MISSISSIPPI'S KIDS: Relentless score gains over the years!

FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 2023

Matched by relentless indifference: Yesterday, in an interlude, we invited you to return to the days of Jonathan Kozol's first book.

That took us back to the mid-1960s. It took us back to the fateful year when Kozol taught fourth grade in a crumbling "inner city" public school in his native Boston.

Just for today, let's detour away from Mississippi's deserving present-day kids. Let's talk about the state of play, nationwide, during those long-ago years.

As scored by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (Naep), tremendous progress has been recorded since those very bad, very segregated years. That said, you've never read about those relentless score gains in the New York Times. 

Does anyone at the Times even care?

The Naep wasn't yet in existence during that first Kozol year. It came into existence in the early 1970s, starting with the series of tests which are now referred to, by the Naep, as The Long-Term Trend Assessment.

As we explained last Friday, The Long-Term Trend Assessment now operates as a companion, or as a supplement, to the so-called Main Naep. From its start in the early 1970s, this original testing program tested 9-year-old students, 13-year-old students, and 17-year-old students, regardless of what grade they were in, in both reading and math.

In short, the Naep now runs two separate assessments. In effect, they operate as checks on each other.

The Long-Term Trend Assessment began in the early 1970s—and it continues today. Its voluminous data seem to record tremendous academic progress by various groups of American kids over the past fifty years.

(For all Long-Term Trend Assessment data, start here.)

How much academic progress have black kids shown on the Long-Term Trend Assessment? Below, you see some scores which date all the way back to the earliest years of that program.

Good lord! Over the course of forty-plus years, the score gains seem very large:

Average scores, 9-year-old black kids
Reading, Long-Term Trend Assessment
1975: 181.21
1980: 189.35
1984: 185.73 

[...] 

2008: 203.72
2012: 206.48
2020: 204.80

On its face, that's a record of enormous progress, extending into even the first Covid year. According to a very rough but conventional rule of thumb, 9-year-old black kids were outscoring their peers from the early 1980s by something like two academic years when they took this test in 2012, then again in 2020.

On its face, that was a record of enormous progress on the part of the nation's black kids. The New York Times has never told its readers about this apparent progress. Simply put, score gains on the Naep almost never get discussed.

In 2022's Long-Term Trend Assessment, the average score by 9-year-old black kids in reading fell by roughly six points, to 198.77. Presumably, that was the academic cost of the Covid dislocations.

Even with that, black 9-year-olds were vastly outscoring their peers from the early Kozol years. Completing the picture, here are some average scores from the Long-Term Trend Assessment's corresponding math test:

Average scores, 9-year-old black kids
Math, Long-Term Trend Assessment
1978: 192.37
1982: 194.94
1986: 201.58 

[...] 

2008: 224.13
2012: 226.27
2020: 225.20
2022: 211.81

In math, the score gains were even larger. According to that very rough rule of thumb, the gain here, over forty years, resembled three academic years! 

(On this test, the loss to Covid was huge.)

For the record, statistical rules of thumb tend to break down when we reach the fringes of their applicability. There is no way to offer a precise measure of the academic gains black kids were recording over the course of those years.

That said:

On their face, the score gains here were enormous. So was the silence from organs like the New York Times and the Washington Post, where clueless pundits kept telling their readers that nothing had worked in the public schools thanks to the laziness of our public school teachers with their infernal unions.

Black kids' scores went up and up. In thrall to certain conservative notions of "education reform"—some of which we ourselves would support—mainstream journalists just keep insisting that nothing had worked in our schools.

We'll offer our normal assessment of this bizarre journalistic behavior. Simply put, our press elites don't care about any part of this, and they never have.

Unless something is grossly wrong with the Naep, Kozol taught in the Boston schools at a much more difficult time. The same could be said of our own situation when we met our initial fifth grade class, in the Baltimore City Schools in the autumn of 1969.

In that year, and in those which followed, we taught a whole bunch of good, decent kids. That said, at least as measured by the Naep, academic achievement in the public schools was much lower back then.

To what extent should you trust the numbers which have emerged from the Long-Term Trend Assessment? Also, how might we best describe the degree of academic improvement which seems to be reflected in those vastly higher math and reading scores?

In a nation which actually cared about matters like this, such questions would be carefully explored by major papers of record. Nothing like that ever happened as test scores by our nation's black kids soared.

(Starting with its inception in 1990, similar score gains were recorded, and were ignored, on what is now called the Main Naep.)

For the record, Naep scores went up for all major demographic groups. To this day, our mainstream journalists, and our constantly slumbering "education experts," have barely said a word.

With yesterday's news, we see it again. We see the big picture in this:

Except for the handful of kids who might get accepted to Harvard or Yale, mainstream elites—in the press corps and in the academy—don't seem to care a whole lot about this nation's black kids. 

They lavish attention on the top one or two percent, the ones who might get into Harvard. By and large, the others get disappeared. 

We're showing you how the numbers have changed since roughly the days of Kozol-in-Boston. No one has ever told you such things. Those score gains have been disappeared.

Today, our elites are worrying, as they like to do, about the handful of black kids who might go to Harvard. The rest of the time, they perform their moral greatness by pretending to care about the relative handful of black kids who might get into the nation's top academic high schools.

Other than that, our elites don't seem to care about black kids, and they never have.

We regard Kozol as a secular saint. We don't always agree with his views, but we love his sensibility.

We regard those undiscussed Naep score gains as an anthropology lesson. The lack of interest in those scores helps us see who we actually are. 

In our reports, we'll soon be returning to Mississippi's good, decent present-day kids. The data we have shown you today came from all over the nation.

Scores on the Naep just kept going up. Few people have ever heard.

For the record, yes: For the record, yes. You'll find roughly the same degree of score gains if you look at Grade 4 results from the so-called Main Naep.

(For all Main Naep data, start here.)

Those "Main Naep" score gains never got discussed either! Just as a simple matter of fact, no one cares about any of this, and there is very little sign that anyone ever will.

MISSISSIPPI'S KIDS: We were lucky enough to meet Jonathan Kozol!

THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2023

The silence of the stars: Long ago and far away, almost surely in the late 1970s, we were lucky enough to meet Jonathan Kozol.

We met him at an informal event staged by the futurist caucus of the U.S. House. We last saw him in Los Angeles, during the 2000 Democratic Convention.

Kozol's public career began at the time when the liberal world still cared about black kids. It began with his brilliant book, Death at an Early Age, which won a U.S. National Book in 1968.

We read that brilliant, beautiful book when we were still in college. For our money, its brilliant, beautiful opening paragraph could imaginably be seen as a bit misleading:

Death at an Early Age

Stephen is eight years old. A picture of him standing in front of the bulletin board on Arab bedouins shows a little light-brown person staring with unusual concentration at a chosen spot upon the floor. Stephen is tiny, desperate, unwell. Sometimes he talks to himself. He moves his mouth as if he were talking. At other times he laughs out loud in class for no apparent reason. He is also an indescribably mild and unmalicious child. He cannot do any of his school work very well. His math and reading are poor. In Third Grade he was in a class that had substitute teachers much of the year. Most of the year before that, he had a row of substitute teachers too. He is in the Fourth Grade now but his work is barely at the level of the Second. Nobody has complained about the things that have happened to Stephen because he does not have any mother or father. Stephen is a ward of the State of Massachusetts and, as such, he has been placed in the home of some very poor people who do not want him now that he is not a baby any more...

That's how this brilliant book began. That's how it begins today. To read the first chapter of Kozol's book, you can just click here.

Starting in the fall of 1969, we began teaching fifth grade in the Baltimore City Schools. For the record, in seven years of teaching fifth grade, we didn't encounter a lot of kids who were tiny, desperate, unwell. 

In the course of those seven years, we did encounter two (2) grade school kids who seemed to be deeply disturbed. By way of contrast, we encountered a lot of kids who were vibrant, active, decent and good—but who were being served rather poorly by the public schools of that era.

Like Stephen, these kids were often substantially "below grade level" in reading and math. This brings us back to something we wrote in yesterday's report.

Also, it brings us back to these numbers from last year's Grade 4 Naep reading test:

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
Naep, 2022
White kids, U.S. public schools: 226.03
Black kids, Mississippi: 204.41

There you see a pair of scores from last year's Naep reading test. As we noted yesterday, it seems to show that Mississippi's black fourth graders were performing two (2) academic years below the nation's white kids. 

(That is a very rough assessment. But it's derived from a standard, very rough rule of thumb in which ten points on the Naep scale is said to be roughly equivalent to one academic year.)

After just four years of graded instruction, those kids are two years behind their peers! And yet, in a grotesque and inexcusable performance, those data are part of a ten-year effort in Mississippi which Nicholas Kristof has characterized as "an educational revolution," even as he quoted an education expert from Harvard saying that Mississippi's reform effort has produced "a huge success story."

In our view, Nicholas Kristof and his expert are defining success way down! Here's what we told you yesterday about achievement gaps like the one we see in those data:

Sixty years ago, statistics like those would have been taken as a sign that a revolution was needed. In these very strange latter days, statistics like those are part of the claim that a miracle has taken place!

Back then, a gap like that would have been seen as a call to arms. Today, Kristof, his expert and the Associated Press are willing to say that those statistics are part of a miracle, a revolution, a huge success story!

Yesterday morning, we weren't thinking of Jonathan's brilliant book when we penned that statement. Later, yesterday afternoon, we looked back at Death at an Early Age. When we did, we recalled the specific way that award-winning volume began:

Death at an Early Age 

Stephen is eight years old. A picture of him standing in front of the bulletin board on Arab bedouins shows a little light-brown person staring with unusual concentration at a chosen spot upon the floor. Stephen is tiny, desperate, unwell. Sometimes he talks to himself. He moves his mouth as if he were talking. At other times he laughs out loud in class for no apparent reason. He is also an indescribably mild and unmalicious child. He cannot do any of his school work very well. His math and reading are poor. In Third Grade he was in a class that had substitute teachers much of the year. Most of the year before that, he had a row of substitute teachers too. He is in the Fourth Grade now but his work is barely at the level of the Second. Nobody has complained about the things that have happened to Stephen because he does not have any mother or father. Stephen is a ward of the State of Massachusetts and, as such, he has been placed in the home of some very poor people who do not want him now that he is not a baby any more...

