Um, Kentucky — and other reactions to the national drop in NAEP scores - The Washington Post

Um, Kentucky — and other reactions to the national drop in NAEP scores - The Washington Post:

Um, Kentucky — and other reactions to the national drop in NAEP scores

The 2015 numbers for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are out, and scores are down. In fact, as my Post colleague Emma Brown reports, math scores for fourth-graders and eighth-graders across the United States dropped this year, for the first time since the federal government began administering the exams in 1990. Eighth-grade scores dropped while fourth-grade performance was stagnant compared with 2013, the last time the test was administered.

[U.S. performance slips on national test]

[What the national decline in NAEP test scores really means]

Here’s reaction to the NAEP scores from various corners of the education world:

Diane Ravitch, president of the Network for Public Education

The decline in NAEP scores is a wake-up call to the nation. It is a clear indication that No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have failed to improve our children’s education. Educators have warned for years that the strategy of test-and-punish was a grave error. President George W. Bush launched these so-called reforms, and President Obama built on Bush’s flawed foundation by using test scores to fire teachers and principals and close thousands of public schools. It is past time to abandon the failed Bush-Obama “reforms.”

Neal McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the libertarian Cato Institute

This morning the latest scores from the 4th and 8th grade National Assessment of Educational Progress – the so-called Nation’s Report Card – came out, and the story isn’t very good, at least upon first examination. Average scores in 4th and 8th grade math, and in 8th grade reading, were down from 2013, and essentially 

Um, Kentucky — and other reactions to the national drop in NAEP scores - The Washington Post: