NAEP test results in: Alabama, you’ve got some homework to do
The Nation’s Report Card released the results of their 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading and mathematics assessments on Tuesday; and Alabama didn’t fair so well. Although the state’s scores remained the same as the scoring in 2015, the last year the assessments were made, Alabama scored well below the national average in reading and mathematics. The NAEP — the nation’s largest representative and continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subject areas — has been testing students using the same criteria for many years, and there is no way to teach to the test. Administered every two years to students in grade 4 and 8 in both reading and math, it is considered the “gold standard” of tests in the education community as there is no way to exaggerate or falsify the results. The impact of digital testing? Last year’s administration of “the nation’s report card” was the first to be conducted in a digital format, which Some education experts believe could have affected the results. But Peggy Carr, associate commissioner of assessment for NCES, said in a conference call with reporters on Monday the differences were similar to what would typically be found as a result of “sampling variability.” “We’re confident that these results are valid and are apple-to-apple comparisons for the states and for the nation,” Carr said. “We are just ecstatic about being able to move these assessments into a digitally-based format.” A deeper look into Alabama’s results Alabama 4th Graders: 63 percent of students performed at or above the NAEP Basic level in reading, the national average was 67 percent 73 percent of students performed at or above the NAEP Basic level in mathematics, the national average was 79 percent Alabama 8th graders: 67 percent of students performed at or above the NAEP Basic level in reading, the national average was 75 percent 55 percent of students performed at or above the NAEP Basic level in Mathematics, the national average was 69 percent What do the results mean for students? “It is clear our nation’s education system continues to fail its mission of educating our children. Overall test scores remain flat highlighting the one-size-fits all government school system does not meet the educational needs of all students. Education freedom is the solution to the problem. Education choice provides every child with the ability to pursue the education that fits their personal education needs,” said Lennie Jarratt, Project Manager, Education of The Heartland Institute.
Lawmakers upset over Robert Bentley’s comments, ‘Alabama’s education system sucks’
2016 just isn’t Gov. Robert Bentley‘s year. The governor has again found himself the center of public scrutiny having been caught on film addressing the Alabama Association of Regional Councils Conference Wednesday saying “Alabama’s education system sucks.” “I don’t use that term very much but I want to tell you this, when we are 51st on our NAEP scores in 4th-grade math in this state, that’s pretty sad and it’s intolerable,” Bentley told the crowd. The state’s recent NAEP, National Assessment of Educational Progress, scores reveal the Yellowhammer State tied with the District of Columbia and New Mexico for a last-place ranking. While the new state school superintendent, Michael Sentance, like Bentley, he wants to improve education in the state, some lawmakers are are none too happy with the governor’s candid, public remarks. Hayden-Republican Rep. David Standridge, in a statement calling on Bentley to apologize said Alabama schools could improve, but “it is totally and wholly unacceptable for the governor to slam both hard working teachers and students with a blanket statement of disapproval.” “To simply say everything sucks, to me, is not a good representation of the excellence that we have in some places,” Decatur-Republican Rep. Terri Collins, chair of the House Education Policy Committee. Collins believes there are “pockets of excellence” in schools across the state.
