In you haven’t heard, the latest NAEP math scores were released yesterday. Overall, results were not all that positive. Our nation’s eighth graders improved their performance from 2007 to 2009 but scores were flat for fourth graders. Most disappointing was the fact that achievement gaps between minority students and their white peers haven’t narrowing either.
Some chicken littles have jumped on the fact that fourth grade scores remained flat since NAEP was last given, and are using it to argue for dramatic reforms. BoardBuzz isn’t happy with flat results but disagrees with the contention that the sky is falling. It’s important to take a step back and look at the longer timeline of fourth grade math achievement. There we see that scores have been on a dramatic rise since 1990the first year of NAEPand this year is the first year ever scores failed to increase. BoardBuzz isn’t a mathematician but is pretty sure one score doesn’t make a trend. What is a trend is the consistent improvement in scores from 1990 to 2007. A trend so consistent that fourth graders today have nearly an additional three years worth of math learning than fourth graders in 1990. A point that is often overlooked.
BoardBuzz isn’t suggesting these scores should be ignored but let’s take a step back to determine first if this was a one time anomaly or a start of a new trend of flat scores. If it is just anomaly and the policies and practices that have been put in place over the past 20 years are still working, then they shouldn’t be thrown out over one test score. But if these policies and practices have run their course and need updating to get scores back on the right track that is what should be done.
However, NAEP scores alone can’t provide the answer. Each state, district, and school should take a close look at their elementary math curriculum and determine whether it is effectively providing their students the math skills they need to be successful in later grades and beyond. It is only then we can know for sure if our elementary math curriculum needs to be reformed, not based on one score from one national test.
Another thought…. Russ Whitehurst just released a study suggesting that improvements to curriculum pack a bigger bang for the buck than many of the reforms currently under discussion. Has curriculum been a major facet of standards-based reform in the past two decades?
We should always be concerned when independent measures such as NAEP do not meet expected gains. However, one measure alone should not be used to determine next steps. Multiple measures in districts need to be utilized to accurrately assess achievement gains/losses. Measures such as NAEP are more of a statement about our curriculum than about our students’ capacity to learn math. I agree that we should be using these measures as a springboard about what we are teaching and decide if today’s curriculum is keeping pace with our students’ abilities and knowledge as well as our vision rigorous curriculum.