The Wrong “Scientific” for Education
The release of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2019 scores in math and reading, announced as an “emergency” and “devastating,” has thrown gasoline on the rhetorical fire that has already been sweeping across media—a call for “scientific” research to save public education in the U.S.:
- Schools Should Follow the ‘Science of Reading,’ Say National Education Groups
- Scientific evidence on how to teach writing is slim
- We Must Raise the Bar for Evidence in Education
While the media and the public seem historically and currently convinced by the rhetoric of “scientific,” there is a significant irony to the lack of scientific evidence backing claims about the causes of NAEP scores; for example, some have rushed to argue that intensive phonics instruction and grade retention legislation have caused Mississippi’s NAEP reading gains while many have used 2019 NAEP scores to declare the entire accountability era a failure.
Yet, none of these claims have the necessary scientific evidence to make any of these arguments. There simply has not been the time or the efforts to construct scientific studies (experimental or quasi-experimental) to identify causal factors in NAEP score changes.
Another problem with the rhetoric of “scientific” is that coinciding with that CONTINUE READING: The Wrong “Scientific” for Education | radical eyes for equity
