The NPE Grade Card Gives a Real-World View of State School Policies

The NPE Grade Card Gives a Real-World View of State School Policies:

The NPE Grade Card Gives a Real-World View of State School Policies

The Network for Public Education (NPE) unveiled its evaluation of how well the states and the District of Columbia support public schools. Education scholar Diane Ravitch introduced Valuing Public Education: a 50 State Report Card. It identified 29 measurable factors that guided the ratings of six criteria for improving schools.

My state of Oklahoma was tied for 9th from the nation's bottom, earning a D. That is no surprise because the state has a long history of getting high grades on objective report cards, such as Education Week's Quality Counts, for academic standards and early education policies, and pretty good grades for equity and financing processes, but deplorable grades for actual funding and success in overcoming the legacies of poverty. According to one compilation of the reliable NAEP scores, Oklahoma ranks 41th in the nation in student performance. After slashing appropriations by more than 25%, our funding has dropped to 49th in the nation.

The NPE grade card is very different than reports issued by ideology-driven reformers such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst. It was compiled with the assistance of Francesca Lopez and her University of Arizona research team. Valuing Public Education drew upon objective social science, such National Research Council's review of education literature and other reputable, contemporaneous sources. In other words, the NPE's evaluation is based on scholarly research - not the sound bites pushed by public relations departments in corporate-funded, "astroturf" think tanks. It evaluated The NPE Grade Card Gives a Real-World View of State School Policies: