, content-rich curriculum.” Suddenly these reformists think “deficits in content-knowledge” matter. But these reformists are really fans of the Common Core and have a lonh history of ignoring much else worthy of study, content in the arts and humanities for example.

“In addition to being sponsored by the Collaborative for Student Success, this “new literacy campaign” is sponsored by Achieve, The Alliance for Excellent Education, The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, Learning Heroes, Literacy Now, National Association of Elementary School Principals, National Council on Teacher Quality, National Urban Alliance, National Urban League, Military Child Coalition, and The Education Trust. These have been supporters of the Common Core, and many love high-stakes tests.

“The Collaborative for Student Success is a multi-faced project of the New Venture Fund. It is supported by: Bloomberg Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, ExxonMobil, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. The website markets three of the Collaborative’s favorite math programs, but it also features “campaigns” of the Collaborative. Each campaign has a separate website. All campaigns are based on the premise that states are not living up to the requirements of ESSA. Truly, the sponsors of the Literacy Initiative are die-hard defenders of the Common Core and ESSA. Here are the camaigns in progress.

“A web-based “Assessment HQ” offers test scores and demographic breakouts for test scores “for more than half of states in grades 3-8.” This campaign is designed to claim that state assessments are not tough enough or fully reported to parents. The Collaborative scoops up state assessment results in math and ELA and puts these together in an interactive map. The Assessment HQ is actually sluggish and out of date. It is presenting data from the 2014-15 school year and it was designed to push PARCC and Smarter Balanced tests.

“The “Check State Plans” campaign offers ratings of the state plans for ESSA based on their strict conformity to ESSA. The Collaborative asked 45 reviewers to judge state plans, back in 2017, at about the same time that Bellwether Education Partners also put together a panel to review state ESSA plans. The Collaborative wanted to see “the following principles” honored in state plans. “Set the bar high for what students need to know and understand; Focus on closing the achievement gap in math and English; Ensure that parents and communities have access to meaningful data; Have a real plan for helping those schools that have been historically failing.”

“The “Educators for High Standards” campaign has offered about 12 fellowships to teachers willing to voice enthusiasm for ESSA, along with “partners” from the following groups, all known to push for high-stakes tests and the Common Core: The National Network of State Teachers of the Year, Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, PARCC, Teach Plus, Student Achievement Partners (Achieve the Core), National Board of Professional Teaching Standards, Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), Hope Street Group, The New Teacher Project (TNTP), Teach for America, Center for Teacher Quality, and Educators4Excellece.
The” Military Families for High Standards” campaign features the work of advocates for schools serving military families. Among the resources is an article from the Center for American Progress titled “How the Common Core Improves Education for Military-Connected Children.”

“The Honesty Gap” campaign asserts that states must take NAEP’s definition of “proficiency” as the standard for judging the “honesty” in state tests. State tests that claim students are “proficient “are dishonest unless the state standard is the same as for NAEP tests. The “honesty gaps” for each state are shown on an interactive map. The explicit message is that schools are often lying to parents about student achievement. The website should be called Arne Duncan’s BS. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=246201831
The “Understanding ESSA” campaign provides news about USDE activities (up-to-date) and links to state actions that comply with ESSA.

The whole website is devoted to belligerent judgments of states, districts, and schools while bolstering advocacy groups who will insist on “strict fidelity” to ESSA in state plans.

These birds of a feather intent on repeating the misery of two decades of top down reform.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Failure, NAEP, NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

William Mathis: What to Do with a Dead Horse? Beat It Even Harder.

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2019 //
21

William Mathis, a member of the Vermont Board of Education and managing director of the National Education Policy Center, reviews reactions to the dismal scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

The people who inflicted high-stakes testing insist that more and more and more testing is needed. More of the same policies that have already failed will surely work if we keep doing the same things for another generation or two.

The main perpetrator of the claim that we must “stay the (failing) course” is Arne Duncan, of course.

Mathis writes:

The latest round of flagellation of dead horse flesh has been provoked by the release of the National Assessment of Educational Progress scores. After 20 years of overall progress, many of the scores went down. While all groups improved over the long haul, the gaps between white and other racial groups varied over time but generally remained in place.[i] Education critics lament and proclaim, “It’s time to get tough! Let’s do some more of what didn’t work!” Meanwhile officials whisper measured words through steepled fingers saying they are “concerned,” that we must do more to ensure our students are well prepared to compete with China and “we have more work to do.” Still others claim that this exercise in numerology is helpful.

Put plainly, standardized tests have no meaningful relationship with economic development and they are poor definers of learning needs. Nevertheless, the NAEP is a valuable outside way of examining trends.

The scores dropped across the nation — which tells us one important thing. The causes are not found in local or state initiatives. Something bigger is at play. Since the scores themselves do not tell us why they are low, we have to look at broad contemporary events and circumstances. This means looking at the research and related social and historical events.

