The yearly “Nation’s Report Card,” aka the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), came out today with news that supports both proponents and critics of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. 700,000 students in grades 4 and 8 took NAEP reading and math exams last winter, and the results provide a look at both nationwide trends and state-to-state differences.
The good news? Math scores are up, especially for fourth-grade students. Fourth-grade reading scores are also up. President Bush says the results confirm NCLB is working. He would. I remain a skeptic.
The bad news? As TIME reports, “average math scores for all students have been rising more slowly over the past two years than they did between 2000 and 2003—before NCLB went into full effect.” In addition, eighth-grade reading scores have declined since NCLB took effect. The achievement gap between white students and those of other racial groups remains as well.
There are also great differences in achievement from state to state. The worst? Washington, DC. (counted among the states for NAEP purposes). The best? Massachusetts.
Even when a state improved, however, that isn’t necessarily because of NCLB, as David Hoff of Education Week points out. New Jersey showed statistically significant increases in almost all scores, he says, and asks “Are NCLB’s accountability pressures the reason for those gains? Or was the biggest factor the state’s investments in preschool and facilities, all of it done under a state court order? You could probably look at every state and ask such questions.”
The reverse is true, too, of course. Declines in scores don’t always mean a failure of NCLB. It is widely agreed that NCLB is flawed, though, as a recent press release by the American Federation of Teachers and an article by Robert Gordon in Slate make clear.
Easy answers? No. Consider, however, that the only state to legalize marriage of same-sex couples is also the one with its students doing best overall. New Jersey, another leader in same-sex relationship recognition, is not far behind. No, it’s not directly causal. I’d like to think, however, that family stability has something to do with it, above and beyond any specific educational programs. Massachusetts is also the state with the lowest divorce rate.
There are a bunch of Realtor signs in my neighborhood, if anyone’s interested. . . .