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June 14, 2011

U.S. Students Lag in Their U.S. History

Filed under: Achievement Gaps,Course taking,High school,Middle school,Report Summary — Tags: , — Jim Hull @ 4:29 pm

This morning the 2010 NAEP results in U.S. History for 4th, 8th, and 12th graders was released. The NAEP History assessment is designed to measure their knowledge of American history in the context of democracy, culture, technology and economic changes, and America’s changing world role. Results for 2010 were compared to results in previous assessments in 1994, 2001, and 2006.  The report also examined the change in Advanced Placement U.S. History course taking between 1990 and 2009. Furthermore, the report also examines the access minority students have to AP U.S. History courses in their high schools.

Results for 4th and 8th graders showed some positive signs, but results for U.S. 12th graders were disappointing. At the 4th and 8th grade levels, low-achieving and minority students made tremendous gains over the past decade to narrow achievement gaps. However, similar results were not seen at the 12th grade level where scores from students from almost all racial/ethnic groups and at all achievement levels remained relatively unchanged over the past decade and half. However, a bright spot for our nation’s high schools is that more students, particularly minority students, have access and are taking Advanced Placement U.S. History courses to better prepare for life after high school.

Here are some of the major findings from the report:

Fourth Grade

  • Overall scores were not significantly higher in 2010 (214) compared to 2006 (211).
    • However, scores were significantly higher than in 2001 (208) and 1994 (205). 
  • Minority students made substantial gains to narrow achievement gaps.
    • Since 1994, Black and Hispanic students increased their scores by 22 points and 23 points, respectively. This represents approximately two additional years’ worth of learning.
    • Much of the increase took place since 2001, where Black scores increased by 13 points and Hispanic scores by 14.
    • Due to these gains, the Black-White and Hispanic-White gaps narrowed by 12 and 13 points, respectively.
  • The lowest-performing students made the greatest gains.
    • Since 1994, students scoring at the 10th percentile increased their scores by 22 points
    • Since 2001 these students have increased their scores by 12 points.
  • Seventy-three percent of 4th graders scored at or above NAEP’s basic level.
    • Students scoring at or above this level should be able to identify and describe a few of the most familiar people, places, events, ideas, and documents in American history.  
  • Just 20 percent scored at or above NAEP’s proficient level.
    • Students scoring at this level should be able to identify, describe, and comment on the significance of many historical people, places, ideas, events and documents.

Eighth Grade

  • Overall scores were significantly higher in 2010 (266) compared to 2006 (263) as well as compared to 1994 (259).
  • Minority students made significant gains to narrow achievement gaps with white students
    • Since 2001, Black and Hispanic students increased their scores by 10 and 12 points, respectively. This represents approximately an additional year’s worth of learning.
    • Due to these gains, the Black-White and Hispanic-White gaps narrowed by 5 and 7 points, respectively, since 2001.
  • The lowest-performing students made significant gains.
    • Since 2001, students scoring at the 10th percentile increased their scores by 11 points.
  • The percent of 8th graders scoring at or above NAEP’s basic level is increasing.
    • Since 2001, the percent of students scoring basic or above increased from 62 percent to 69 percent in 2010.
    • Students scoring at or above this level should also have a beginning understanding of the fundamental political ideas and institutions of American life and their historical origins.   
  • There was no change in the percent of 8th graders scoring at or above NAEP’s proficient level.
    • Just 17 percent of 8th graders scored at or above proficient in 2010, which is not significantly different from 2001.
    • Students at this level should be able to incorporate geographic, technological, and other considerations in their understanding of events and should have knowledge of significant political ideas and institutions.
  • The vast majority of 8th graders took U.S. History.
    • Eighty-four percent of 8th graders said they were taking U.S. history at the time of the assessment.

Twelfth Grade

  • Scores have remained relatively stagnant since 1994.
    • Scores have increased just 2 points since 1994 and did not significantly increase between 2001 and 2010.
    • Scores have remained stagnant across all achievement levels.
  • Achievement gaps remained relatively unchanged.
    • Scores for Black students have not changed significantly since 1994.
    • Scores for Hispanic students increased 8 points since 1994, but have not changed significantly between 2001 and 2010.
    • Furthermore, Black-White and Hispanic-White achievement gaps have remained relatively unchanged over the past 16 years.
  • There was no significant change in percent of 12th graders scoring at or above NAEP’s basic level.
    • Fewer than half (45 percent) of 12th graders scored at or above the basic level.
    • Students at this level they should have a sense of continuity and change in history and be able to relate relevant experience from the past to their understanding of contemporary issues.
  • There was no significant change in the percent of 12th graders scoring at or above NAEP’s proficient level.
    • Just 12 percent of 12th graders scored at or above proficient in 2010, which is not significantly different from any other previous assessment.  
    • Students at this level should be able to communicate reasoned interpretations of past events, using historical evidence effectively to support their positions.  

High School History Course Taking

  • More students took AP U.S. history in 2009 (13 percent) than in 1990 (6 percent).
    • Four times as many Hispanic students (12 percent) took the course in 2009 than in 1990 (3 percent).  
  • A greater number of minority students had access to U.S. History Advanced Placement (AP) courses in 2009 than in 1990.
    • In 1990, just 49 percent of Black students and 54 percent of Hispanic students attended a high school that offered an AP U.S. History course.
    • In 2009, the percentage increased to 83 percent and 91 percent for Black and Hispanic students, respectively.
    • On the other hand, only 75 percent of White students had access to an AP History course in 2009.
  • Students attending high-minority (defined as 50% or more of enrollment) high schools were more likely to have access to an AP U.S. History course than students attending low-minority schools.
    • While a similar number of students in low-minority (43 percent) and high-minority (42 percent) schools had access to AP U.S History in 1990, students in high minority (90 percent) high schools were more likely to have access to an AP U.S. History course than students in low-minority schools (66 percent) in 2010.

For more information on NAEP go to www.centerforpubliceducation.org and check out The proficiency debate: A guide to NAEP achievement levels.—Jim Hull





June 9, 2011

Lively debate over the “Multiple Pathways” movement gaining momentum

Filed under: 21st century education,Achievement Gaps,college,Graduation rates,High school,Report Summary — Tags: , , , — Julie @ 3:15 pm

On Tuesday Education Week released Diplomas Count 2011: Beyond High School, Before Baccalaureate, its annual publication charting high school graduation rates at the district, state, and national level.  As you saw in the post on Tuesday it was a momentous day in many respects, as grad rates soared to their highest level since the 1980s, at 72.7 percent, after two years of successive decline, hovering around 69 percent.  However, significant achievement gaps persist for minority students as well as a stagnant gender gap, favoring women.  But Diplomas Counts included more than graduation rates, it explored the issue of college and career readiness.

The theme of this year’s edition, Beyond High School, Before Baccalaureate, is timely indeed.  Economic pressures are barreling into the sphere of education policy and concerns for students, parents and higher education institutions alike over college readiness are increasingly turning towards career readiness. 

With this in mind, I’d like to hone in on Tuesday’s lively dialogue between Ronald F. Ferguson, the Director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University, and Amy Wilkins, Vice President for Government Affairs and Communications at The Education Trust, who each offered their own interpretations of the potential merits and drawbacks of the multiple pathways movement underfoot already in many states. 

Ferguson urged that promoting sense of self in students is an incredibly important element of student success.  The primary objectives of adolescence being, forming identity and building competencies, after all.  But not only that, Ferguson appealed for open-mindedness in students to multiple selves, “a menu of images of possible selves” for selection down the line.  Citing programs like the Year-Up Boston-based initiative, he proposed greater and repeated exposure to a range of careers, starting as early as the fifth grade.  This would in turn foster future-orientation in students and a more nuanced one at that, to enhance and diversify future opportunities yet not supersede the goal of four-year college necessarily.  

Wilkins adamantly delivered her reservations about the implications of the pathways message, with respect to low-income, minority students especially.  Wilkins insisted that hastily renouncing college as the ultimate postsecondary goal will disproportionately harm low-income, minority students as they remain drastically under-represented in four-year colleges and most vulnerable to the charges that college may not be cost-effective after all. 

Cognizant of Wilkins’s concerns, Ferguson offered what felt like a point of consensus, to him at least, stating that if the pathways project is to gain ground, it cannot undermine progress towards eliminating the achievement gap, but must “run in parallel”.  In Untangling the Postsecondary Debate, from this same Diplomas Count 2011 issue, Mike Rose seeks to strike the balance in this debate as well. Rose maintains that the debate must not persist in an unbalanced manner, on strictly national-level economic terms or with tunnel-vision focus on the structural features of the K-12 curriculum, but rather with the emotional and intellectual life of the individual student in the center and ever present in mind.  Rose proposes that college-for-all advocates must take measure of the significant intellectual potency of trade and occupational study, which as John Dewey championed, can give way to study of liberal arts and sciences in turn.  And in alignment with Ferguson, Rose calls for an egalitarian approach to multiple pathways.  To prevent tracking that shortchanges student based on income, ethnicity, race, or gender, an enormous breadth of opportunities must be offered, in equal depth; and student interests, goals, and expectations, in confluence with their environment must also be continually taken stock of and nurtured. 

 Towards the end of this deeply thought-provoking session, Wilkins pressed the community college sector on its abysmal graduation rates, charging that behavioral changes, not necessarily associated with funding, must be undertaken—she cited the positive effects of professors taking attendance.  And Ferguson called upon the private sector and regional leaders to reinvigorate the education system, serving as intermediaries and regulators for partnerships between the K-12 system and businesses and higher education institutions. – Julie McCabe Policy Research Intern





March 4, 2011

Class size vs. teacher quality

Filed under: 21st century education,Achievement Gaps,Public education,school organization,teachers — Tags: , , , , — Jim Hull @ 8:50 am

Yesterday, I wrote about how research clearly shows that class size does matter for poor and minority students in the early grades. However, as the NBC Nightly News segment also pointed out, critics of smaller class sizes argue that increasing class size can give a greater number of students an opportunity to be taught by a highly effective teacher.

The theory goes that if class sizes increase by eliminating the least effective teachers, then more students will be taught by more effective teachers. Meaning, students will be better off being taught by a highly effective teacher in a classroom of 25 students than in a class of 15 students taught by a less effective teacher.

This is a really interesting debate between smaller class sizes and teacher quality. I argued yesterday that class size does matter. But does a highly effective teacher trump smaller classes? Unfortunately, the research is not clear. Although research does find that teachers have the single greatest impact of student achievement, it is not clear under what conditions teachers are the most effective. We don’t really know if effective teachers are just as effective if they have 5, 10, 15 or more students added to their classrooms. But if raising classes sizes negatively impacts the effectiveness of teachers then the assumption that districts can be more productive by simply removing the least effective teachers so more effective teachers reach more students would not hold true.

Either way, this is an important debate to be having about what our schools should look like in the future. As our Cutting to the Bone report noted, schools are not likely to get back to their pre-recession funding levels until late in the decade at the earliest. So without a major change to the way our schools are funded, our schools are going to be expected to do more with much less.

Will larger class sizes enable districts to meet this challenge? Maybe some districts. But for our districts serving a significant number of disadvantaged students, the final impact may be devastating. These are students who need both highly effective teachers and smaller class sizes. Just because our economy has tanked doesn’t mean closing the achievement gap isn’t important anymore. As a matter of fact, the more students that graduate high school college- or career-ready, the better off our economy will be in the long-run.—Jim Hull





January 11, 2011

Maryland schools take top honors again

Filed under: Achievement Gaps,college,funding,Public education,Report Summary — Tags: , , , — Jim Hull @ 4:02 pm

This morning, Education Week (EdWeek) released its annual special report Quality Counts 2011, which included its annual State of the States report card. Maryland once again earned top honors with a B plus while the nation as a whole received a C. The report card shows that states have been very active in easing the transition for students from high school to college by defining college readiness. However, defining such goals for achievement at the end of high school has yet to significantly improve student achievement.

Here are some of the key findings from this year’s report card:

Summative Grades

How did the nation as a whole and each individual state perform across all policy and performance areas?

  • Overall, the nation received a grade of a C across all policy and performance areas, which remained the same as a year ago.
  • Maryland earned the highest grade (B plus) for the third consecutive year, followed by New York and Massachusetts who both earned a B. Nine states earned a B minus.
    • The vast majority of states earned grades between a C plus and C minus.
    • No states received an F, but Nebraska, South Dakota and the District of Columbia each earned a D plus.

Chance for Success

What are the odds that the average child who grows up in a particular state will do as well as the average child in the top-ranked state, at each stage of his or her educational life? (the early childhood years, participation and performance in formal education, and educational attainment and workforce outcomes during adulthood)

  • Massachusetts ranked first for the fourth consecutive year by being the only state to receive an A, while once again Connecticut, New Hampshire, and New Jersey each received an A minus. 
    • This means that children in Massachusetts have the best chance of achieving positive life outcomes.
  • On the other hand, children in Nevada and New Mexico have the least chance of achieving positive life outcomes by earning a D and D plus, respectively.
  • The nation as a whole earned a C plus.

K-12 Achievement

How do states compare on the academic achievement of their students in elementary through high school?

  • Overall, our nation’s schools received a D plus in the academic preparation of our school children.
    • The grade is based on the academic status and growth over time in math and reading scores, narrowing of poverty-based achievement gaps, as well as high school graduation rates and the performance on the advanced placement test.
  • Once again Massachusetts received the highest grade with a B, although Maryland and New Jersey performed nearly as well by earning a B minus.
  • New Mexico, Louisiana West Virginia, Mississippi, and the District of Columbia all received failing marks.

Transition and Alignment

How do states compare on implementing various education policies to better coordinate the connections between K-12 schooling and other segments of the education pipeline such as early-childhood education, college readiness, and links to the world of work?

  • Arkansas, Maryland, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia are leaders in ensuring students are ready to move up the education ladder, earning A’s for their policy work in this area.
    • Each of these states have implemented at least 12 of 14 alignment policies tracked by EdWeek.
  • In contrast, Montana and South Dakota have implemented just three such policies, earning them a D minus, while Nebraska earned an F for implementing just two policies.
  • Although the nation as a whole earned just a C plus, 33 states have defined college readiness, which is an increase of 13 states since 2009. 

School Finance

How much do states spend on their schools? Is the spending distributed equitably?

  • Although no state received a failing grade, Wyoming was the only state to receive an A minus for adequately funding its schools.
    • On the other hand, five states — Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee, and Utah received grades of D or D minus.
  • As a whole, the nation received a C on funding education. However, on average the nation spends more money on wealthier school districts than poorer districts nationwide.
    • Wyoming, New Jersey, Alaska, Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, and Nevada are the only states to spend as much or more on their poorer districts than their wealthier counterparts.
    • On average, across the nation over $4,000 more is spent per-pupil in each state’s wealthiest districts than in their poorest districts.
  • When adjusting for regional cost differences, the U.S. spends on average $11,223 per pupil.
    • This ranges from $17,114 (adjusted for regional cost differences) in Wyoming to $6,525 in Utah.

–Jim Hull





December 16, 2010

The good news/bad news about grads

Filed under: Achievement Gaps,Dropouts — Tags: , — Patte Barth @ 11:20 am

More U.S. students are graduating from high school on time today than were in 2001 according to a report released recently by the America’s Promise Alliance. And significantly fewer high schools earn the moniker “drop out factory” — a term used to describe high schools that graduate 60% or fewer students.

Even so, 2.2 million students still attend schools where their chance of earning a diploma is 50% or less.  And while rates for African American, Latino and Native American teens rose the fastest, they continue to lag behind their Asian and white peers. Clearly we still have our work cut out for us.

The data in Building a Grad Nation shows  that we now know what works; we just need the political will and the resources to make it happen. The authors single out states and districts like Tennessee, Alabama, Richmond IN, and New York City for attacking dropout factories through multi-pronged strategies and seeing sizable gains for their efforts. Some of these strategies are no-brainers: use evidence-based practices, follow up with sufficient resources, and involve multiple partners, including school boards, principals, teachers and their unions, those in higher education, and local youth-based organizations.

 Other strategies may seem counter-intuitive, especially making curriculum more, not less, challenging for students who are pulling away from school. Yet research shows (see the Center’s paper Keeping Kids in School) that academic rigor and relevance are as important to making students feel engaged in school as good relationships with their teachers, counselors and classmates. We would add access to high-quality pre-k as a key element in a long-term dropout prevention strategy.

America’s Promise, led by General Colin Powell, and its collaborators on this report, Civic Enterprises and Every Graduates at Johns Hopkins University, call for the development of a “Civic Marshall Plan” to “Build A Grad Nation” and have named a presitigous leadership council to advise the plan’s development. Among the council members is Anne Bryant, executive director of the National School Boards Association.

–Patte Barth





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