Such is the case with NAEP. The strongest predictor of standardized test scores is poverty.[ii] In this latest release, the biggest drops were among disadvantaged students. Sean Riordan at Stanford has compiled a data base of all school districts in the nation and found that test scores are most affected by this single construct.[iii]

He goes on to note that schools are highly segregated by class and by race. In fact, society is showing signs of resegregating.[iv] Resolving these gaps is our first threshold issue.  High needs children are concentrated in high poverty schools which are, on average, less effective than schools with lower poverty. In a vicious cycle, poor schools are provided lesser resources. Compounding the problem, the Census Bureau tells us the wealth gap has sharply increased across the nation. Many schools across the nation have not recovered from the 2008 fiscal crisis and the federal government has never provided the promised support for needy children.

Regardless, the schools were mandated to solve the test score problem. The trouble was that the policymakers got it backwards. Poverty prevents learning. It is the threshold issue. Without resorting to what we knew, the dead horse was beaten once more with the No Child Left Behind Act. We adopted the Common Core curriculum, punished schools, and fired principals and teachers whose misfortune was being assigned to a school with high concentrations of needy children. It was literally expected that a child from a broken home, hungry and with ADHD would be ready to sit down and learn quadratic equations.  Nevertheless, the test-based school accountability approach emerged and still remains the dominant school philosophy. While it is claimed that successful applications exist, the research has not been found that says poverty can be overcome by beating the dead horse. The irony is that the tests themselves show that a test based system is not a successful reform strategy.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Failure, NAEP, Testing

G.F.Brandenburg Invites You to Spot the “Miracles” in Florida, Michigan, D.C., and Mississippi

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2019 //
5

 

Guy Brandenburg offers a graph of 8th Grade scores on NAEP from 1992-2019 for four jurisdiction and invites you to find a miracle , if you can.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, NAEP, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Propaganda, Race to the Top

Steven Singer: Why NAEP Scores Do Not Matter

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2019 //
26

I am not sure that I agree with Steven Singer’s point here, that NAEP scores tell us nothing other than that students from affluent homes have higher test scores than students who live in poverty. 

His main point is undeniable. All standardized test scores are highly correlated with family income.

We could use income and poverty data to learn what the test scores tell us, without wasting billions on standardized tests and corrupting instruction.

But I think that NAEP does tell us something we need official confirmation for: the utter failure of Disruptive Corporate Reform.

The Disrupters have promised since No Child Left Behind was proposed in 2001 that they knew how to raise test scores and close achievement gaps: Test every child every year and hold schools accountable for rising or falling scores. That will do it, said George W. Bush, Margaret Spellings, Rod Paige and Sandy Kress. They rode the wave of the “Texas miracle,” which turned out to be non-existent. Texas in 2019 is stuck right in the middle of the distribution of states.

Then came Jeb Bush, with his fantastical claims of a “Florida miracle,” which are now repeated by Betsy DeVos. Look at the NAEP scores: Florida is right in the middle of the states. No miracle there.

Arne Duncan has been promoting Tennessee, which as one of the first Race to the Top states, which is also ensconced in the middle of the distribution.

Look for yourself.

Two states that were firmly under the control of Reform heroes, Louisiana and New Mexico, are at the tail end of the distribution.

What do the NAEP scores tell us?

Don’t look for miracles.

Don’t believe propaganda spun by snake-oil salesman.

Look to states and districts that are economically developed and that fund their schools adequately and fairly.

The scores in states may go up or down a few points, but the bottom line is that the basics matter most. That is, a state willing and able to support education and families able to support their children.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bush, Jeb, Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, Funding, Louisiana, NAEP, Propaganda, Race to the Top, Tennessee, Testing, Texas

G.F. Brandenburg Rebukes Betsy DeVos on NAEP

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2019 //
30

Former D.C. math teacher Guy Brandenburg attended the NAEP press conference in D.C. where Betsy DeVos explained what lessons the nation can lean from the NAEP results. 

DeVos thinks the rest of the nation should learn from D.C., which has the largest racial gaps of any urban district tested by NAEP; Or Florida, where test scores went down; or Mississippi, where scores rose even though it is at the very bottom of all stages tested by NAEP. When you are at the very bottom, it’s easier to “improve” your scores.

When Betsy DeVos is long forgotten, please do not forget that she held up Mississippi as a model for the nation!

Brandenburg wants the world to know that D.C. made its greatest gains before mayoral control.

I found that it is true that DC’s recent increases in scores on the NAEP for all students, and for black and Hispanic students, are higher than in other jurisdictions.

However, I also found that those increases were happening at a HIGHER rate BEFORE DC’s mayor was given total control of DC’s public schools; BEFORE the appointment of Michelle Rhee; and BEFORE the massive DC expansion of charter schools.

He has the data and graphs to prove it.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, District of Columbia, Education Reform, Lies, Michelle Rhee, NAEP

Peter Greene on DeVosian Nonsense

By dianeravitch
October 30, 2019 //
20

Peter Greene skewers Betsy DeVos’ unsubstantiated claims about the meaning of the disappointing NAEP scores.

