TUESDAY, MAY 30, 2023
Is everything as it seems? Last week, we explored a topic we called THE UNDISCUSSED.
This week, we're discussing THE SEARCH.
It's important to remain clear about the trigger for that current search. In the present circumstance, here's the specific question we're trying to answer:
We're trying to learn if everything is at it seems with the so-called "Mississippi miracle"—the subject of this AP report back on May 17.
The AP report dealt with Mississippi's performance in Grade 4 reading in last year's administration of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (Naep). According to the AP report, the so-called Mississippi miracle consists in such things as these:
In its lengthy piece, the AP correctly reports that Mississippi "went from being ranked the second-worst state in 2013 for [Grade 4] reading to 21st in 2022." Indeed, Mississippi's fourth graders slightly outscored the national average on this reading test.
The AP also reports that Mississippi has achieved "promising gains for low-income kids in particular."
More precisely, the AP correctly notes that Mississippi was the second highest scoring state in the nation in that category on the Grade 4 reading test. Remarkably, Mississippi's lower-income kids outscored the national average on this Grade 4 test by almost one full academic year.
The AP reported such data correctly, but is everything as it seems with these heartening average scores? We ask the same question about Mississippi's status as the fifth highest-performing state on the Grade 4 test among the nation's black kids:
Average scores, black students
Naep, Grade 4 reading, 2022
Washington state: 209.79
Massachusetts: 207.41
Florida: 206.82
Arizona: 205.19
Mississippi: 204.41
Texas: 203.98
Colorado: 203.88
New Jersey: 203.42
Maryland: 202.49
Georgia: 202.31
U.S. public schools: 198.12
We showed you those statistics yesterday. Mississippi's black fourth graders produced the fifth highest average score in the nation, among the 39 states with a large enough number of black kids to produce a statistically useful score. They outscored the national average among their peers by more than half a year.
Those are some of the data behind what the AP headlined as the "Mississippi miracle."
Summarizing, Mississippi outperformed the national average among fourth-black graders as a group. It ranked especially high among lower-income fourth graders and black fourth graders—scoring second and fifth in the nation, respectively.
To its vast credit, Mississippi has plainly been working very hard to improve its public school performance. We know of no reason—none at all—to think that anyone has misbehaved in any way in administration of the Naep.
That said, it has often turned out that impressive test scores aren't exactly what they seem. The Associated Press took those heartening data at face value.
In the past, this has often worked out poorly. Our question:
Should the AP have conducted a more detailed search?
Karen is innocent.
ReplyDeleteIf Karen wants to fade back into obscurity, you are not helping her live down what she did.
DeleteShe wants her job.
DeleteSomeone with poor judgement should perhaps not be reinstated.
DeleteShe has retained an employment attorney. You may contribute to her gofundme.
DeleteOr not.
DeleteYou may contribute to the young man’s gofundme. I don’t know why he needs a lawyer. Maybe he’s planning to sue Karen.
DeleteMaybe Mississippi had dropped phonics and scored great gains by bringing it back.
ReplyDeletePhonics Anonymouse will be pleased to know that the state is crediting a system called LETRS that includes phonics.
DeleteYou could test your theory by looking at whether Mississippi ever had high NAEP scores before in the past few decades. If you go back to the 50s, there will not be many black kids in the cohort.
DeleteHere is a description of the battle between phonics and whole word literacy in Mississippi, somewhat biased toward phonics. It details the history of reading instruction in that state, and makes it pretty clear that there wasn't phonics before and that use of phonics is a new mandate. However, it isn't clear whether the increased training in reading instruction or the specific use of phonics is responsible for the improvement. Untrained teachers won't do well no matter what approach they use and it seems clear that most teachers were untrained previously.
This article says explicitly that all kids learn to read the same way, but that isn't supported by statistics. About 35% learn to read no matter how they are taught, some before they enter school. About 95% of kids can be taught to read with instruction. About 40-45% need clear and consistent fundamentals (such as phonics), and 10-15% are "dyslexic" which is a catchall term for those who have great difficulty learning to read and need structured literacy program. Treating all of these kids as if they were the same if probably a mistake and the phonics people are unwilling to acknowledge this, saying "all children learn to read the same way because of minds are more alike than different." They also say that the natural, early readers are not harmed by learning phonics, but I tend to think they would be bored to death by such an approach.
Somerby's contention that the schools may have cheated on the NAEP is unhelpful in the context of such a discussion. Perhaps he is going to say next that no one really learns to read and that people who claim to be good readers are pretending. Or may be is the phonics enthusiasts who are cheating on the tests in order to promote their favorite reading approach? Anything is possible.
Sorry, forgot to include the link:
Deletehttps://hechingerreport.org/kids-struggle-to-read-when-schools-leave-phonics-out/
Anonymouse 4:31pm: “Somerby's contention that the schools may have cheated on the NAEP is unhelpful in the context of such a discussion. Perhaps he is going to say next that no one really learns to read and that people who claim to be good readers are pretending. Or may be is the phonics enthusiasts who are cheating on the tests in order to promote their favorite reading approach? Anything is possible.”
DeleteSomerby has expressly stated that there is no indication of cheating on the Naep.
One question that was voiced in an article that I read is that Mississippi has a very high rate retention for third graders.
There could be other factors that could have affected the Mississippi test scores. It certainly is a the job of journalists reporting on a topic to education themselves about it and to ask salient questions.
I read before I started school. Phonics was boring but harmless. It seems to be helpful for most kids.
DeleteThe issue of holding back kids was found to be not a factor.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:27pm, what malign cynic and ugly pessimist was so unreasonable as to ask such a question in the first place?
DeleteThere is a cost to boring kids in early grades. It teaches them not to pay attention, can make them dislike school. When asked to do purposeless work, kids rebel and refuse to do homework forming bad study habits. Later when difficult work requires effort, they may not have the skills, especially persistence. And being bored is an aversive, unpleasant state. A kid may act out to relieve boredom and be rewarded with attention by peers, becoming a class clown or disruptive, which gets in the way of all learning. Glad it worked out for you, but others may be less fortunate.
DeleteYes, kids who don't need phonics instruction should be exempted from it. Kids who need it -- most kids -- should get it.
Delete55-60%. Is that really “most kids”?
Delete“ One question that was voiced in an article that I read is that Mississippi has a very high rate retention for third graders.” Of course that’s what he’s referring to. He himself posted about it several years ago. But that has been debunked. Why else is he being so vague?
Delete“There could be other factors that could have affected the Mississippi test scores. It certainly is a the job of journalists reporting on a topic to education themselves about it and to ask salient questions.”
DeleteDid you read the original AP report? Did Somerby discuss it in any detail? It actually goes into a number of items that seem to help explain the results. It states this, among other other things:
“Mississippi, for one, holds students back in third grade if they cannot pass a reading test but also gives them multiple chances to pass after intensive tutoring and summer literacy camps.”
There’s plenty in the report to stimulate an intelligent discussion, but it doesn’t seem to be the product of unintelligent reporting.
mh, because he’s not the type of person who believes in miracles. He wonders about stuff.
DeleteBob avers there is no evidence of anything amiss. But he’s certainly not like an anonymouse who can creepily pretend that it’s cynical for a…wait for it…journo to be “inquiring” as to a surprising turn around.
He insisted the journos should investigate. That is definitely cynical.
DeleteAnonymouse 8:46pm, it’s called practicing journalism.
DeleteNo, it isn’t. It is tiresome the way you fall in line behind Somerby’s stupidest statements.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:47pm, Bob has been blogging for a long time.
DeleteHe has said much stupider things than that journos should ask questions.
There is a big difference between investigating cheating and "asking questions".
DeleteAsk yourself why someone who purports to care about black kids would automatically disbelieve reports of progress in their classroom?
Anonymouse 9:32am, investigating the reasons for success and the possibility that things aren’t what they seem, go hand-in-hand with any sort of reporting.
DeleteIt should be a given that there might be factors aside from cheating that could have impacted the results. It’s the job of all involved in planning or relaying the information to consider that fact.
Journalism is not synonymous with stenography or hoping that progress is an allusion. It wasn’t only black kids who improved. It’s not an insult to anyone for journos to ask questions.
"Should the AP have conducted a more detailed search?"
ReplyDeleteShould the AP have assumed that the scores might be fraudulent and investigated them for cheating before reporting the NAEP results as they came from the NAEP administrators? Should any report on any subject automatically investigate for fraud, cheating, scandal, along with reporting the news itself? Do we assume that everyone is rotten before being proven otherwise (via investigation)? Or do we accept results at face value and report them as valid, until proven otherwise?
