04/29/2016
NAEP scores raise questions about student achievement gap
By Heather Kays / April 28, 2016 / News / No Comments
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Neal McCluskey
Neal McCluskey
Neal McCluskey of the Cato Institute says that newly released NAEP scores indicate the poorest and most marginalized students are suffering from failing schools.
The deluge of stories debating exactly how bad the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress scores are will continue to flood news feeds and education sites for weeks to come, but one thing is clear – the achievement gap is widening, even if it’s only a little.
The assessment, also known as the Nation’s Report Card or NAEP, released data Wednesday showing about one-third of high school seniors tested are prepared for college-level coursework in math and reading. The data also shows that while there was marginal improvement in reading for the highest-performing students, students with the lowest scores were performing worse than ever.
The results are a nationally representative sample based on test scores from thousands of high school seniors at 740 schools, including private institutions. The NAEP tests are administered every two years.
The 2015 NAEP scores released this week indicate 37 percent of students are prepared for college-level math and reading courses, down 2 percent in math and 1 percent in reading since 2013.
Only 25 percent of students scored proficient or higher in math. Thirty seven percent of students scored proficient or higher in reading, a decrease of 1 percentage point in both subjects.
Notably, the number of students to score below the basic level in math increased from 35 percent to 38 percent and in reading from 25 percent to 28 percent.
The scores for the poorest performing students in the country, those in the bottom 10th percentile, fell by 4 points in math and 6 points in reading compared with 2013.
Some school-choice advocates say the math and reading scores need to serve as a wakeup call.
“While the overall scores are disheartening, perhaps the bigger disappointment is that it is the people public schooling and federal policy are most supposed to help – low-income and other marginalized groups – that seemed to fare the worst,” said Neal McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute. “The lowest achieving percentiles of students, for instance, saw bigger drops than the upper in math, and in reading the lower dropped while the upper percentiles actually rose. Breaking students down by parental education – a good proxy for family income – showed kids from the most-educated families generally faring better than the least, though no group did very well.”
“What this suggests, in concert with many decades of NAEP testing, is that neither spending more nor changing the locus of power to Washington has had much effect on the ultimate outcome of K-12 education,” McCluskey added. “Perhaps we need to look elsewhere for policy solutions than more top-down control, and look more at non-policy variables like culture and attitudes toward education.”
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Jonathan Butcher, education director at the Goldwater Institute, says even minor changes in NAEP scores need careful consideration.
“The score gap between 12th graders at the top and bottom of the distribution is a problem because these students are getting ready for life after high school — decisions about college and the workforce are right in front of them that are going to determine the trajectory of their lives,” said Butcher. “If those who are struggling the most are having even more trouble than before, this comes at a terrible time in their lives.”
Butcher acknowledged how easy it is to overlook a few percentage points as insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but advised against doing so.
“These marginal changes of only a few points at a time may not seem like much to researchers and lawmakers, but what about parents? If scores are trending downward, even slightly, no family should wait until it affects their child,” said Butcher.
Butcher says state-based solutions such as education savings accounts and giving charter schools more access to vacant public school buildings would be a step in the right direction. The idea, Butcher says, is to “let parents act now without having to wait on Washington to try to turn a giant ship around.”
Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, told Watchdog.org there is no way to determine exactly why the NAEP scores rise and fall the way they do.
“The decline in scores for the lowest performing students is definitely cause for concern,” said Petrilli. “Conversely, the positive blip at the top end of the performance spectrum is worth celebrating. What’s not at all clear is what’s driving these trends – or whether they can even be considered ‘trends’ or just gyrations. Is the increasing graduation rate causing scores to decline? Are certain reforms not working? Was it the recession? Unfortunately, with NAEP, all you can do is speculate.”