In Jonathan's rendering, Stephen couldn't "do any of his school work very well. His math and reading are poor...He is in the Fourth Grade now but his work is barely at the level of the Second."

Stephen was two years behind after only four years in school! Way back in that early era, Kozol saw that as an outrage, a problem. 

Today, our elites are willing to treat a "race gap" like that as part of a huge success story! It seems to us that this tells us something about our own tribe's fallen state.

As you know, the AP's report on Mississippi's (admirable) ten-year effort appeared on May 17. Kristof's lengthy essay in the New York Times appeared on June 1.

Given the data we've posted above, it's hard to find words for the moral and intellectual squalor into which our liberal elites have descended when it comes to a topic like this. That said, it's exactly as we've always told you:

Our liberal elites stopped caring about the lives and the interests of the nation's black kids a very long time ago.

Today, we'll leave you with a question, just as we did yesterday. Once again, our question goes like this:

Who could possibly think that the data we've posted above are part of a "huge success story?" Who could think such a thing?

We'll leave you today with one additional observation, and with one additional question. Good people, riddle us this:

In the six weeks since that AP report appeared, you've never heard a single word about Mississippi's kids on our blue tribe's "cable news" channel. 

None of our favorite corporate stars has uttered so much as a single word. They haven't discussed Mississippi's kids.

Why do you think that is?

Tomorrow: Another brief interlude

MISSISSIPPI'S KIDS: Why would we call this a revolution?

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 2023

For today, a brief interlude: In his lengthy report for the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof described the key reform.

Kristof is a good, decent person; he has superlative values. On this one unfortunate occasion, he was describing a changed procedure in Mississippi's public schools:

KRISTOF (6/1/23): Perhaps the most important single element of the 2013 legislative package was a test informally called the third-grade gate: Any child who does not pass a reading test at the end of third grade is held back and has to redo the year.

This was controversial. Would this mean holding back a disproportionate share of Black and brown children from low-income families, leaving them demoralized and stigmatized? What about children with learning disabilities?

In fact, the third-grade gate lit a fire under Mississippi. It injected accountability: Principals, teachers, parents and children themselves were galvanized to ensure that kids actually learned to read. Each child’s progress in reading is carefully monitored, and those who lag—as early as kindergarten and ramping up in second and third grades—are given additional tutoring.

According to Kristof, roughly 9 percent of the state's third graders are required to repeat third grade under terms of this ten-year-old reform. 

This may be a good or a bad idea; opinions continue to differ. But for most purposes, this third grade retention policy makes it harder to compare Mississippi's Grade 4 Naep scores to Naep scores from an array of other states which don't hold third graders back.

At any rate:

In Kristof's rendering, the reforms in that 2013 legislative package touched off an "education revolution" in Mississippi's public schools. Back on May 17, the Associated Press had even floated the term "Mississippi miracle" with respect to that state's (fourth grade) score gains over roughly the past ten years.

At least three different questions are raised by Kristof's claim—by his claim that an "education revolution" is underway in Mississippi's public schools. We'll plan to address all three questions in this Friday's report. 

For today, an interlude! We'll ask you to ponder this:

Below, you see some Grade 4 reading scores from the 2022 Naep. We'll include some math scores too. Our question to you will be this:

Who can look at those Naep scores and say that a miracle—or a revolution, or "a huge success story"—has taken place in Mississippi? Why in the world would a sensible person want to say such a thing?

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
Naep, 2022
White kids, U.S. public schools: 226.03
Black kids, Mississippi: 204.41

Average scores, Grade 4 math
Naep, 2022
White kids, U.S. public schools: 244.08
Black kids, Mississippi: 220.03

Sixty years ago, statistics like those would have been taken as a sign that a revolution was needed. In these very strange latter days, statistics like those are part of the claim that a miracle has taken place!

Let's be a bit more precise:

In last year's Naep testing, Mississippi's black fourth graders scored roughly two academic years behind the nation's white kids, in reading and in math. And that's after just four years of graded instruction, with a statistical advantage to Mississippi almost surely thrown in.

Nicholas Kristof is a good, decent person. Having made that obvious statement, we think we should ask you this:

Two years behind after four years of school? What kind of person would call such results "a huge success story?" Based on results like that, why would any decent person choose to say that "an education revolution" is underway, or has taken place?

Does anybody actually care about this nation's black kids? Over the course of the past fifty years, the answer has routinely been no.

We're asking you to think about the strangeness of that—to stop averting your gaze.

Tomorrow: Another interlude

Friday: Three easy pieces

In praise of Renkl and her brother!

TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 2023

Sacred Thoreau and his joy: Our view? The New York Times got it right when it signed Margaret Renkl as "a contributing Opinion writer."

Having said that, also this:

Suffering is visible all over the globe. Even so, rightly or wrongly, Renkl's new essay bears an unusual headline:

The Nature of Joy

She's writing about the nature of joy! Right at the start of Renkl's column, she even cites her brother:

The Nature of Joy

NASHVILLE — Thanks to a Covid infection early in the pandemic, my blood pressure goes haywire when the temperature and dew point are both very high, and I have trouble breathing when the air quality is poor, too, so I stay indoors much of the summer now. But last Sunday I woke early to the most beautiful day in the history of the world, as my brother calls every day of his life. All around my yard, the world was renewing itself.

[...]

While I was watching the robins from our living-room window, a tiny cottontail emerged from the depths of the pollinator garden. The wee rabbit would take a bite of clover and then leap straight up. It would take a bite of violet and then dash madly around the circumference of the pollinator bed, leaping and twisting in midair.

I can’t tell you how much delight I take in watching a young animal’s deep pleasure in existence, enjoying the power of its beautiful young body in a beautiful old world. 

With all the suffering in the world, should Renkl be discussing joy and her ability to take delight in the natural world? Should she be discussing the "deep pleasure in existence" a young animal feels as it explores "a beautiful old world?"

People will judge such questions for themselves. For ourselves, we're glad the Times hired this person.

Regarding Renkl's brother, he is said to call every day "the most beautiful day in the history of the world." To see how he supports that claim, we'll strongly suggest that you click this link, a link his sister provided.

Reading Renkl's latest "guest essay," we thought again of sacred Thoreau, living out by the pond. Even as our struggling nation's Civil War approached, even as so many suffered in bondage, he described an ecstatic delight, perhaps a first cousin to joy:

Solitude

This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself. As I walk along the stony shore of the pond in my shirt sleeves, though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy, and I see nothing special to attract me, all the elements are unusually congenial to me. The bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and the note of the whippoorwill is borne on the rippling wind from over the water. Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath...

Amid his nation's widespread suffering, should our Middlesex County neighbor have been spending his time on that?

There's no perfect answer to such questions. As always, the quandary rolls on.

MISSISSIPPI'S KIDS: After Grade 4, the miracle died!

TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 2023

And with it, the revolution: We'll borrow from sacred Chekhov:

Over the course of the past five weeks, "the new arrival on the front" has been those Mississippi Naep scores.

Specifically, we refer to Mississippi's recent scores on the Naep's Grade 4 reading test.  

As we noted yesterday, the numbers from that Grade 4 test can look amazingly good. As we showed you yesterday, here are three examples:

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
Lower-income kids, 2022 Naep
U.S. public schools: 202.67
Mississippi: 211.74

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
Lower-income black kids, 2022 Naep
U.S. public schools: 193.42
Mississippi: 202.76

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
Lower-income white kids, 2022 Naep
U.S. public schools: 211.49
Mississippi: 224.45

Mississippi's lower-income kids were outperforming their peers from across the nation. The gap was roughly a full academic year—and this was just in fourth grade!

This new arrival on the front became the topic of general conversation. The excitement started on May 17 with a lengthy report by the Associated Press. A thrilling word was right there in its headline:

‘Mississippi miracle’: Kids’ reading scores have soared in Deep South states

In fairness, the AP's Sharon Lurye didn't describe those scores as a "miracle." In her lengthy report, she merely said that other souls were tossing that term around.

On June 1, Nicholas Kristof followed suit in the New York Times. To his credit, Kristof didn't use the word "miracle" at all. But he did say these things, headline included:

Mississippi Is Offering Lessons for America on Education

The refrain across much of the Deep South for decades was “Thank God for Mississippi!” That’s because however abysmally Arkansas or Alabama might perform in national comparisons, they could still bet that they wouldn’t be the worst in America. That spot was often reserved for Mississippi.

So it’s extraordinary to travel across [Mississippi] today and find something dazzling: It is lifting education outcomes and soaring in the national rankings...

[...]

The revolution here in Mississippi is incomplete, and race gaps persist, but it’s thrilling to see the excitement and pride bubbling in the halls of de facto segregated Black schools in some of the nation’s poorest communities.

[...]

Mississippi has achieved its gains despite ranking 46th in spending per pupil in grades K-12. Its low price tag is one reason Mississippi’s strategy might be replicable in other states. Another is that while education reforms around the country have often been ferociously contentious and involved battles with teachers’ unions, this education revolution in Mississippi unfolded with support from teachers and their union. 

Kristof was dazzled and thrilled by what he saw and heard during his drop-in visit to the low-income state. What he saw was an "education revolution," especially among the good, decent kids in Mississippi's "de facto segregated Black schools." 

Kristof was thrilled by what he saw. Along the way, he quoted an "education expert"—an education expert from Harvard, no less—and that education expert was quoted saying this:

KRISTOF: “Mississippi is a huge success story and very exciting,” David Deming, a Harvard economist and education expert, told me. What’s so significant, he said, is that while Mississippi hasn’t overcome poverty or racism, it still manages to get kids to read and excel.

“You cannot use poverty as an excuse. That’s the most important lesson,” Deming added. “It’s so important, I want to shout it from the mountaintop.” What Mississippi teaches, he said, is that “we shouldn’t be giving up on children.”

The expert had been to the mountaintop. He wanted to shout to the world.

Specifically, Mississippi's public school "get kids to excel," the education expert told Kristof. This wasn't an everyday success story—it was "a huge success story," the expert said. He was even willing to offer the thought that we shouldn't give up on kids!

These are the frameworks we've been offered, in recent weeks, about Mississippi's fully laudable, extensive effort to improve its public schools. 

