I wish the relevant body would allow adults of all ages to take the 12th-grade exam. This would enable each of us to ascertain at what level adults function as well as our own performance.
In New York City, many parents keep their children home on days when standardized tests are given. This may weaken the validity of the test results.
This is very interesting and likely accurate. The graph, however, shows test scores over the entire period at a low level. Even before 2012 or so, a problem of low performance, low expectations and ideological politicization already existed in the education system. I do think the downward slope since then does reflect an even more disastrous collapse of standards, at least in part due to the triumph of anti-merit, DEI-driven dumbing down, grade inflating, BLM racialist excuse-making and the catastrophic boost it has given to the disorder-normalizing of the reparative justice insanity. Hopefully we are seeing a turn against all this now and a chance to remove the boosting of it by the federal government. I hope and pray.
The COVID shutdowns made this all worse, but they are not at all the only factor.
Jonathan, I agree with much of what you say substantively.
But, as to the matter of the graph showing performance over time, don’t be fooled by its relative flat appearance. Each 10 points is roughly tantamount to a grade level of achievement. So, the gains for all students from 2000 to 2015 would be equivalent to a full grade level, and, broken down by race, gains for blacks and Hispanics (not shown here) were even greater.
Put another way, 31% of black 8th graders were basic or above on the main NAEP in math in 2000; 52% were in 2013. 41% of Hispanics were basic or above in 2000; 62% were in 2013.
That gain, figuratively speaking, was “nothing to sneeze at.”
I explore in my piece what happened between 2013 and 2022 (beyond COVID). You mention unfortunate developments - in addition to the ones I mention. It’s all very sad.
Had we kept the momentum of that period of the late 90s to the early 2010s going, we’d be in a very different, and far better, situation than we are today.
Good post. But if you were to read all of Elon Musk's tweets for 2024 (nearly impossible with his addiction to tweeting) you would find that he is no different than the President-elect in his willingness to say whatever he wants to help move the public in whatever direction he would like even when he knows he is purposely misleading. Tweets about Matt Gaetz or NYC crime stats or pretty much any other topic that will garner celebration from rightwing media addicts are pretty consistent. Which leads to the question why someone so brilliant can be so comfortable misleading others?
I wish the relevant body would allow adults of all ages to take the 12th-grade exam. This would enable each of us to ascertain at what level adults function as well as our own performance.
In New York City, many parents keep their children home on days when standardized tests are given. This may weaken the validity of the test results.
This is very interesting and likely accurate. The graph, however, shows test scores over the entire period at a low level. Even before 2012 or so, a problem of low performance, low expectations and ideological politicization already existed in the education system. I do think the downward slope since then does reflect an even more disastrous collapse of standards, at least in part due to the triumph of anti-merit, DEI-driven dumbing down, grade inflating, BLM racialist excuse-making and the catastrophic boost it has given to the disorder-normalizing of the reparative justice insanity. Hopefully we are seeing a turn against all this now and a chance to remove the boosting of it by the federal government. I hope and pray.
The COVID shutdowns made this all worse, but they are not at all the only factor.
Jonathan, I agree with much of what you say substantively.
But, as to the matter of the graph showing performance over time, don’t be fooled by its relative flat appearance. Each 10 points is roughly tantamount to a grade level of achievement. So, the gains for all students from 2000 to 2015 would be equivalent to a full grade level, and, broken down by race, gains for blacks and Hispanics (not shown here) were even greater.
Put another way, 31% of black 8th graders were basic or above on the main NAEP in math in 2000; 52% were in 2013. 41% of Hispanics were basic or above in 2000; 62% were in 2013.
That gain, figuratively speaking, was “nothing to sneeze at.”
I explore in my piece what happened between 2013 and 2022 (beyond COVID). You mention unfortunate developments - in addition to the ones I mention. It’s all very sad.
Had we kept the momentum of that period of the late 90s to the early 2010s going, we’d be in a very different, and far better, situation than we are today.
That’s the challenge of my piece.
Sandy, thanks for the response. I'll keep it in mind.
Good post. But if you were to read all of Elon Musk's tweets for 2024 (nearly impossible with his addiction to tweeting) you would find that he is no different than the President-elect in his willingness to say whatever he wants to help move the public in whatever direction he would like even when he knows he is purposely misleading. Tweets about Matt Gaetz or NYC crime stats or pretty much any other topic that will garner celebration from rightwing media addicts are pretty consistent. Which leads to the question why someone so brilliant can be so comfortable misleading others?