Caught NAEPin’?

5 Replies to “Caught NAEPin’?”

1. Richard uses so many superlatives that he reaches an orgasmic frenzy.

   Anyway,
   if you look at 8th grade reading, free lunch eligible and non, you see this for DC: Eligible
   2007 234 (average scale score)
   2009 237
   2011 235
   2013 241

   Non Eligible
   2007 253
   2009 256
   2011 259
   2013 271

   IN DCPS, at 8th grade reading, the non poor pulled the scores upward more than the non poor.

2. 8th grade reading
   Parent did not finish high school
   2007 237
   2009 249
   2011 235
   2013 236

   Graduated College
   2007 246
   2009 248
   2011 249
   2013 259

3. Anybody who’s describing NAEP scores as “mostly flat” is just confused about NAEP scores. Scores have been going up for decades, they’ve just been obscured by demographic shifts.

   Note also that falsely characterizing NAEP scores as flat seems to be at least as popular among reformers as it is among their critics, e.g.:

   http://www.paul-bruno.com/2013/10/nobody-likes-good-news-about-education/

4. Gary Rubenstein is a Teach For America alum who is still teaching.
   He has looked at the NAEP results and made some comparisons and observations.
   http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/11/07/on…

   In 2011, the average national score for the four main NAEP tests (4th grade reading, 4th grade math, 8th grade reading, and 8th grade math) was about a 250, with the total of the four scores being 1006. For 2013 the sum of these four scores, nationally, increased by 5 points to 1011. But some states increased by more than 5 points
   …
   Though for the nation, the average sum of the four scores in 2013 was 1011, I noticed that the combined four scores for D.C., even with their 22 point gain, was just a 947 which was 64 points below the national average. Curious to see where that put them in comparison to other states, I made this chart.
   As can be seen, this puts D.C. in last place, way behind the second-to-last Mississippi.
   …
   Again, D.C. is way behind, their students eligible for free lunch having a combined total of 913, which is 49 points below the national average for students eligible for free lunch. Tennessee has fared better, but still below the national average.

   Finally, I looked at how the infamous D.C. ‘achievement gap’ was doing comparing test scores of students eligible for free lunch with students who were not eligible. Again, D.C. finished last by a wide margin with a 157 point gap.
   There are many other things to analyze, and I’m looking forward to reading how others analyze the data. For example, it is curious that Louisiana had ‘gains’ that were smaller than the national average despite that state having, certainly, the most aggressive reforms occurring. For ‘reformers’ who are so obsessed with test scores and test score gains, this is certainly something that shouldn’t be ignored. Also, Washington and Hawaii were pretty high up on the ‘growth’ numbers even though Washington does not have charter schools and Hawaii has been very slow to adopt Race To The Top reforms so their ‘gains’ can’t be attributed to those.

5. Let’s see, *DCPS 4th grade math scores rose 6 points (from 205 to 211) between 2003 and 2005, and 8th grade math increased 8 points (from 235 to 243) between 2000 and 2003. 4th grade reading rose 8 points between 2005 and 2007 (from 191 to 197) and 8th grade reading went up 6 point between 2007 and 2009 ( from 248 to 254).

   *Source: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/states/ (then click on “District of Columbia”)

   Note that this all happened in different times spans all before “reform” came to town. So what were the causes? Couldn’t have been reform. If the teachers were all so crappy then, how did they pull off such big increases –equal to or larger than this year’s gains?

   Answer: No one knows and apparently no one in power cares to know. It would interfere with whatever their story line is and whoever is promulgating it.