Bridging Differences: What Did the NAEP Scores Mean?

On Sept. 25, the National Assessment Governing Board released NAEP scores for 2007 in reading and math. The report was mixed, with scores up a bit in both subjects in fourth and eighth grades. As you can well imagine, the U.S. Department of Education trumpeted the gains and attributed them to No Child Left Behind, but the gains were really very modest. The report can be viewed here.

I read the reports, which I highly recommend, and this is what I found:

* Fourth grade reading scores were up by a modest 2 points from 2005 to 2007, from 219 to 221. Actually, scores for this grade on NAEP had been 219 in 2002. The biggest increase in reading scores occurred between 2000 and 2002, when the scores went up by six points. In other words, the gains since NCLB was enacted do not equal the gains recorded on NAEP in the years prior to NCLB.
* Eighth grade reading scores were up by only one point. The trend line for this grade in reading from 1998 to 2007 is a flat line. The score was 263 in 1998 and it is 263 in 2007.
* Fourth grade mathematics scores increased by two points, from 238 in 2005 to 240 in 2007. The trend line in this grade points steadily upward. The biggest gains occurred in the pre-NCLB period, when scores rose from 226 in 2000 to 235 in 2003.
* Eighth grade mathematics scores were up by two points, from 279 in 2005 to 281 in 2007. Again, the pre-NCLB gains were larger, when scores increased from 273 in 2000 to 278 in 2003.

After I read the NAEP reports, I wrote two articles. I referred to NAEP to debunk New York state's claims of historic eighth grade gains on its state tests in May and June 2007. On NAEP, the scores for eighth graders in New York state in both subjects were flat. The state assessment director wrote a letter saying that tests that sample students, like NAEP, are less accurate than those that test every single student. I suppose if the scores on NAEP had been good for New York state, the state Education Department would have been satisfied with its methodology.

Then on Oct. 3, I published an article in The New York Times arguing that NCLB was "fundamentally flawed" and should be radically overhauled. I pointed out in the opening paragraph that the test score gains before NCLB, as I showed above, were larger than those that have followed the implementation of NCLB. I also said that "the main goal of the law—that all children in the United States will be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014—is simply unattainable," and that this had never been accomplished in any district, state, or nation. My article prompted a response from Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings....

...I have been reading the debates in the press and on the blogs about what NAEP really says and what the scores really mean. I have been struck most forcefully by the fact that so many people who argue these questions have not read the NAEP reports, which are written in plain English, and have not seen the graphs, which are intelligible. Instead, they repeat what they read and what they heard. I would feel much better about the state of our democracy if everyone who opines made a point of reviewing the facts first before uttering an opinion about them. Commentators should be ashamed to recycle what they heard, instead of checking the source for themselves.

Full post: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2007/10/what_did_the_naep_scores_mean.html