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This week in the general media and internet there was an interesting rhetorical scrum among pundits and bloggers that revealed a lot about where the debate in education is heading and, in particular, what it may mean for the fate of poor brown and black kids in the most impoverished neighborhoods of America.
The tete-a-tete started with a column in Monday's Washington Post by Robert J. Samuelson in which he declared that nearly 40 years of school reform have been a "failure." To buttress his argument he points to results from tests administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress which show that while "some improvements have occurred in elementary schools . . . they're erased by high school." He also points out that even though "there has also been a modest narrowing in the high school achievement gaps among whites, blacks and Hispanics; unfortunately, the narrowing generally stopped in the late 1980s." Then he adds an aside that "(Average test scores have remained stable because, although the scores of blacks and Hispanics have risen slightly, the size of these minority groups also expanded. This means that their still-low scores exert a bigger drag on the average. The two factors offset each other.)" Samuelson concludes his column by blaming the lack of progress in school improvement on a decrease in student motivation and his observations that "more students (of all races and economic classes, let it be added) don't like school, don't work hard and don't do well."
The next day, Jonathan Chait of The New Republic blasted Samuelson for being an out-dated, hang-dog curmudgeon who doesn't understand that "American education policy has been on auto-pilot," "the current wave of reform" has never been tried before, and that charter schools, specifically KIPP schools, "have shown revolutionary improvements among poor, inner-city students and have rapidly expanded."
Joining the fray soon after is the Daily Howler's Bob Somerby who accuses Samuelson of spewing "disinformation" and accuses Chait of being a "liberal" who doesn't "care about blacks." His argument is that from 1971 to 2008 17-year-old black students gained 29 points in reading and the fact that neither Samuleson or Chait acknowledge this shows that these authors are "dissembling" at best, or at worst, have "no earthly sign" of understanding the matter at hand. His conclusion, in a Friday post, is that "we're surprised by these test score gains; we wouldn't have thought that an increasing focus on testing, 'standards' and accountability would have produced this type of result. But these large score gains exist-and they simply beg for analysis, unless you don't give a flying fig about the kids who achieved them."
Not to be left out of the fun, Matthew Yglesias from the Center for American Progress sided with Somerby to a point, but wants to assert that the main message from looking at the most recent data from NAEP is to realize that "history gives us no reason to doubt that it's possible for black kids to do better in school." (Earth to Yglesias: Is there anyone to the left of a Tea Party troll asserting that it's not "possible for blacks to do well in school"?)
The last one hurtling into the moshpit is Kevin Drum of Mother Jones who concludes that what all this brou-ha-ha over NAEP scores shows is:
"You can say that black and Hispanic scores have risen dramatically since the early 70s. Or you can say that black and Hispanic scores have stagnated (or even dropped slightly depending on how you cherry pick your dates) since the early 90s. Or you can say that white kids have made slight gains. Or you can say that the black-white gap closed considerably for a while but hasn't changed much lately."
So according to Drum, there aren't any conclusions about the NAEP data really worth making, and he nonchalantly dismisses the whole crossfire by saying that "there's just not much there there."
What none of these supposedly informed observers of educational progress dare to address though is the 50,000 pound gorilla staring at them from the NAEP report (pdf).
The gorilla makes its first appearance on page 4:
"the reading score gaps between White and Black students at all three ages showed no significant change from 2004 to 2008, the gaps did narrow in 2008 compared to 1971. White - Hispanic gaps in reading scores also showed no significant change from 2004 to 2008 but were smaller in 2008 than in 1975 at ages 9 and 17. Across all three age groups, neither the White - Black nor White - Hispanic gaps in mathematics changed significantly from 2004 to 2008, but both were smaller in 2008 than in 1973."
Then on page 14:
No significant change in White - Black score gaps since 2004
Page 16:
No significant change in White - Black score gaps since 2004
And page 17:
No significant change in White - Hispanic score gaps since 2004
In other words, one of the most overwhelming conclusions of the NAEP data - that four years of NCLB-driven "reforms" produced nothing in terms of narrowing our country's achievement gap - is either being denied or brushed away by those who proclaim to speak for the interests of poor black and brown school children. And it is the very same NCLB-styled reforms - "accountability" based on standardized testing - that are driving the current administration's education policy and its KIPP-inspired charter school benefactors.
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