First Look at Latest National Test Scores: Is It Cultural?

Neal McCluskeyThe latest National Assessment of Educational Progress —the “Nation’s Report Card”—scoresare out, and they aren ’t encouraging. But how discouraged should we be?The main NAEP tracks national, state, and selected local scores back to the early 1990s, though there have been some changes that have affected comparability among years, and not all states have participated every year. As you can see below, this year saw average scores drop in 4th and 8th grade reading, and 8th grade math, since 2017, but rise a tad in 4th grade math. Over the years, math has seen much more encouraging growth than reading.How about subgroups? Here, too, thelatestscores have mainly dipped with the exception of 4th grade math, including for African-American, low-income, and Catholic school kids.How worried should we be, and what ’s to blame? The latter question is difficult to answer from broad data, and I haven’t had the chance to delve into more detail yet. But it is possible that students are still recovering from the Great Recession, schools are still recovering, the post No Child Left Behind Act era has de-emphasiz ed standardized testing, the Common Core has set us back, and more.My guess is that the de-emphasis on standardized testing is a big factor, and that may be just fine: The United States has never had a culture geared toward standardized testing or even high academic achievement relative to manyother nations, and we have done pretty well by embracing creativ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs