SD Test Scores: Better than Current Average, But No Better than 1992

Here's a math question probably not covered on the standardized tests our bureaucrats so treasure: How do we take a number that says South Dakota's education system has not improved and make it say our education system is great?

Cue Tom Oster, South Dakota education secretary:

South Dakota’s 12th grade reading and math scores are well above the national average, according to results released today by the National Assessment Governing Board. South Dakota was one of 11 states to participate in a 2009 pilot program that provided state-level results for the National Assessment of Educational Progress at 12th grade.

In reading, South Dakota’s 12th graders had an average score of 292, compared to the national average of 287. In math, South Dakota's 12th graders had an average score of 160, compared to the national average of 152.

That asterisk next to Oster's name is in the original press release. Is that what you get when the governor-elect is replacing you?

“Our students have typically performed well at both grades 4 and 8, and our 12th graders were no different,” said Secretary of Education Tom Oster.* “South Dakota was one of five states with higher average scores than the nation in both reading and math” [South Dakota Department of Education, "South Dakota's NAEP Pilot Scores among Best," press release, 2010.11.18].

Turn now to the national news on those test scores, which takes a little longer-term perspective:

A national education assessment released Thursday shows that high school seniors have made some improvement in reading, but remain below the achievement levels reached nearly two decades ago.

...Students scored an average of 288 out of 500 points in reading comprehension, two points above the 2005 score but still below the 1992 average of 292. Thirty-eight percent of 12th grade students were classified as at or above the "proficient" level, while 74 percent were considered at or above "basic."

"Today's report suggests that high school seniors' achievement in reading and math isn't rising fast enough to prepare them to succeed in college and careers," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said [Christine Armario, "12th-Grade Students Still Below '92 Reading Scores," AP via Yahoo News, 2010.11.18].

Eight years of No Child Left Behind, and our students still aren't doing any better than they did years before John Boehner, Ted Kennedy, and George W. Bush decided Washington knows best what your local schools should do. Time to get NCLB out of the way and try a new plan!

Save Education (and GOP Consistency): Dump No Child Left Behind

President George W. Bush signs the No Child Left Untested Behind Act into law. Senator Ted Kennedy and Representative John Boehner flank the President at the signing ceremony in Boehner's district, Hamilton, Ohio, January 8, 2002. White House photo by Paul Morse.

One line in an NPR story this morning reminds me why I left the Republican Party... and how Kristi Noem could just maybe draw me back.

Morning Edition considers Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner: "Rebel or Compromiser?" Reporter Andrea Seabrook mentions that the leader of the newly elected small-government/anti-government majority in the House of Representatives helped pass an enormous expansion of federal authority over education, the No Child Left Behind Act. President Bush flew to Boehner's hometown of Hamilton, Ohio, to sign NCLB into law. Boehner has called this exercise in bureaucracy and testing "one of the proudest accomplishments of my tenure in Congress."

John Boehner thundered from the floor of the House last March against what he misperceived as a government takeover of health care. Yet he proudly oversaw a much clearer federal takeover of public education in the No Child Left Behind Act.

I have yet to hear from any South Dakota teacher or administrator a good explanation of how the No Child Left Behind Act has made it easier for them to educate our kids. One reasonable English teacher has told me that NCLB has produced more standardized testing data that she and colleagues can analyze and use as a basis for modifying their classroom strategies. However, all that data has come at significant expense, as schools pay consultants to process all the testing data into usable summaries, and as school districts rearrange curricula and schedules to make room for more standardized tests and training thereto. All that effort gets us numbers that look like solid, scientific, objective data but which really don't tell anything that conscientious teachers can't tell you simply by talking with the kids, quizzing them, reviewing their homework, and giving their honest professional assessment of the learning they've seen happen in their classrooms.

Opposition to No Child Left Behind and national standards ought to be a no-brainer for Republicans like John Boehner. Opposition to standardization is certainly a no-brainer for Sir Ken Robinson, a well-known advocate for serious educational reform. Robinson sees testing and national standards as a logical extension of the factory production-line thinking that has turned American education into an increasingly mind-numbing and ineffective exterprise.

A speech by Sir Ken Robinson gets this illustrated treatment by RSA Animate:



Representative-Elect Kristi Noem, establish your true classical conservative cred and mention this video to Speaker Boehner (once you get around to admitting you are going to vote for him). Cite this video to launch your crusade to get big government out of education and repeal No Child Left Behind.

And here on the homefront, fellow citizens, I would love to hear some local candidates run for school board and talk about Robinson's prescription for reforming our education system out of its kids-as-factory-outputs model and turning it into a system that fosters all those kindergarten geniuses.

White House Looks into No Child Left Behind Overhaul

...overhaul? How about throwing it overboard?

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is looking for input on the No Child Left Behind Act. "Act" is a key word: we act like we're doing something about education, when really all we're doing is keeping the bubble test companies and asessment consultants in business.

Care for input, Secretary Duncan? I've got your input right here. Despite the dutiful claims of our state education bureaucracy, I have yet to see any evidence that No Child Left Behind has done one thing to improve what South Dakota kids get out of their K-12 education. From what I've seen firsthand, NCLB creates silly numerical objectives and cuts into time for a broad, liberal education with heaping helpings of history, arts, and even physical exercise.

We need less assessment from 50,000 feet and more teachers on the ground. We need caring individuals working face to face with students, talking with the kids, reading their papers, correcting their calculus, spending less time responding to arbitrary statistical mandates from Washington and more time responding to the unique needs of every child in their care.

More input? Check in with the Clintons: last time I got to visit with them, they both said we should bag No Child Left Behind. Check in with Carl Chew, the Washington teacher who refused to harm his kids by subjecting them to the NCLB tests. And check in with past Madville Times posts on NCLB's failure here, here, here, and here.

Role Model: Conde's Sanderson Skips No Child Left Behind Test

Autumn Sanderson of Conde is my hero of the week. This high school junior is doing what I wish every student in South Dakota would do: she is refusing to take the Dakota STEP, the standardized tests we make our kids bend over backwards each year to complete in obedience to the No Child Left Behind act. She's putting down the pencil and reading a book.

Sanderson is engaging in this fine act of civil disobedience to protest the state's forced closure of her beloved school. Conde's enrollment is less than 100, so that means the state says their school and community don't deserve our support. If the state is going to kill her school, Sanderson figures there's no reason she should do the state's bidding and waste her time filling their test bubbles and supporting their sit-up-and-bark data for the feds.

Sanderson cares a great deal about her school and its history: her sister, brother, father, and grandmother all graduated from Conde. She has done her civic duty, fighting to save her school by testifying before the State Legislature (that takes guts for anyone, especially for someone too young to vote). I also note that she and her teammates performed "This Is a Test," a satire of classroom assessment, at the 2008 State Oral Interp Festival. Clever kids.

When was teaching high school, I always wanted to encourage my students to blow off these silly tests and do something more productive, like read a novel or work on their essays for my class or write Student Congress bills. However, I always felt compelled to carry out the duties assigned by my administration, and I did so, to the letter.

But I always wondered: what would happen if every kid in the school, in the state, would just put down the pencils and say, "Sorry! Not interested"? Would Tom Oster and Wade Pogany give everyone detention?

Autumn, thank you for leading the way. You tell your friends; I'll tell mine. Maybe we can put these tests to bed once and for all.