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Anyone Who Needs NAEP Scores as a Wake-Up Call Has Been Asleep On the Job [1]

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Date: 2022-10-31

National education leaders, and those who pretend to be, are appalled by a pandemic-related decline in reading and especially mathematics scores of fourth and eighth graders on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). What else did they expect from widespread disease, death, and resultant economic, social, and psychological disruption? If they needed the latest report of test scores as a wake-up call, they have been asleep on the job.

First, let’s correct–yet again–the misrepresentation that Proficiency on NAEP connotes grade-level expectations. No, that is the Basic Level. The Proficient level represents a high level of achievement. NAEP is generally considered a more stable, valid, and reliable measure of student achievement than state tests. In contrast to state tests, NAEP is not an accountability tool, designed as a periodic "Report Card, … to measure the educational achievement and progress of the nation’s students at established grades and ages.” However, there is concern that NAEP might not accurately reveal students achievement level since they might not try their hardest on a non-consequential test. Nonetheless, there is certainly reason for concern. But that is not new news. No “wake up call” was needed.

Of course, reading and mathematics are essential life skills. However, NAEP scores are only a partial indicator of the abilities of what matters in life. Far more alarming–before and after the pandemic and by any measure–too many students fall short on vital contributors to preparation for successful preparation for life, work, and citizenship. These abilities include: The ability to make sense of and critically think about the daily bombardment of information and misinformation; the capacity and willingness to respectfully contribute to a diverse team of workers and community members; and the inclination to care about and act to achieve the common good. Schools can support these essential abilities. As a nation, we fall far short. We already know why.

Decades of forced classroom attention to standardized test preparation diverted attention. In addition, before and after the pandemic students from less well-off families suffered educationally from a toxic combination of more challenging lives and planned education resource deprivation than their well-off peers. The pandemic just exacerbated existing inequity.

“Unacceptable”, declared the U.S. Secretary of Education. Well, we have no choice but to accept the test results. They are what they are, and we know the causes. Of course, let's talk about what to do. Addressing what to do requires clarity about well-known avoidable contributors to the decline in learning and persistent inequity.

Maybe, if the nation had not been prompted to run away from masks and vaccines early on and often during the pandemic, so many students' lives and learning would not have been so disrupted. Maybe, if as a nation we stopped running away from ensuring equitable education resources and small class sizes, and abandoned charter school and voucher funding for the few, the so-called achievement gap would narrow. Maybe, if we worried less about profit margins and instead ensured a living wage and universal health care for struggling families, children would arrive at school more ready to learn. Maybe, if we hadn't had a bipartisan embrace of test-based blame and teacher bashing, all students might have experienced deeper, more enduring learning instead of fleeting test preparation and drill. Maybe, if we treated teachers like professionals, they might have the time and freedom to hone their teaching together.

A sharp systemic focus on each of those maybes would be a huge boost for students and society. Maybe, just maybe, if more often we embraced preparing students to actively participate in a caring equitable democratic society, they will not grow up to vote for politicians who embrace authoritarianism and hatred. Maybe, if those same politicians regulated corporations and their profits and environmental destruction instead of what teachers can say or what women can do with their bodies, folks might lead less precarious lives and react to their world with more love and less fear and anxiety.

Only the hard work of person-to-person organizing will develop the political pressure to bring the maybes to fruition.

Arthur H. Camins is a lifelong educator. He writes about education and social justice. He works part-time with curriculum developers at UC Berkeley as an assessment specialist. He has taught and been an administrator in New York City, Massachusetts, and Louisville, Kentucky. The ideas expressed in this article are his alone.

Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/arthurcamins

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