Fw: please check this mathews story

["GERALD BRACEY" <gbracey1@verizon.net>]

FYI,

When Jay Mathews asked me to look at the national testing story, this is the 
response I sent.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "GERALD BRACEY" <gbracey1@verizon.net>
To: "Jay Mathews" <mathewsj@washpost.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 11:31 AM
Subject: Re: please check this mathews story


> I find no errors, but I do think the whole piece is totally irresponsible. 
> The NAEP standards have been rejected by the GAO, CRESST, NAS and NAE.  For 
> you to give Checker and Diane and so many on the Right credibility above 
> them is to destroy your own credibility.  You say Checker put out a report 
> "by several experts."  Who the fuck do you think serve on the NAS and NAE? 
> You should print this piece out on toilet paper and place it in the 
> appropriate receptacle.
>
> Mark Musick's statement on state standards is pure horseshit and you 
> should know that because you know how the SOL cut scores were established. 
> Mark has nothing external to the NAEP cut scores to say that kids need to 
> know this to do well.  In fact, that's one of the things that everyone 
> criticizes about the NAEP achievement levels: Kids get items right that 
> the standards say they shouldn't and they get items wrong that the 
> standards say they should get right.
>
> Do a piece on how awful the NAEP standards are.  That would be credible, 
> useful journalism.
>
> Jerry
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jay Mathews" <mathewsj@washpost.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 7:08 PM
> Subject: please check this mathews story
>
>
> > Hi. this is my rough draft. Please let me know if you see any errors.
> > thanks. ---jay
> >
> >
> >    As a new school year begins, Maryland, Virginia and many other states
> > report rising percentages of students reaching proficiency in reading and
> > math. Yet the most respected national measure of school achievement
> > indicates few of those states are doing as well as they say.
> >      Maryland, for instance, says 74 percent of its fourth graders are
> > proficient in reading. But the National Assessment of Educational 
> > Progress
> > (NAEP), the federal test known as the “nation’s report card,” says only 
> > 32
> > percent of Maryland fourth graders are proficient. In Virginia, the state
> > says 85 percent of its fourth graders have reached that level, but the
> > federal test says only 37 percent.
> >      This is one of the discomforting realities of No Child Left Behind
> > law, as it completes its fifth year. States have great leeway over how 
> > they
> > measure their students’ progress under the law, and the differences have
> > become so unsettling to many educators that they are calling for national
> > measurements that all states would have to use.
> >      Experts who have advised presidents have until now thought it
> > politically impossible to overrule the states’ insistence on control of
> > what is taught and how it is measured. But the approaching presidential
> > campaign and the glaring gaps between different assessments have raised
> > hope that the issue might gain electoral weight.
> >      “The more discontented the public is with confusing and dumbed down
> > standards, the more politically feasible it will be to create national
> > standards of achievement,” said Diane Ravitch, a research professor at 
> > New
> > York University and a former assistant U.S. secretary of education for
> > research and improvement.
> >       Several recent reports have called for new ways for the federal
> > government influence schools nationally, as Congress faces the required
> > reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law next year. The idea of
> > national tests for all students—rather than just the sampling done by
> > NAEP—has gained ground, several politically connected education experts
> > say.
> >       The Washington-based Thomas Fordham Foundation released a report
> > last week by several experts, including former and current advisors to 
> > both
> > Republican and Democratic administrations, that outline four ways to
> > achieve a national test.
> >      The first would be to have the federal government order the change,
> > which the report said was sure to raise state standards  but unlikely to 
> > be
> > approved by Congress. The second would be a voluntary system funded by 
> > the
> > federal government. The report said that would probably raise standards 
> > and
> > might be passed. The third approach was a cooperative effort by the 
> > states
> > to share test items, less likely to raise standards but politically
> > possible. The fourth was giving up on raising standards but making sure
> > state standards and test results could be easily compared to each other,
> > and to NAEP (pronounced “nape”).
