Education's "honesty gap" is growing, writes Dale Chu. States are lowering proficiency thresholds on tests. Schools are inflating grades. NAEP scores are "disastrous," but educators keep telling parents their children are doing OK.
It's no wonder trust in public education is at an all-time low.
According to a new report from the Collaborative for Student Success, Michigan reports that 65 percent of eighth-graders are proficient in reading; NAEP says 22 percent are proficient. Iowa considers nearly three-fourths of eighth-graders are proficient in math. "Only a fifth met NAEP’s benchmark," notes Chu.
In Virginia, which "has seen some of the nation’s biggest drops in reading and math scores," he writes, the proficiency gap ranges from 41 to 51 percentage points. However, the state is trying to close the gap. Virginia is "streamlining and reforming its accountability system while investing in tutoring, literacy, and student attendance as part of a comprehensive approach to beating back learning loss," writes Chu.
Other states should get honest too, but it's painful. "Uncle Sam has erected a permission structure that defines deviancy down and incentivizes states and districts to meet students where they are, rather than pushing them to where they need to be," he writes. "In states, a bipartisan backlash toward standardized testing has made matters worse."
He hopes Linda McMahon, who's about to be confirmed as Education secretary, will lead the fight. Her "top lieutenants, Penny Schwinn and Kirsten Baesler, are smart and serious about ensuring assessments provide an accurate picture of student achievement," writes Chu. But the push to block-grant funds, give states control over education policy and limit federal data collection could mean states will be free to keep on pretending that everything's OK.
There's a "new, bad, bipartisan consensus" that's led to falling test scores, charges Matt Yglesias on Slow Boring. "America stopped caring how poor kids do in school."
It started with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), passed in 2015 during the Obama administration, he writes. A "bipartisan education reform consensus" had led to rising test scores. But the "political energy around improving schools was evaporating."
ESSA weakened federal accountability requirements. "The left retreated into coalition solidarity with teachers unions, and the right refocused on vouchers and privatization," writes Yglesias. "And it turns out that giving up and not trying doesn’t work very well."
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