« International fight over IPR | Main | Patently Silly »
July 21, 2005
Good news in education -- and not so good
Earlier this month, the National Assessment of Educational Progress released its 2004 National Report Card. The report had some good news: Nine-year-olds scored higher in reading and mathematics on average in 2004 than in any previous assessment year. Thirteen-year-olds scored higher in mathematics on average in 2004 than in any previous assessment year. Scores for seventeen-year-olds, however, were about the same in reading in 2004 as in 1971. And the White-Black score gap was smaller in 2004 than in the first assessment year for all three ages, in both subjects.
The immediate reaction to the report was tinged in some controversy of interpretation as to the reason for the improvement. As the Christian Science Monitor reported in "US Report Card: Young readers make big gains"
The results come as President Bush faces a backlash from states and schools across the nation over the testing requirements of his signature No Child Left Behind law, which was signed in law in 2002 but doesn't fully take effect until this fall. Administration officials and congressional supporters say these results show that, despite the furor, the effort is paying off for kids.
"Today's Report Card is proof that No Child Left Behind is working - it is helping to raise the achievement of young students of every race and from every type of family background," US Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said in a statement.
But the new results, from tests taken in 2004, largely reflect conditions that predate No Child Left Behind.
Event the indicators themselves are subject to controversy. The NCES website notes:
The results presented here are meant to describe some aspects of the condition and progress of education. They are best viewed as starting points for further examination, not as final statements on the quality or effectiveness of America's educational system.
While the report is generally good news, to keep things in perspective, Bob Herbert's New York Times column today
"Education's Collateral Damage" takes the long view:
consider the following from the book "Dropouts in America: Confronting the Graduation Rate Crisis," a collection of essays edited by Gary Orfield, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education:
"Nationally, only about two-thirds of all students - and only half of all blacks, Latinos and Native Americans - who enter ninth grade graduate with regular diplomas four years later."
In much of the nation, especially in urban and rural areas, the picture is even more dismal. In New York City, just 18 percent of all students graduate with a Regents diploma, which is the diploma generally required for admission to a four-year college. Only 9.4 percent of African-American students get a Regents diploma.
Over all, the United States has one of the highest high school dropout rates in the industrialized world, which can't be comforting news in the ferociously competitive environment of an increasingly globalized economy.
Clearly we have a long way to go. Good test scores are a step in the right direction - but only a step.
Posted by Ken Jarboe at July 21, 2005 2:29 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.athenaalliance.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/237