Overlooked?

9 Replies to “Overlooked?”

1. What’s seriously and sadly overlooked, Andy, are the remarkable gains made over the past 15 years by kids of color!

   I doubt most readers would know, if they rely entirely on press accounts of NAEP results, that:

   1. African American and Hispanic 4th graders are performing 2 grade levels ahead of their peers in math in 2000,

   2. African American and Hispanic 8th graders are performing 2 grade levels ahead of their peers in math in 2000,

   3. African American and Hispanic 4th graders are performing 1 1/2 grade levels ahead of their peers in reading in 2000, and

   4. African American and Hispanic 8th graders are performing 1/2 grade level ahead of their peers in reading in 2002.

   It is important to close the achievement gap, and we are making some progress on that front. But, because white students are also improving (which is good!), most accounts of gap closing fail to give justice to these significant gains by minority children.

   Bottom line: children of all races are at historic highs on the NAEP. We can and should say we’re nowhere near where we should be, but all this moaning about not making progress is both false and unhelpfully dispiriting.

2. And God shined upon Sandy.
   And he found it good.
   For a more realistic analysis of NAEP go to Jay Greene’s blogue.

3. What? Phillip says my comment is not “realistic.” What in the world does that mean?

   I presented simple facts from the Nation’s Report Card. Phillip can either say these students didn’t make these gains or it wasn’t significant that they did. Of course, the facts don’t let him say either.

   So, he says it isn’t “realistic.” As my daughter says at moments like this….whatever.

4. Sandy,
   You would be a member of the 5% of middle and upper income white children in the District of Columbia schools who scored basic.
   I wrote that your comment was less realistic. In addition to the analysis of NAEP at JayGreene, go to http://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/ for a detailed analysis of the “success” of the reforms by Michelle Johnson. She implemented the reforms advocated by the professional education reform crowd and she doesn’t have much to show except that DCPS got better at a faster rate than anyone else.
   Yeah.
   And when you are at the bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up.

   Sandy,
   Do you present this fact?:
   That by the recent PISA test scores, Asian American and white American kids are at the top in reading.

   As Homer would say, “Doh!”

5. OK, I get it now, Phillip.

   When the system got few or no gains for poor kids, that was terrible but expected and, for some, explainable by non-school factors.

   Now that huge gains have made for those kids (with, as Jay’s blog shows, absolute levels of performance by kids of color in virtually all states way above those of kids in DC), that’s no big deal because “there’s nowhere to go but up.”

   Hmmm. Thanks for helping us out on that. I’m sure that policymakers, educators, and taxpayers who have an interest in improvement will benefit from those insights.

6. Data is messy.

   The DC test scores on NAEP, released on Tuesday this week:
   Fourth-grade public school students, reading
   1992 188
   2005 191
   2007 197
   2009 202
   2011 201

   Great results from the “reforms” of Michelle Johnson.

   And here’s a great comment on the professional education reform efforts on DCPS from efavorite (at the Washington Post)

   Henderson says: “A year later, I am confident that education reform in D.C. Public Schools continues to thrive.”

   Clever use of words. Keep in mind that “reforms” refers to actions taken, but says nothing about the success of those actions. Yes, “reform” is thriving, but student achievement, the point of reform, is not. The pace of improvement has slowed or halted from pre-reform days. As I said in earlier comments to the Post, the math increases are mainly less significant than previous recent math increases. For instance 4th grade math scores increased 3 percentage points (219 to 222) from ’09 to ’11. This is down from a five point increase between ’07 and ’09 (214 to 219) and is equal to or lower than increases in previous years (3 points between ’05 and ’07 and 4 points between ’03 and ’05. Check it out in the upper right hand column NAEP DC snapshot page: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/stt2011/2…

   Eighth grade math scores increased by the same number of percentage points (6) between ’09 – ’11 as they did between ’07-’09. http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/stt2011/2… This is nice but it doesn’t say anything about reform, because it’s no different than the rate of increase before reform, which had little effect at the school level until the start of the ‘08-09 school year when Rhee did her first round of principal firing and hiring. Meanwhile, 4th grade math increases are declining since reform and reading scores are not increasing at all – they are flat or declining.

   Eighth grade reading between ’09 and ’11 is completely flat at 242. http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/stt2011/2… There was a one point increase between ’07 and ’09 (from 241 to 242). Between ’05 and ’07, before reform came to DC, there was a three point increase (from 238 to 241). While reading scores have been creeping upward for years, reform has been no help at all.

   The situation is a bit worse in the 4th grade, where students have been exposed to “reform” since first grade. What officials are calling “flat” for the 4th grade reading scores is actually a one point decline, from 202 in ’09 to 201 in ’11. http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/stt2011/2…
   This is pitiful compared to the five point increase (193 to 202) between ’07 and ’09 and the six point increase (191-197) between’05 and ’07 – prior to reform.

   Even in math, where the news is better, DC has “…the nation’s highest proportion of 4th and 8th graders in the “below basic” category–and the lowest in proficient/advanced http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-schools-ins…

   http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dc-public-schools-accomplishments-and-goals/2011/11/04/gIQA1WGanM_allComments.html?ctab=all_&#comments

7. Thanks for the data on DC. I am not familiar with them but will study what you’ve cited.

   I was focusing on national data.

8. It is important to close the achievement gap,

9. 1. African American and Hispanic 4th graders are performing 2 grade levels ahead of their peers in math in 2000,

   2. African American and Hispanic 8th graders are performing 2 grade levels ahead of their peers in math in 2000,

   3. African American and Hispanic 4th graders are performing 1 1/2 grade levels ahead of their peers in reading in 2000, and

   4. African American and Hispanic 8th graders are performing 1/2 grade level ahead of their peers in reading in 2002.

   That great info ! Thanks