NAEP Nonsense: Don't Believe the Hype
Posted: 11/10/2013 3:34 pm
The latest NAEP reports on reading and math have been heralded as evidence for the success of the "reforms" that involve test prep, testing, punishing teachers if scores don't go up, rewarding them if they do, closing schools, and other versions of the carrot and stick method of school reform.
Here is my one-word comment: Balderdash!
There are just as many states using the same misguided strategies who made few or no gains as there were reformy states making big gains.
If test-and-punish strategies work, why don't they work everywhere?
D.C., Tennessee, and Indiana raised test scores, but the gains in other reformy states were small or negligible.
Below the national average were hard-driving reformy. States including Colorado, Delaware, Louisiana, Rhode Island, Ohio, Connecticut, and. North Carolina.
That highly reformy state Wisconsin made no gains at all.
Michigan, New Jersey, and Massachusetts actually lost ground.
It is impossible to conclude, as some leaders have, that D.C., Tennessee, and Indiana have the right formula because so many states with exactly the same formula made no progress at all. Some of the states that were unlucky enough to win Race to the Top mandates made