Andrew A. Yerbey: Diplomas of duplicity
Two weeks ago, Tommy Bice announced his plans to step down as Alabama’s superintendent of education. Reflecting on his tenure, Bice singled out one accomplishment with especial pride: the nearly 90% graduation rate of public-school students in Alabama. This is not, however, an accomplishment that should be celebrated: it will go down as the most pernicious failure of the Bice superintendency. When the high-school diploma has been as devalued as it has, its benefits–economic and otherwise–become a false promise. By way of background, compare the presentation Bice delivered a few months back, emblazoned “Every Child a Graduate,” with a journal article published in 1954, entitled “A High School Diploma for All!” The similarities do not end with semantics. The journal article was penned by the principal of an Alabama school that had undertaken a new approach to graduating its students. The principal encapsulated the “experiment” thus: “It calls for awarding a . . . diploma to any student who has spent three years [grades ten through twelve] in high school. . . . Scholastic achievement is no longer the basis for awarding the diploma.” The mastery of “theoretical” material, such as mathematics and science, was not required for students to graduate. This policy was approved by the Alabama State Department of Education at the time–and has essentially been institutionalized by the Alabama State Department of Education of today. Evidence is provided by the meteoric rise in the graduation rate of public-school students in Alabama. The rate has skyrocketed seventeen points in four years, from 72% in 2011 to 89% in 2015. To put this percentage in perspective, if the graduation rates of the other forty-nine states were to remain unchanged from 2014, then Alabama’s graduation rate would now rank third nationally. The problem, of course, is that Alabama has seen nothing remotely similar occur with regard to scholastic achievement, which remains dismal–among the worst of the worst in the United States. Consider the results of the ACT. The ACT defines college readiness as “about a 75% chance of obtaining a C or higher in the corresponding credit-bearing college courses . . . based on the actual performance of students in college.” In an era of grade inflation, a grade of C in a first-year college course is not a very high benchmark. Yet, the percentage of Alabama students who graduated ready for college-level coursework in English, math, reading, and science was a mere 16% in 2015, down from a mere 18% in 2011; the national average was 28%. It is no wonder, then, that 32% of Alabama public-school graduates who attend college need remediation. Consider the results of the ACT Plan, an assessment (now the ACT Aspire) taken by tenth-graders that predicts success on the ACT. School-level data is available for the ACT Plan, and surveying it shocks the conscience. Assuming that the ACT Plan scores are representative of upperclassmen, more than two dozen high schools in Alabama–with a combined graduation rate of 83%–could have graduated a group of students without a single one of those graduates being college-ready. These schools might be the worst, but they are most certainly not outliers. Consider the results of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), known as “The Nation’s Report Card” and considered the standard for measuring scholastic achievement. According to the 2015 scores, only 17% and 26% of Alabama eighth-graders are, respectively, proficient in math and reading–with neither score changing significantly since 2011, and both scores remaining significantly below the national average. A recent report by the Urban Institute, which adjusted the 2013 scores to account for student demographics, thereby allowing more accurate state-to-state comparisons, brings it all back home. Ranking forty-eighth in the nation, ahead of only Hawaii and West Virginia, Alabama can “thank God for Mississippi” no longer. Did it not occur to the superintendent that our state having (1) among the worst scholastic achievement in the country and (2) among the highest graduation rate in the country was not a reason for celebration–that it was, in fact, the opposite? It should have, and once did: “We celebrated it–we put up billboards, we gave parties, we put out ice cream, we gave certificates. All we did was lie to our kids and their parents about how successful they were.” That was Bice, back in 2014. He was speaking not about the graduation rate, but about the exit exam, which he lambasted as useless “because . . . 31% of the [students who took the ACT in 2013, the last year of the exit exam] met the college-readiness benchmark in math.” Two years later, in 2015, the same measure was 23%–having plunged eight points, even as the graduation rate soared. “All we did was lie to our kids and their parents about how successful they were,” indeed. The next superintendent will have to rebuild the trust that has been lost in Alabama’s high-school diploma. This means ensuring that it reflects scholastic achievement. This does not mean undue emphasis on standardized tests or a return to the misguided policies of No Child Left Behind. But it will be helpful to glance backward as we go forward, to recall what those policies were meant to combat: “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” How better to describe the act of awarding diplomas without requiring scholastic achievement? • • • Andrew A. Yerbey is Senior Policy Counsel for the Alabama Policy Institute (API). API is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government, and strong families.
Joe Morton: Attracting and retaining the “best and brightest” teachers is key
Regardless of whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, a conservative or a liberal, all of us want to see improved student achievement year after year after year across all grades and in all schools in Alabama. Attracting and retaining talented educators is a key to achieving that goal, so, in 2015, the Business Education Alliance of Alabama (BEA) commissioned a research report titled “Teachers Matter: Rethinking How Public Education Recruits, Rewards and Retains Great Educators.” A key section of our report concentrated upon teacher evaluations and compared Alabama’s methodology to those of other states across the nation. We discovered that virtually every state, including ours, uses student improvement in academic achievement as a portion of their teacher evaluations. In some states, student achievement counts for as much as half of a teacher’s evaluation, while in Alabama the pilot program that has not been fully developed comprises just 25 percent, but our study revealed that all states feel it is integral to the overall score. Any state utilizing student academic growth for teacher evaluations must have quality assessments that are fair, relevant and remove any hints of bias. Alabama currently utilizes three such assessments – the ACT exam given to all high school students; the ACT Aspire given to all students in grades 3-8; and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) funded by Congress and given to a fair sampling of students in grades 4 and 8 in all 50 states. The NAEP is called the “Nation’s Report Card,” and it is the only assessment that measures student progress in every state against a true national norm, but it cannot be used for teacher evaluation purposes since it is a “sampling” assessment. The high school ACT and the ACT Aspire can be used for the student academic growth portion of teacher evaluations, and both are already adopted by the State Board of Education. Alabama has a good student assessment program that provides excellent insight into our areas of strength and areas needing improvement. The latest ACT results from Alabama high schools show that roughly 16 percent of our students were ready for college-level coursework by scoring at benchmark levels in English, Mathematics, Reading and Science. The national average of students making benchmark scores on the ACT is 28 percent. The RAISE Act, which stands for “Rewarding Advancement in Instruction and Student Excellence,” is being sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh (R – Anniston) and calls for several “firsts” in Alabama while also supporting actions already taken by the State Board of Education. If enacted into law, the RAISE Act will make first year teachers the highest paid in the Southeast and attract more young people to the profession of teaching, provide funding to a first year mentoring program to ensure our new teachers are supported by a veteran teacher, create a rewards program for entire school faculties which gives incentives for either maintaining or improving already high quality results or for schools that show notable improvements in student achievement gains and provide bonuses to teachers who work in hard to staff positions in low performing schools, rural schools or both. It also changes the length of time provided for new teachers to attain tenure from the current three years to five. By combining quality teacher evaluations, a recruitment plan for hard to staff teaching jobs, a program for enhancing first year teacher success with a mentoring program, and a school-based rewards program based upon results, the RAISE Act can build a solid pathway to improved student achievement. If we continue to implement needed education reforms and innovations like the RAISE Act in Alabama’s public schools, every student can one day become career and college ready, and the better prepared workforce that results will allow our state’s economy to continue to grow. Teachers Matter! —- Dr. Joe Morton is a former state superintendent of education and currently serves as chairman and president of the Business Education Alliance of Alabama. He may be reached at jmorton@beaalabama.com.
