VISIONS OF PISA: Ravitch sells a bogus claim!

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2013

Part 5—The return of the Age of Aquarius: Liberal response to the new PISA scores has often been quite hard to fathom.

Most amazing is the acceptance of the new cult of the PISA. This involves the apparent acceptance of PISA scores as the sole measure of student achievement.

In response to weak aggregate scores on the PISA, major liberals have failed to mention the large score gains which have been recorded on the NAEP, our widely-praised domestic testing program.

We’ve failed to mention American scores on the TIMSS and the PIRLS, the major international tests on which American students score better than on the PISA.

It’s astounding to see major liberals behave that way—to see our team advance the idea that American schools have recorded no progress in the past dozen years. But this is hardly the limit of our tribe’s incoherence and cluelessness—or of the apparent dishonesty of one of our loftiest leaders.

For our money, many of Diane Ravitch’s reactions to the PISA have been rather foolish. For one more example, consider this post, in which she links to a post by D.F. Brandenburg and showers him with praise.

Brandenburg is a former math teacher in the D.C. schools. At his eponymous blog, he has done a lot of good work about various public school issues.

We thought his reactions to the new PISA scores were a bit overwrought and unwise, to the extent that we could understand what he was proposing.

Ravitch linked to Branderburg’s seven-point post about the PISA, praising him for his “words of wisdom.” In the passage shown below, Ravitch quotes the part of his post she admired most.

To Ravitch, what follows is brilliant, unassailable. We found ourselves flashing back to the 60s:

RAVITCH (12/5/13): And here is his most brilliant, unforgettable, unassailable point:

“Arne Duncan and his ilk say that the fact that the same approach has failed for 10 straight years, means we need to keep doing it harder. Sensible people would say no, let’s forget about measuring with stupid standardized tests. Let the kids learn, remember that humans LOVE to learn stuff—it’s what we do as a species. And precisely nobody knows what knowledge of today is going to be the most useful or fun tomorrow. So let’s get rid of the idiotic focus on standardized tests and Big Data, and stop wasting so much money and time and energy on them. We’ve got all sorts of art and sports and drama and dance and music and technology and building stuff and real science and history and psychology to learn and to perform.”

That was the end of Ravitch’s post. We had the analysts check our papaya juice to see if someone had slipped us some acid, even on a weekday.

It’s certainly true that standardized tests have been misused and abused in a wide array of ways. For our money, it would be unwise to “forget about measuring with stupid standardized tests” as a result.

In the past, in the absence of such external checks, the majority culture tended to ignore the lagging performance of our so-called minority kids. Parents of minority children were persistently lied to about the progress of their own individual children. On a wider scale, the public was lied to too.

Results from an annual standardized test make that much harder to do.

We think it would be very unwise to eliminate standardized tests—but in our view, the second part of that highlighted statement is even stranger.

Back at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, we heard these same ideas. “Let the kids learn. Remember that humans LOVE to learn stuff—it’s what we do as a species.”

Let’s get the teachers out of the way and let the children learn!

In fairness, there’s a very strong germ of truth lurking inside that bell-bottomed sentiment. Good schools will often help children discover the joy of the search—the pleasure of reading; the fun of learning and analyzing; the importance of outreach and service.

That said, children won’t necessarily take these route on their own. That is especially true of children who may be years behind traditional norms in basic reading and math skills.

We’re sorry, but it isn’t the case that those beautiful kids will magically learn how to read on their own. For our money, Branderburg’s statement is off in the clouds, perhaps in the sky with diamonds.

That said, Ravitch’s new book, Reign of Error, is full of similar sentiments. In this passage from her post about the new PISA scores, she links similar airy-fairy ideas to a dose of American exceptionalism:

RAVITCH (12/3/13): The more we focus on tests, the more we kill creativity, ingenuity, and the ability to think differently. Students who think differently get lower scores. The more we focus on tests, the more we reward conformity and compliance, getting the right answer.

Thirty years ago, a federal report called “A Nation at Risk” warned that we were in desperate trouble because of the poor academic performance of our students. The report was written by a distinguished commission, appointed by the Secretary of Education. The commission pointed to those dreadful international test scores and complained that “on 19 academic tests American students were never first or second and, in comparison with other industrialized nations, were last seven times.” With such terrible outcomes, the commission said, “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.” Yet we are still here, apparently the world’s most dominant economy. Go figure.

Despite having been proved wrong for the past half century, the Bad News Industry is in full cry, armed with the PISA scores, expressing alarm, fright, fear, and warnings of imminent economic decline and collapse.

