On the latest D.C. NAEP Miracle
Today the results from the 2013 NAEP came out, and ‘reformers’ everywhere are celebrating the amazing gains by states with an aggressive reform agenda. 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, as shown on this graph that was shared often on Twitter.
This shows that the places with the greatest gains were D.C., Tennessee, and Indiana, three places that have embraced the corporate reform strategy of testing, closing down schools, and opening charters. If this was the only data we had access to, it would seem to prove that “the