Today, the Department of Education released it’s mammoth report card on the nation’s schools: the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NEAP. From the Washington Post: “Administered to a representative sample of students nationwide, the NAEP tests are widely regarded as the most objective and independent assessment of educational progress. While the congressionally mandated test has been in existence since 1969, this is the first year it has been made compulsory for all 50 states under the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind educational reform measures.”
Reading skills held steady. As for math, the good news is that our students have had solid improvements since 2000, particularly in basic skills. The bad news is that less than a third of the 4th and 8th grade students tested were “proficient” at math.
If you are in a position to hire people who need math skills, this should scare the socks off you.
Needless to say, some states are touting their own scores from this massive document. Some are calling attention to how poor the scores are. Critics call the test flawed inasmuch as students are meeting state criteria but not Federal criteria. And still others point to the fact that the tests were administered to a “representative sample,” not to every student.
The most sensible statement regarding these scores came from middle school teacher and standards writer Betsy Wiens: “Obviously we’re not there yet, but change is not going to be quick. When you change a system, it just takes time.” She is of course correct. It took our schools decades to get where they are today, and it will take years to meaningfully improve them. There is no magic bullet: neither zero-tolerance policies nor school uniforms nor standardized tests nor vouchers nor charter schools nor willy-nilly increases in school expenditures will make kids proficient in reading and math.
We must commit to the idea that schools could be better. We must commit to the idea that getting better means making changes that not everyone will like and that may not be convenient for everyone. We need to commit to abandoning things that do not work, things that do not educate children. We must commit to the fact that learning is more than showing up, that graduation rates have nothing to do with literacy rates. We must commit to the idea that “reform” is more than handing down a set of rules and objectives and then walking away, smug in the trust that such words on paper will magically improve our schools.
We must begin with the fundamental idea that from this day forward, the fundamental purpose of schools, from Grade School to Grad School, will be to educate our children.
Our future depends on it.
Amen to that! I lost my .edu job this past July thanks to a 10% state funding cut, and there’s talk of another huge round of across-the-.edu, from grade school to 4-year uni, cuts coming. This is inconceivable. So in 15 years, when my son is too uneducated to hold a real job because they cut his grade school funding, I’m supposed to watch him panhandle / rob / state-assistance-leech his way through life? Truly mind-boggling.