That said, what has happened in Mississippi? The Associated Press floated the thought of a miracle. The miraculous story was so exciting, it even scored a fleeting mention on Morning Joe, with unsourced talk on an "Alabama miracle" thrown onto the pile.

The AP spoke of a miracle. According to Kristof, a thrilling "education revolution" is taking place in this low-income state. The Harvard education expert seemed to feel the same way. 

Full disclosures:

Once again, we offer nothing but praise for the many people in Mississippi who have worked, very hard, to improve that state's public schools. 

We taught in Baltimore's low-income schools from 1969 through 1982. Such schools were often very poorly run at that time. All across the country, and in Mississippi, a lot of people have worked very hard since that time to give kids a better break.

We also make this disclosure:

As a general matter, the New York Times' Nicholas Kristos has superlative values, Over the years, he has also been much too willing to believe the various things he's told about the nation's public schools.

He's willingly put his trust in princes, sometimes to bad effect. In his lengthy June 1 essay, we'd say that it's happened again.

This brings us to the education expert, who is surely a good person too. He got his doctorate in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School in 2010, though we'll have to admit that we're very surprised, and more often appalled and disgusted, to think that he said the various things he apparently said to Kristof.

Has a miracle happened in Mississippi? Is a thrilling "education revolution" underway in that low-income state?

Can "a huge success story" be found in those Grade 4 Naep scores, impressive as those numbers might seem to the naked or untrained eye?

Tomorrow, we'll show you why we find such statements astonishing and even offensive. That said, in the end, the current statements are really just more of the same.

For what it's worth, we don't believe that Mississippi's good and decent fourth grade kids are heavily outperforming their counterparts from around this struggling nation.

Everything is always possible. But we don't believe that that's true.

Everything is always possible; that would include even this. But we suspect that Mississippi's third grade retention policy has played a role in the creation of those Grade 4 reading scores, and we think it was journalistic and academic malpractice when the New York Times columnist and the Harvard economist didn't address the obvious possibility that those high Grade 4 scores are "a bit of a statistical mirage," inflated by that statewide practice.

A miracle is taking place in [INSERT LOCATION OF SCHOOL OR SCHOOLS]! We've seen this Storyline get hyped, on both the local and national levels, ever since the early 1970s, when it surfaced right here in the Baltimore Sun. 

On an annual basis, a completely well-intentioned columnist was singing the praises of a handful of "inner-city" schools which had extremely high test scores on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. If only teachers and principals in other schools would work that hard, the columnist explicitly said.

Alas! We had two good friends who were experienced teachers in one of those high-scoring schools. One weekend evening, over dinner, they told us about the extensive cheating at their school, extensive cheating which had produced those jaw-dropping Iowa Test scores.

We refer here to outright cheating, not to some limited form of "teaching to the test." For us, our interest in this recurrent story has continued along from there, through quite a few iterations over the past fifty years.

Langston Hughes' brilliant and beautiful, wizened "Negro" had known ancient rivers. We've seen an endless progression of these test score rivers too.

On balance, we think it's disgraceful to refer to Mississippi's Grade 4 scores as a sign of a thrilling "education revolution." Tomorrow or Thursday, we'll show you why we say that.

For today, we'll suggest that you simply gaze on what has once again been said. In this case, it's been said by two of our most important news orgs and also by one expert. 

Journalists have made these pleasing claims many times before, most frequently as the nation's education experts maintained their disgraceful silence. 

These pleasing claims have been made many times. Have these claims ever been true?

Tomorrow or Thursday: The miracle died in middle school. Plus, the size of that vast "race gap."

MISSISSIPPI'S KIDS: We don't agree with Kevin Drum...

MONDAY, JUNE 26, 2023

...concerning one basic point: We disagree with (the long-admired) Kevin Drum with respect to one basic point.

Before we revisit that basic point, let's recall why Nicholas Kristof claims that a revolution is underway in Mississippi's public schools.

Simply put, Mississippi's Grade 4 reading scores can look extremely good! For a full rundown, click here for last Thursday's report. 

Those reading scores can look very good. Here are three examples of what we're talking about:

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
Lower-income kids, 2022 Naep
U.S. public schools: 202.67
Mississippi: 211.74

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
Lower-income black kids, 2022 Naep
U.S. public schools: 193.42
Mississippi: 202.76

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
Lower-income white kids, 2022 Naep
U.S. public schools: 211.49
Mississippi: 224.45

For all Naep data, start here.

Holy cow! On the 2022 Naep reading test, Mississippi's lower income Grade 4 students outscored their counterparts across the U.S. by almost one academic year!  

Lower-income black kids also recorded a gap of that size when compared to their peers nationwide. Mississippi's lower income white kids were on the good end of a gap which was even larger.

On their face, those numbers can look extremely good. Something else is true, of course—an experienced, savvy observer won't automatically put his faith in such numbers.

It isn't that people cheat on the Naep. As far as we know, there's virtually no way to do so. Also, there are few incentives for anyone to do so, except perhaps on the level of a state superintendent.

That said, there are many ways for testing programs to produce misleading data. Any experienced person will automatically understand that—but through no particular fault of his own, Nicholas Kristof isn't an experienced education analyst.

Based upon his June 1 essay in the New York Times, Kristof pretty much accepted those Grade 4 reading scores at face value. In his essay, he said those apparently impressive scores were part of "a revolution" in Mississippi, a revolution based on new, improved ways of employing "the science of reading."

Having said that, how (perhaps slightly) odd! As you can see, Mississippi's Grade 4 scores on the Naep math test were almost equally impressive;

Average scores, Grade 4 math
Lower-income kids, 2022 Naep
National public schools: 222.73
Mississippi: 229.13

Average scores, Grade 4 math
Lower-income black kids, 2022 Naep
National public schools: 212.16
Mississippi: 218.80

Average scores, Grade 4 math
Lower-income white kids, 2022 Naep
National public schools: 232.50
Mississippi: 241.74

Holy cow all over again! As it turns out, Mississippi's lower-income Grade 4 kids outscored their counterparts in math by margins which were also quite impressive.

No one claims that Mississippi has found some new, improved way to teach grade school math. But the state's large array of lower-income kids outscored their counterparts nationwide in Grade 4 math as well, by a margin roughly two-thirds the size of their margin in reading.

Friend, are you inclined to think that data like those should be taken at face value? Long ago, we ourselves might have reacted that way—but long experience has taught us that (pleasing) data like these can be misleading, even where all parties are behaving in total good faith.

Example: 

Way back in 2006, the Washington Post ran a report across the top of its front page about the outstanding test scores at little, low-income Maury Elementary in Alexandria, Virginia. The banner headline said this: A Study in Pride, Progress.

After examining the statistical fine print, we showed that Maury's third graders actually had the second lowest reading scores of any school in the whole state of Virginia! In that case, the gross misdirection tracked back to several ludicrous administrative and statistical procedures which had been engineered within the state's education department. 

For our interview with the president of the Virginia Department of Education, you can just click here. Everyone agreed that the Post had been grossly misled by Mury's reported scores, but so were Post readers, of course. In our own direct and varied experience, this sort of thing had already been going on for decades at that point.

There are many ways for test score data to be significantly misleading. However pleasing such test scores may seem to be, data like those from Mississippi actually can be misleading. 

So can drive-by claims of "miracles" or "revolutions" from inexperienced journalists—from well-intentioned journalists who spend a day or two visiting some high-scoring school or school system, all the while believing the various things they get told.

If we actually care about the lives of this nation's low-income kids, we'll be very careful about the conclusions we draw from such pleasing data. Truth to tell, our tribunes in the press corps rarely exhibit such care, and our "education experts" simply never speak up when the state of play in the pubic schools is being misdescribed.

Question:

If no one cheated in any way to produce Mississippi's Grade 4 scores, how could those impressive scores possibly be misleading? 

You're asking a very good question! Luckily, we explained the possible problem with Mississippi's Naep scores way back on June 5, in this somewhat detailed report. 

We explained the possible statistical problem in detail that day. Here's the way the long-admired Drum has now (quite cogently) thumbnailed that possible statistical problem:

DRUM (6/23/23): Bob is skeptical of these scores for another reason: Mississippi's reforms included something called the "third-grade gate," which means holding back kids who can't pass a reading test at the end of the year. This is obviously going to improve scores for 4th graders, but it's a bit of a statistical mirage.

On the other hand, only 9% of Mississippi's third-graders are held back, so the effect is probably modest. 

It's just as Kevin says! As we explained on June 5, holding back an unusual number of lower-performing third-graders will almost surely "improve [the state of Mississippi's average] scores for 4th graders."

Also this:

To the extent that Mississippi's scores improve for that reason, the improvement in Grade 4 scores is, in fact, "a statistical mirage," just as Kevin says. 

Most simply put, a state which makes a lot of kids repeat third grade will almost surely have a statistical advantage over other states which don't. It's hard to make a valid comparison between states which hold a lot of kids back as opposed to states which don't.

In that passage, Kevin is describing the statistical problem we detailed on June 5. Having said that, we don't necessarily agree with his claim that the statistical advantage gained by Mississippi will "probably [be] modest."

As we showed you on June 5, the lowest-performing ten percent of fourth graders produce very low scores on Grade 4 Naep tests. Conceivably, eliminating those lowest performers from the population which gets tested could improve a state's average score by a fair amount, especially in the first year of the third grade retention program.

Does Mississippi's Grade 3 retention program explain those high Grade 4 Naep scores? We'll answer your question in this time-honored way:

Goofus doesn't want to bothered with such boring, tedious questions. Gallant insists that we should check the possibility out.

Putting it a different way, we would tell you this:

People who care about low-income kids won't be inclined to accept such feel-good test score data at face value. That said, alas:

For the past fifty years, our education journalists, such as they are, have tended to peddle the "feel good" stories, and they have then walked away. As for our alleged "education experts," they have tended to slumber and snore every darn step of the way:

Those alleged education experts! They slept through the endless cheating scandals which we first described, in the Baltimore Sun, back in the 1970s. Decades later, it fell to newspapers like USA Today to report the astonishing cheating scandals our alleged education experts had agreed to ignore.

Also this:

As we endlessly noted at this site, Naep scores improved for all demographic groups, on a nationwide basis, all through the 1990s and the 2000s—but so what? Even as those "disaggregated" Naep scores continued to climb for all major groups, our education experts refused to inform the public of this important fact, even as our hapless mainstream journalists kept insisting that "nothing has worked" in our public schools.

It's hard to have sufficient contempt for the decades of silence from these expert lambs. That said, this is the way our national discourse actually works, even among the academics and journalists who comprise our blue tribe's honored elite.

Our discourse works this way with respect to the public schools, but also with respect to a wide array of other subject areas. When it comes to the public schools, our education experts refuse to speak up. So too with massively-paid "cable news" stars like Rachel, Chris and Lawrence. You'll never hear about Mississippi's kids on our tribe's cable news shows.

In short, our blue tribe's elites are, at best, just extremely careless. At their worst, they don't seem to care about Mississippi's low-income kids, and the odds say they never will.

We disagree with Kevin Drum about the possible size of the "statistical mirage" created by that third-grade retention program. Before we liberals pleasure ourselves by saying a "revolution" is underway, we need to spend a bit more time pondering those somewhat unlikely statistics.

Is a revolution really underway in Mississippi's schools? Has a "Mississippi miracle" taken place in recent years?

We've seen this kind of careless journalistic behavior many times over the past fifty years. Our journalists feed us a pleasing tale about some vast success somewhere. As a general matter, we don't discuss our low-income schools for the next quite a few years.

In our next report, we'll show you what Kristof's revolution looks like on the Grade 8 level. Spoiler alert:

On the Grade 8 level in Mississippi, Kristof's "revolution" looks like a revolution which has failed. Or did that alleged revolution simply never happen? Our blue tribe's history is quite clear here. It has been a very long time since we actually seemed to care.

Mississippi is full of good decent (low income) kids with good decent (low income) parents. As Langston Hughes once put it, life for them ain't been no crystal stair.

On the highest levels of our own tribe's discourse, no one actually cares about such children and such parents. Over the course of the past fifty years, the evidence in support of that claim has been surprising but clear:

Within the elites of our self-impressed tribe, no one cares about low-income kids. Also, the odds are quite good that nobody ever will.

Why don't our tribe's major stars discuss the lives of Mississippi's kids? For those who are willing to see, the answer is blindingly clear.

Tomorrow or Wednesday: Mississippi's Grade 8 scores

After that: The expert's tale

MISSISSIPPI'S KIDS: Kristof cites three points of concern!

SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 2023

Skips past what's blindingly obvious: What the heck has been going on with Mississippi's public school kids?

Has a "Mississippi miracle"occurred in that state's public schools? Carelessly, the Associated Press was willing to float that pleasing idea in the headline to this pleasing report back on May 17:

‘Mississippi miracle’: Kids’ reading scores have soared in Deep South states

That's the headline which appeared above Sharon Lurye's lengthy AP report. According to the careless report, reading scores have "soared" to the point where some people are tossing the M-word around!

On June 1, Nicholas Kristof followed with a lengthy essay on this topic in the New York Times. To his credit, Kristof never let the silly term "miracle" intrude on his lengthy report.

That said, the true-believing non-expert did throw the R-word in. A "revolution" is underway in Mississippi's schools, the non-expert New York Times columnist quickly suggested or said:

KRISTOF (6/1/23): In the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a series of nationwide tests better known as NAEP, Mississippi has moved from near the bottom to the middle for most of the exams—and near the top when adjusted for demographics. Among just children in poverty, Mississippi fourth graders now are tied for best performers in the nation in NAEP reading tests and rank second in math.

[...]

“Mississippi is a huge success story and very exciting,” David Deming, a Harvard economist and education expert, told me. What’s so significant, he said, is that while Mississippi hasn’t overcome poverty or racism, it still manages to get kids to read and excel.

“You cannot use poverty as an excuse. That’s the most important lesson,” Deming added. “It’s so important, I want to shout it from the mountaintop.” What Mississippi teaches, he said, is that “we shouldn’t be giving up on children.”

The revolution here in Mississippi is incomplete, and race gaps persist, but it’s thrilling to see the excitement and pride bubbling in the halls of de facto segregated Black schools in some of the nation’s poorest communities.

In Kristof's non-expert assessment, the revolution is incomplete. But a "revolution" in Mississippi's public schools is already underway!

According to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tom and Daisy Buchanan were "careless people," possessed of "vast carelessness." In our view, Lurye and Kristof are also behaving carelessly when they apply terms like miracle and revolution to the changes currently underway in Mississippi's public schools.

We think they're repeating a familiar process of the past (at least) fifty years. In this very familiar process, journalists drop in on a set of high-scoring public schools, then quickly fly away, leaving pleasing but unfounded claims in their immediate wake.

Having said that, let's be fair:

In the passage we've posted above, Kristof refers to Mississippi's improved test scores on the Naep Grade 4 reading and math tests. In the main, it's those improved Grade 4 Naep scores which have led Kristof to declare that a revolution is underway. 

Those Naep scores signal a revolution, Kristof seems to say. But to his credit, he also cites three points of concern which darken the picture somewhat.