Never do they explain how it was possible for the U.S. to score so poorly on international tests again and again over the past half century and yet still emerge as the world’s leading economy, with the world’s most vibrant culture, and a highly productive workforce.

“Students who think differently get lower scores?” So do kids who can’t read.

As every flower child once knew, only conformists score well on tests! On balance, that statement is silly. And in that full passage, Ravitch comes dangerously close to accepting the mediocre American scores of the past—scores which were largely built on the very weak performance of deserving minority kids who were floundering badly in school and were badly in need of help.

Was that old regime really OK? Again and again in her current writings, Ravitch comes dangerously close to suggesting that only the squares would worry about the meaning of the low average scores this nation produced in the past.

We know where those low scores came from. We don’t think it was cool or OK.

According to Ravitch, “we are still here, apparently the world’s most dominant economy.” It’s amazing to see the liberal world mixing this strand of exceptionalism with the flower-child foolishness of the past. But Ravitch persistently pushes these themes as she thrashes about, trying to denounce the “reforms” on whose behalf she was pushing the overstatements just a few years ago.

In our view, Ravitch is strongly drawn to overstatement, whichever side she happens to be on at whatever time. Consider this post from December 5, in which she continues to promote a comparison which she knows to be bogus.

Ravitch’s post, which seems rather slick, starts with these words:

“Daniel Wydo, a teacher in North Carolina, sent this analysis of 2012 PISA.”

She then presents a 935-word essay in which Wydo makes a series of misleading comparisons between American PISA scores and those from higher-scoring nations.

In her current book, Ravitch notes that comparisons of this type are “technically” bogus. In her December 5 post, she made those comparisons anyway, speaking through Wydo’s words.

Midway through her post, Ravitch is still quoting Wydo. She lets him make a stirring claim she surely knows to be bogus:

RAVITCH (12/5/13): “This is not a new phenomenon. For every administration of PISA and TIMSS, when controlling for poverty, U.S. public school students are not only competitive, they downright lead the world.”

Even in context, that statement by Wydo is so imprecise that it’s virtually meaningless. That said, it conveys an upbeat but thoroughly bogus impression.

No, Virginia and Oklahoma! Even after “controlling for poverty,” American students do not “downright lead the world” on international tests in any meaningful sense.

In that post, Ravitch uses Wydo’s words as a way to promote a set of bogus comparisons and claims. In his essay, Wydo makes a type of comparison which is now quite popular among liberals who have been misinformed by figures like Ravitch in the recent past.

It’s popular, but it’s thoroughly bogus. Here’s what Wydo has done:

First, he takes the average PISA scores produced by American schools in which fewer than ten percent of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch. Then, he compares the average scores produced by those schools to the average scores produced by entire foreign countries.

Here’s what’s wrong with that:

For starters, “free or reduced price lunch” is not a measure of poverty. Wydo doesn’t seem to know that.

At present, roughly half of American students qualify for free or reduced price lunch. As a result, very few American schools fit the category Wydo describes—and these schools tend to be found in our most affluent neighborhoods.

In his comparison, Wydo isn’t presenting the average scores for the full range of American students “after controlling for poverty.” Instead, he is presenting the average scores for a small slice of the student population, a slice of students who attend schools in our most upscale neighborhoods.

What percentage of our student population attends these schools? What is their average socioeconomic rank? There’s no way to know such things! For that reason, it makes no sense to compare their average scores to the average scores of entire nations.

(Nor does that slice of our population always “lead the world.” On the 2012 PISA, those American students were outscored in math by the entire student populations of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea. Their average score was still quite good. But almost surely, they are a small, highly upscale slice of the population.)

In the last few years, these bogus comparisons have become quite popular among liberals. But they’re useless, bogus, grossly misleading—and to some extent, Ravitch knows this. In her new book, she continues to present these comparisons. But she includes this disclaimer (page 65):

“Technically, the comparison is not valid, because it involves comparing students in low-poverty schools with the average score for entire nations.”

That disclaimer grossly understates the problem with this type of comparison. But so what? Responding to the new PISA scores, Ravitch dispensed with disclaimers altogether. She simply posted what Wydo had sent.

It was Wydo who said it, not her!

It ought to be an embarrassment to see Ravitch argue this way. It ought to be, but it isn’t. Our “liberal” world more closely resembles the world of Fox with each passing day.

Can we talk? In the laziness of this unchallenged work; in our refusal to do any better; in our insouciance about these topics; in all these ways, we proudly display our liberal contempt for the interests of black kids. We also display the broken state of the American discourse.

Why should children know how to read and cipher? Our intellectual leaders can’t!

Tomorrow—Epilogue: The cult of the PISA! What Zakaria said