Grim News from the NAEP

In this Education Gadfly article, Andy Smarick says the just-released National Assessment of Educational Progress data from 20 large U.S. cities contain lots of sad news about disadvantaged students. Specifically:

• In the average city, only one in four students reached proficiency in 4^th-grade and 8^th-grade reading and 8^th-grade math. For example, in Baltimore, 16 percent of 8^th graders read proficiently; in Philadelphia, 18 percent of 8^th graders were proficient in math. 
• In 4^th-grade math, the supposed bright spot, only one in three reached proficiency. 
• In terms of progress made since 2011, there were only 14 statistically significant gains in scale scores out of 84 test results. The rate of improvement is only 2 percentage points in 4^th grade reading proficiency, and not a single city made statistically significant gains in 8^th-grade math proficiency.
• The most encouraging news came from Washington, D.C., which had significant gains in all four areas, Los Angeles, with improvement in three areas, and Fresno, which improved in two. But despite these gains, all three cities still lagged far behind the large-city average. In Washington, D.C., only 8 percent of low-income 8^th graders were proficient in math. In Los Angeles, only 9 percent of African-American 8^th graders were proficient in reading. 
• The data undermine the credibility of the Broad Prize: Houston, this year’s winner, had one significantly negative result (4^th-grade reading), made no progress in the other three areas, and had distressingly low achievement (e.g., 19 percent of 8^th graders proficient in reading). And previous Broad winners Miami, New York City, and Boston had no statistically significant gains from 2011.
• Detroit is an educational emergency, says Smarick, with the lowest performance in all four areas and a nose-dive in 8^th-grade math to 3 percent of students proficient, 9 percent in 8^th-grade reading. Cleveland and Milwaukee are close behind. “We should all hang our heads in shame if we don’t dramatically intervene in these districts,” he says. 
• “Once you disaggregate results, your heart truly breaks,” says Smarick. White and non-poor students in several districts did quite well, pulling up the numbers. But the average proficiency rate for African-American students across all 20 cities was 12 percent. 

“The 10 Things to Know About NAEP TUDA 2013” by Andy Smarick in The Education Gadfly, Dec. 19, 2013 (Vol. 13, #48), http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-weekly  

From the Marshall Memo #516