As a fellow insect-themed edu-blog, we feel a certain kinship with our friends at BoardBuzz, produced by the National School Boards Association. But the Buzzers went bust with their analysis of our recent high-achieving students study. Let's tackle their misstatements, one by one:
Contrary to the thinking that high achieving students have been left behind, the report actually found that high achieving students (those scoring in the top 10 percent on NAEP) have been making similar gains on NAEP over the past 20 years. BoardBuzz hardly thinks that's being left behind. On the other hand, low achieving students (those scoring in the bottom 10 percent) have been making 4 times as many gains on NAEP since NCLB was enacted compare to before.
Ah, watch those apples-to-organges comparisons, NSBA. Yes, if you go back to the early 1990s, the progress of low and high achievers looks roughly the same, at least in some subject-grade combinations. But upon closer inspection the story is very different. Basically the 90s were quite good for high achievers (particularly in states without accountability systems); the post-2000 years have been quite good for low achievers (perhaps due to NCLB). The story since 2000, though, is straightforward: anemic gains at the top versus dramatic gains at the bottom. No, our top students aren't doing worse, but is their "languid" progress (Tom Loveless's word) good enough in today's competitive world?
Then the Buzzers say:
If you had listened to Fordham you would think the achievement of high achieving students remained flat or even declined but this simply is not the case. Would we all like to see greater gains from all our students? Of course. There is always room for improvement, but that does not mean that high performers have been neglected.
But anyone who reads our report, or even our summary in last week's Gadfly, will encounter statements like this: "The performance of high achievers is unimpressive at best. Their scores haven't fallen, mind you. But neither have they risen much." So I'm not sure who the Buzzers are "listening" to. Regardless, what we learn from our national teacher survey (part of the study) is that teachers are neglecting their top students, and feel guilty about it. I understand why, institutionally, the NSBA wants to engage in happy talk about how well the public schools are doing, but we need to face these tough choices in an honest way. School boards should know that lots of teachers feel pressure to spend all of their time on the lowest-performing students and that high achievers aren't getting the attention they deserve. That needs fixing, pronto.
Finally,
BoardBuzz has heard a lot that schools have been forced to focus on only those students right below or above proficiency, so called bubble kids, at the expense of their low and high performing students to raise their proficiency rates since high achievers would reach proficiency anyway and low achievers weren't likely to. Fortunately the report shows that this appears to be untrue.
Well, not so fast. Our Proficiency Illusion report from last year found that most states are defining "proficiency" as the 20th or 30th percentile nationally in reading and math. Several states aim even lower--around the 10th percentile. So the lowest-achieving students might be the "bubble kids," since state standards are set so embarrassingly low.
And with that, I'm going to take a break--not just from the high-achieving students issue, but from education policy. See you on July 7th.