> >     Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Fordham Foundation and one of
> > the architects of the NAEP standards in TK year, said creating a national
> > test would be difficult, “but I think it’s a managable hurdle, especially
> > with presidential leadership. . . . There’s an assumption around that
> > national standards are political suicide even if they make educational
> > sense. We need to bust through that.”
> >      Several experts said the way to proceed would be to limit national
> > tests to certain subjects. Andrew Rotherham, a member of the Virginia 
> > state
> > school board and a former Clinton administration education advisor, said 
> > in
> > the Fordham report that national testing should be limited to math and
> > reading. Extending national testing to a broader range of subjects “would
> > have a stifling effect,” he said.
> >      Mark D. Musick, a former president of the Southern Regional 
> > Education
> > Board who also helped draft the NAEP standards, said in an interview he
> > thought the best way to introduce national tests was in a few high school
> > subjects, such as first and second year algebra.
> >      He said the difference between the NAEP and state proficiency
> > definitions is that NAEP was designed to show “what students needed to 
> > know
> > to do well,” while the state definitions are based on what teachers say
> > “students know who do well in their classrooms.” The latter standard may 
> > be
> > high in suburban Chicago and low in south central Los Angeles, but what
> > students should know to be proficient in algebra I is clear to most
> > educators, and a national test would help impose that standard, he said.
> >      “Lots of money is wasted creating 50 different tests, when the
> > subject matter—especially in math and science—is the same across the 
> > nation
> > and across the world,” Ravitch said.
> >      Some critics have placed the blame for states softening their
> > proficiency definitions on the No Child Left Behind law, which gives them
> > the latitude to do so. But Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brookings
> > Institution, noted that the states were reporting high rates of 
> > proficiency
> > long before the law was passed.
> >     Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the
> > University of California, Berkeley, reported a study showing states
> > regularly inflating achievement growth in one three year period. In 12
> > states studied, the percent of fourth graders proficient in reading 
> > climbed
> > by almost 2 percentage points a year, on average, but the NAEP data 
> > showed
> > a decline in the percentage proficient in the same period.
> >       The study cited by Fuller, and done by Policy Analysis for
> > California Education, shows only three states, Massachusetts, Missouri 
> > and
> > South Carolina, with proficiency assessments that come close to the NAEP
> > standard. A similar rating of states, done by the journal Education Next,
> > showed D.C. schools standards also resembling the federal standard.
> >      Several groups have been critical of the NAEP standard as
> > unrealistically high, with the validity of its proficiency rates not
> > subjected to the usual technical examination.  Gerald W. Bracey, an
> > educational psychologist who writes frequently on testing, noted that the
> > 1996 NAEP tests said only 30 percent of fourth graders were proficient or
> > above, but that same year an international study ranked American fourth
> > graders third in the world in science among 26 nations.
> >      Shaking their heads as they watch policy makers argue about national
> > vs. state tests are educators who want to move schools away from
> > standardized testing. Deborah Meier gained fame for starting schools in
> > inner city Manhattan that rated students by school work and conversations
> > with experts, not standardized tests. Instead of a national test, Meier
> > said, the country should adopt “a combination of in-depth local
> > instruments, independent review of schools and student work,” and 
> > sampling
> > tests, like NAEP in its current form.
> >     In the many states whose proficiency on the national test seems low,
> > education officials say they would do better if a national test became
> > required and they had the time to prepare their students for it. “Our
> > content standards are not the same ones NAEP uses,” said Ronald A. 
> > Peiffer,
> > deputy state superintendent in the Maryland state education department.
> > “That does not make them higher or lower in difficulty. . . . Certainly,
> > some of the NAEP standards are found in Maryland standards, but the gaps
> > will generate differences in performance. If NAEP were the national test 
> > to
> > which all states taught and tested, then there would be no gaps, and I
> > would expect Maryland students to do much better on NAEP.”