No Major Lessons from New National Test Scores

Another set of national exam results —theNational Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) —is upon us, and much will likely be made of them. But in the aggregate, what the new scores show is just that things haven’t changed much over the last couple of years, and only as captured by this particular test. Burrowing down and comparing states, subgroups of kids, and smaller jurisdiction s that have implemented different policies, spent more or less, and experienced numerous other things, might suggest some avenues for further exploration, but the only conclusion we can state with any confidence is that nothing happened—not Common Core, not school choice, not the Every Student Suc ceeds Act (ESSA)—that appears to have seismically altered NAEP outcomes.That may be just fine: Americans have increasingly and broadly rejected standardized tests scores as the end-all-and-be-all of education, culminating in the ESSA, which in late 2015 replaced the No Child Left Behind Act and its obsession with testing. And as we are increasingly learning, tests scores may havelittle connection to other outcomes like high school completion, and neither really addresses whether kids are learning desirable moral values, or creative thinking, or themyriad other big things parents want for their children.That important preface offered, what are the highlights, such as they are, in the latest NAEP?First, that overall scores for 4th and 8th graders —no high school kidsthis time around—were s...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs