Does Louisiana Really Lead The Nation In 8th Grade Math Gains?
The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores for the 2019 tests were released on October 30th. Unlike state tests for which the cutoff scores can be manipulated for political purposes, the NAEP does seem to be somewhat unbiased. So the NAEP, sometimes called ‘The Nation’s Report Card’ does offer an interesting amount of data that I believe is worthy of analysis.
Often the NAEP results are, intentionally or unintentionally, interpreted to see if it is possible to find some kind of correlation between the education policies a state has enacted and the corresponding NAEP results. In Obama’s 2014 State Of The Union address, he mentioned that D.C. and Tennessee were improving — as evidenced surely by their NAEP gains from 2011 to 2013 — to show that his Race To The Top recommendations, which were followed closely by those two regions, were working.
So when the 2019 results came out the other day, things looked bad for the reformers. From 2017 to 2019, the average scale score for 4th grade reading was down 1 point, 8th grade reading was down 3 points, 4th grade math was up 1 point, and 8th grade math was down 1 point. Though it is not clear to the public whether or not one ‘point’ is a lot or a CONTINUE READING: Does Louisiana Really Lead The Nation In 8th Grade Math Gains? | Gary Rubinstein's Blog