In fact, shouldn't we assume that every man has misbehaved sexually and treat him as a suspicious miscreant when discussing anything that man has accomplished in life -- he might be another Harvey Weinstein or Jeffrey Epstein? Shouldn't we assume that every investment firm is Bernie Madoff and every politician is Trump? Shouldn't every young first-time representative running for office be treated like Santos?
Somerby is being ridiculous. For one thing, the AP doesn't have the resources to do such investigations and still report the news. Second, the accused cheaters in school testing are no more frequent and perhaps a good deal less frequent than the cheating in other fields, especially business. Third, Somerby's claim that no one discusses such cheating has been shown to be wrong via links to various media. Fourth, as discussed, the NAEP is least likely to have been meddled with. The AP should put its investigative efforts into checking out more likely sources of cheating. Fifth, cheating that has been discovered was uncovered using in-place procedures and vigilante staff, not the AP (whose job is not investigating cheating in educational testing).
For myself, I am more than willing to believe that Mississippi has changed its teaching practices and instituted new programs to address learning problems in early grades and as a result of those demonstrable efforts has produced improved scores. The efforts of the teachers in that state support the data, suggesting there is no chicanery and a good explanation for their improved scores.
"Should any report on any subject automatically investigate for fraud, cheating, scandal, along with reporting the news itself?"
DeleteOnly if the subject is brought up by a Republican. You'd have to be a mainstream media political reporter, to miss the fact the whole party is nothing but a giant grift.
At Ellis Island in the 1920's, if an immigrant could not pass an IQ test in English, he was classified as "mentally deficient" and shipped back to the old country.
ReplyDelete"Summarizing, Mississippi outperformed the national average among fourth-black graders as a group."
ReplyDeleteBut can Somerby pass that test? What is a black grader?
"We showed you those statistics yesterday. Mississippi's black fourth graders produced the fifth highest average score in the nation, among the 39 states with a large enough number of black kids to produce a statistically useful score. They outscored the national average among their peers by more than half a year."
ReplyDeleteIs it prejudice against Mississippi that keeps Somerby from believing the scores are valid, or prejudice against black kids? When someone says "you must have cheated" it is not a compliment.
In the film Stand and Deliver, about Jaime Escalante's efforts to teach calculus to Garfield High School students (a majority Hispanic school in East Los Angeles), there is a scene where the kids ace the AP Calculus exam. The testing authorities decide their results were impossible for barrio Mexican American kids, so they must have cheated. They withhold their scores pending investigation -- the kind of investigation Somerby seems to be calling for here, in this situation.
ReplyDeleteIn the movie, the hesitancy of the Advanced Placement official to accept their scores is framed as prejudice, racism. They haven't seen the hard work portrayed by the film, among both the students and the teacher himself, who must overcome a variety of obstacles. They assume, based on the race, sterotyping of Hispanics, and the prior performance of the high school, that cheating occurred, much as Somerby would like to assume today. There is no benefit-of-the-doubt for minority kids, and that is what bias looks like in real life. This film is based on a true story, although Escalante's ability to motivate and teach calculus to his students was controversial in his own time and there were some who thought he was abusing his students (via bullying) despite their accomplishments.
Somerby is wrong when he insists that the AP should "investigate" improvements made by minority kids. That is just racist, unless the results of all kids are similarly investigated, including those of white prep school kids, who are just as likely to feel pressure to cheat, if not more so due to the high expectations of their parents, who pressure them to pursue specific paths to success.
Again, I am glad that Somerby is not teaching any more. If he were to accuse any of his black students of cheating after a strong performance, he would hurt them at a time when they are vulnerable to teacher responses to their efforts.
It’s not the kids who cheat. It’s teachers and administrators.
DeleteBut I don’t think anyone cheated in Mississippi. I think their improvement is genuine, and the natural result of phonics.
It is the kids whose performance is being impugned, whoever does the cheating. It is accusing the kids of being stupid.
DeleteNo. Cheating by adults does not imply that kids are stupid. Kids who aren't learning deserve help, not dishonestly raised scores.
DeleteHaving to raise scores means the kids were doing badly and not giving the right answers on their own.
DeleteThe second amendment is evil.
ReplyDeleteYou too can emigrate to Russia.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/donmoyn/status/1663615880435990532
School closings because of covid did particular harm to poor kids. Did Alabama or Mississippi have less shutdown than average?
ReplyDeleteThey are red states.
DeleteDefund the Supreme Court.
ReplyDeleteWe live in a barred spiral galaxy.
ReplyDelete