Don’t believe her when she says that 2/3 of students are “below grade level” in reading. NAEP proficiency is not “grade level.” NAEP even posts that statement on its graphs. This is what NAEP says as a note attached to its graphs:

“The NAEP Proficient achievement level does not represent grade-level proficiency, but rather competency over challenging subject matter. NAEP Achievement levels are to be used on a trial basis and should be interpreted and used with caution.” The fact that Secretary DeVos and her staff ignored this warning raises the question of whether any of them actually read the NAEP report, or whether they simply skimmed it looking for numbers to make American schools look bad.

DeVos uses every opportunity to bash public schools, even with falsehoods. Especially with falsehoods.

Betsy knows plenty about falling NAEP scores. Under her powerful influence in Michigan, that state’s NAEP scores plummeted.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Michigan, NAEP

The NAEP Results: A Powerful Statement by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

By dianeravitch
October 30, 2019 //
38

Rosa DeLauro is one of the most significant members of Congress. She oversees Congressional appropriations for education. She is a strong supporter of public education and a critic of privatization of public funding.

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 30, 2019

CONTACT:

Will Serio: 202-225-3661

 

DeLauro Statement on 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress Results

 

WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03), Chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, released the following statement after the Department of Education released the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results.

 

“The 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress results for our nation’s fourth- and eighth-grade students are disappointing and show that we must work urgently to strengthen public education in America. That is why I am so outraged to see Education Secretary Betsy DeVos using these results to promote the Trump administration’s cruel, reckless plans for public education.”

 

“Secretary DeVos proposed cutting K-12 education programs by $4.8 billion in fiscal year 2020 while propping up a $5 billion annual tax scheme to fund private school vouchers. DeVos also wants to eliminate federal funding for afterschool programs, teacher professional development, and student support and enrichment programs. That is unconscionable. Our nation’s public schools are in dire need of robust investments—not Secretary DeVos’ cuts and privatization plans. Research from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that 29 states spent less per student in 2015 than they had before the Great Recession. That is why House Democrats passed a Labor-HHS-Education funding bill that increases investments in public education by $3.5 billion to help reverse this decade of disinvestment and austerity for our schools and communities.”

 

“Secretary DeVos also claims that additional funding for our public schools does not improve outcomes. That claim has no basis in reality. A 2018 review of research on education spending and student outcomes by a Northwestern University economist found statistically significant positive results for students in 12 out of 13 studies. Since then, similar studies in Texas, Wisconsin, California, and other states have also found that increases in school funding improve student outcomes.”

 

“Instead of exploiting these disappointing 2019 NAEP results to spread lies and promote her privatization agenda, Secretary DeVos should join House Democrats and families across our nation by supporting increased investments in our public education system.”

 

###

delauro.house.gov

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, NAEP, Privatization, Testing

Matt Barnum at Chalkbeat: Betsy DeVos Uses Disappointing NAEP Scores to Call for More Charters and Vouchers

By dianeravitch
October 30, 2019 //
12

In a thoughtful article, Matt Barnum writes in Chalkbeat that Betsy DeVos used the disappointing results of the NAEP 2019 national tests to call for her “Education Freedom” plan, which would further disinvest in public schools and divert funding from the federal government, states, and local school districts to charters and vouchers.

Barnum writes:

But the call for more school choice — which, alongside deregulation of education at the federal level, DeVos has rebranded as “education freedom” — in response to stagnant test scores is certain to spur debate.

Research has generally found that charter schools perform comparably to district schools on state exams, with those in cities performing better and online charters performing worse. There is some evidence linking the growth of charter schools in cities to rising test scores across the board.

But recent studies on three voucher programs that subsidize private school tuition have shown that they reduce test scores in math. (DeVos has previously blamed over-regulation for Louisiana’s results.) In D.C., voucher recipients did about the same as public school students test-score wise, according to a recent study.

He added:

A number of studies have found that tougher test-based accountability rules, including No Child Left Behind, raised NAEP scores in math. Another recent studyfound evidence that the introduction of the Common Core standards reduced NAEP achievement.

Two studies have also linked more resources for schools to higher NAEP scores — though DeVos suggested otherwise Wednesday.

“Over the past 30 years, per-pupil spending has skyrocketed,” she said. “A massive increase in spending to buy flatlined achievement.”

One study showed that school finance reforms that resulted in more money boosted scores, and another found that education cuts in the wake of the Great Recession led to lower scores.

One undeniable fact is that the two lowest-scoring cities in the nation on the NAEP–Detroit and Milwaukee–have extensive choice. Detroit has loads of charter schools, and Milwaukee has charter schools and vouchers. If choice is the answer, as DeVos claims, it certainly has not helped these two cities.

To someone who has a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Despite any evidence to the contrary, Betsy DeVos will push the same agenda that she has pushed for the past thirty years: school choice. It doesn’t raise test scores, it intensifies segregation, it defunds the community’s public schools, but DeVos doesn’t care. She wants public money to go to religious schools, corporate charter chains, for-profit schools, online schools, homeschooling. That’s her agenda, and nothing will persuade her otherwise.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, NAEP, Privatization, Testing, Vouchers
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