Email Insights: Alabama dead last in national math testing
Fourth-graders and eighth-graders across Alabama slipped on mathematics tests this year, nationally ranking dead last. Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card, released last month show Alabama Fourth-graders ranked 51st and eighth-graders 50th place in mathematics testing. The state’s Reading scores were not much better. There, fourth-graders came in 40th place, meanwhile eighth-graders an abysmal 46th out of 51. Administered every two years, the NAEP is considered by many to be the country’s most consistent measure of K-12 progress, because it has been around since the early 1990’s and offers insight into the effects of demographic and policy changes. The Eagle Forum of Alabama has taken notice, drawing the correlation between Common Core standards and the testing results in their latest statewide email: Open Letter to ALABAMA SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS From: Eunie Smith, President Leslie Whitcomb, Education Chairman Sadly, the latest NAEP results place Alabama dead last on Math and English, a significant decline from where we were before Common Core when Alabama had been trending upward. The 2011 Alabama State Department of Education document here touted: “In 2011 Alabama moved from near last to 25th in the nation in overall grades and scores [Education Week assessment] … 12th in the nation for standards, assessments and accountability… data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showed a historic gain of eight points in fourth grade Reading for Alabama public school students – the … highest gain ever in NAEP recorded history. Since then, Alabama has maintained its progress in NAEP assessments.” But that was before common core implementation in 2012 in Math and 2013 in English. See graphs and charts below. According to PARCA, “The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) is a battery of tests given every two years to a representative sample of students in all 50 states. The test is designed to serve as a national scorecard, allowing comparison of educational performance across the states. The 2015 results are out. They’re disappointing for the nation at large, and for Alabama, in particular. In 2015, Alabama’s average math score, in both 4th and 8th grade, was the lowest of any state. Between 2013 and 2015, Alabama’s average score declined in both grades. Among U.S. states, Alabama had the lowest percentage of students scoring proficient in 4th and 8th grade. Only 26 percent of 4th graders and 17 percent of 8th graders scored high enough on the NAEP to be considered grade-level proficient in math. While Alabama’s higher poverty rate puts it at something of a competitive disadvantage in national comparisons, a deeper look shows it’s not Alabama’s demographics skewing the results. Name the group – black, white, Hispanic, poverty and non-poverty – all perform worse than their peers in all other states.” (The PARCA Perspective, October 2015) According to nationally recognized standards expert Sandra Stotsky, “NAEP scores nationally did not go down because (1) Common Core standards are more demanding and (2) teachers need more professional development. They went down because Common Core is dumbed down math, and NAEP still includes test items based on what we expected kids to be taught by/in grade 4 only 10 years ago. Today, our kids can’t get these tests right because their classroom curriculum (based on CC math standards) has been dumbed down, [confuses, and neglects the basics]. Nor can our upper elementary grades do well on NAEP test items in reading when their language arts curriculum has eliminated the great children’s literature that got them to read – especially boys.” Dr. Stotsky, in a 2011 press conference in Montgomery, advised Alabama to continue with its standards upon which success was building instead of adopting the unproven and flawed common core regimen. State Board members Betty Peters and Stephanie Bell listened and voted against common core. Again, more than half of Common Core states showed historic declines on 2015 NAEP – declines that have not been seen since the early 90s when the NAEP began, but Non-Common Core States showed NO decline on NAEP!!!! It’s not just NAEP scores that confirm the inferiority of Common Core. ACT scores of Alabama students as shown in The Condition of College and Career Readiness 2015 Alabama report shows that only 16% of Alabama students meet the benchmark in all four subjects. Further, the percentage is down five percentage points from 2014. See report here. For Alabama students, clearly Common Core is a Failure with a capital F! Will school board members rescue students from further failure now? According to Math Standards expert Dr. James Milgram’s research, 4 years of common core type math in California beginning in 1992 resulted in irreparable damage. California then ditched those standards and returned to what works. Alabama is in its 4th year, as we have pointed out to you before. When will you ditch the flawed regimen that is common core? But what would you use? Just like Alabama has done for years, a committee of professionals and parents could convene. They could use as a template for Math the pre-common core standards that put California first in the nation; and for English, the acknowledged best were pre-common core Massachusetts. There are other proven sound standard sets upon which to build. There is no limit to what our teachers could do for their students if they were no longer constrained by common core and were equipped with the basics that have worked for generations. You will surely agree with us that it is unfair to our students not to address this ASAP and reverse course before it gets any worse. All NAEP Scores for Alabama eighth grade students fell since the implementation of Common Core with the exception of eighth grade ELA. In this instance, the white and black student scores were basically flat with Hispanic scores up 6 points, which raising the overall score by 2 points. Impact of Common Core on Alabama education: Alabama Accomplishments 2011 prior to impact of Common Core Average Mathematics grade 4 public schools all students: By jurisdiction Average Reading grade 4 public schools all students: By jurisdiction Average Mathematics
