The 16th Bracey Report on the Condition of Public Education

Abstract

NEWT GINGRICH has suggested that Democrats run their election campaigns on a simple slogan: Had enough? (1) Bush Administration shenanigans and Congressional political ploys so brazen as to be unbelievable--for instance, tying a rise in minimum wage that would benefit millions to a reduction in estate tax that would benefit nation's 7,500 wealthiest families--had me nodding in agreement. Herewith, year in review. DESPERATELY SEEKING STRAWS TO GRASP This law is helping us learn about what works in our schools. And clearly, high and accountability are working. Over last five years, our 9-year-olds have made more progress in reading than in previous 28 combined. So said Margaret Spellings at Child Left Behind Summit in April 2006, referring to gains on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). (2) In statistical circles, what secretary is doing is called picking. And in this instance, careless and self-serving cherry picking, too. Those last five years Spellings spoke of span 1999 to 2004. For two of those years Bill Clinton was President, and it is possible that all that gain--all 7 points--occurred on his watch. In two of those five years, NCLB did not exist. In 2001-02, NCLB (signed into law in January 2002) would have been in existence only three months before a NAEP assessment--had there been one. And given confusion that reigned from 2002 to 2004 and hostility between states and U.S. Department of Education, it is not likely that much gain occurred then. (Remember that in 2002, then-Secretary Rod Paige accused some states of trying to ratchet down their standards and thus of being enemies of equal justice and equal opportunity and ... apologists for failure. (3) It's surprising he didn't go on to call them terrorist organizations.) Spellings' statement is true only if you start in NAEP's first trend year, 1971. Begin in year of NAEP's previous trend high point, 1980, and gain would be only 4 points. Then, too, there was no gain from 1999 to 2004 for 13-year-olds and a decline of 3 points for 17-year-olds. And why didn't she mention math trends, since 9-year-olds showed a 9-point gain and 13-year-olds a 5-point gain? Seventeen-year-olds, though, showed a 1-point decline. Spellings also said, Scores are at all-time highs for African American and Hispanic students. (4) Well, if she meant reading scores for 9-year-olds, that was true. But it wasn't true for 17-year-old blacks or 13- and 17-year-old Hispanics (13-year-old blacks were at an all-time high by a single point). The statement would have been true, too, in mathematics, except for black and Hispanic 17-year-olds. The NAEP assessment of 2005, though, proved less upbeat. The regular NAEP assessments, ones billed as the nation's report card, change items over time in conjunction with curricular shifts; NAEP that yields trends administers same items at each assessment. In assessment for 2005, fourth-grade reading reached same level as it had at onset of NCLB in 2002, and eighth-grade reading declined 2 points. In math, scores rose 3 points for fourth-graders from 2003 and 1 point for eighth-graders. In reading, proportion of students at or above proficient level was static for fourth-graders at 31% and fell for eighth-graders from 33% to 31%. In mathematics, proportion of fourth-graders at or above proficient rose from 32% to 36%, while for eighth-graders it rose from 29% to 30%. While the Administration scrambled to put best face on numbers and to defend law that some complain forces a test-driven curriculum on classroom, Lois Romano reported in Washington Post, Ross Wiener of Education Trust had a more common reaction: No one can be satisfied with these results. There's been a discernible slowdown in progress since '03, at a time when we desperately need to accelerate gains. …