Dear Iowans,
This is sad news, but it shouldn’t come as any great surprise: Iowa’s scores have been flat for nearly two decades. In 1992, you trailed only four states in fourth-grade reading. You now trail 25, including Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming.
It might be tempting to blame your declining scores on changing demographics, and that’s fair to some extent, but you haven’t had the same influx of minority students that your neighbor Minnesota has, for example, even though their scores have risen much faster than yours.
It’s hard to fault your politics or economics, either. Iowa’s a relatively moderate state politically and has been led recently by long-term governors. It has a powerful teachers union, but so do most Northern states. Its agricultural economy has helped it weather the bad times better than most. Iowa’s unemployment rate is high historically
QUICK Hits
What do you remember about the teacher who challenged students to “Stand and Deliver?” (LA Times)
What will happen to textbooks—or the Kindle, for that matter—now that the iPad is here?(ReadWriteWeb)
What will the student loan reforms do to the rising costs of college? Not enough. (The Economist—and while you’re there, take a look at their other Education Reform Week blog posts)
What’s at stake if the US doesn’t increase college completion rates? (Huffington Post)