In doing so, he skips right past the obvious statistical problem with the revolution he announces. In fairness, though, he does cite these three points of potential concern;

KRISTOF: The revolution here in Mississippi is incomplete, and race gaps persist, but it’s thrilling to see the excitement and pride bubbling in the halls of de facto segregated Black schools in some of the nation’s poorest communities.

[...]

With such a focus on learning to read, one of the surprises has been that Mississippi fourth graders have also improved significantly in math. One possible explanation is that some math problems require reading; another is that children try harder in all subjects when they enjoy school.

[...]

One challenge is that while Mississippi has made enormous gains in early grades, the improvement has been more modest in eighth-grade NAEP scores. Still, the state has made progress in several areas that help upper grades: getting parents more involved and promoting vocational education, in addition to raising high school graduation rates.

Race gaps persist, Kristof correctly says. He fails to note how large those race gaps seem to be, even on the Grade 4 level. 

To see how large those (very large) race gaps are, click here for Thursday's report. Presumably, a revolution with gaps like that is no revolution at all.

Kristof notes a second disquieting fact:

The alleged revolution has been underway for almost a decade now. That said, the apparent improvement in Grade 4 performance hasn't been matched on Mississippi's Grade 8 Naep tests—and a revolution which dies before the end of middle school is no revolution at all.

Kristof notes a third somewhat peculiar point. The miracle people are talking about has allegedly been created by the way Mississippi now teaches reading in the early grades—by the way the state now employs phonics instruction and the so-called "science of reading."

That said, why would an improvement in the teaching of reading also lead to impressive score gains on the Grade 4 test in math? Kristof offers a pair of sensible speculations, but a more experienced education journalist wouldn't cast these points of concern aside with such careless abandon. 

Of course, Kristof isn't an education journalist at all. In the aftermath of the AP report, he dropped in on some low-income schools in Mississippi. A day or two later, he flew away, failing to show much skepticism about what he thought he had seen or about the things he'd been told.

This makes us think of Tom and Daisy. Fitzgerald portrayed them as shown:

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

In fairness, Kristof hasn't smashed anything up with this latest example of New York Times "education tourism." But he left his readers with a vastly inflated sense of assurance that a public school revolution is now underway in that low-income state, one which other states could easily copy.

Such writing performs the function it has performed for the past fifty years. It permits Times readers to breathe a sigh of relief about the good and decent kids within our low-income schools. 

It permits Times readers to feel good about low-income schooling—to feel that they no longer have to worry about Mississippi's kids. Our liberal world has been behaving in this careless way for at least the past fifty years.

Alas! In an extremely careless way, Kristof blew right past one seemingly obvious reason for Mississippi's higher Grade 4 Naep scores:

We refer to the obvious statistical advantage gained by a state which adopts Mississippi's third grade retention policy, in which third graders who can't pass a reading test are held back for a second year in third grade.

As we noted before our recent surgery, this retention policy conveys an obvious statistical advantage on Mississippi at the Grade 4 level. In our next report on this topic, we'll run through that blindingly obvious point again—and we'll start to show you the data which lie behind Kristof's fleeting sense of concern about those Grade 4 math tests, and about Mississippi's relative failure to thrive on the Grade 8 level.

We applaud the state of Mississippi for the efforts it is making in its public schools. That said, this latest example of New York Times education journalism is a careless non-competent mess.

As for this nation's education experts, they've been AWOL at times like this for many decades now. They've slept through one such situation after another. They've been silent, incompetent and vastly careless on their Ivy campuses.

Mississippi's kids are decent and good. Our high-end elites, somewhat less.

Coming Monday: Those high Grade 4 math scores

INTERLUDE: What the heck is the NAEP?

FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 2023

Main Naep as opposed to Long-Term Trend Assessment: In yesterday morning's New York Times, Dana Goldstein penned a somewhat cogent report about the latest batch of test scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (Naep).

At various points, the report was well written. That said, the news was unmistakably bad.  Headline included, Goldstein's report began as shown:

What the New, Low Test Scores for 13-Year-Olds Say About U.S. Education Now

The math and reading performance of 13-year-olds in the United States has hit the lowest level in decades, according to test scores released today from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the gold-standard federal exam.

The last time math performance was this low for 13-year-olds was in 1990. In reading, 2004.

Performance has fallen significantly since the 2019-2020 school year, when the coronavirus pandemic wrought havoc on the nation’s education system. But the downward trends reported today began years before the health crisis, raising questions about a decade of disappointing results for American students.

Without any question, the Covid pandemic seems to have affected public school performance in a substantial way. That said, Goldstein failed to distinguish between the two different testing programs which are administered as part of the Naep.

Over the course of the next week, we'll continue to look at the widely discussed Naep scores which have been recorded, in recent years, by kids in the Mississippi public schools. In hopes of eliminating possible confusion, let's describe the two (2) parallel testing programs administered within the Naep.

The so-called "Main Naep"

The so-called Main Naep has been in existence since 1990. As its name suggests, it's now considered to be the Naep's primary testing program.

Among other subjects, the Main Naep tests students in Grades 4, 8 and 12 in reading and math. Due to the size of the samples of students who get tested, the Main Naep is able to report reliable data for the nation as a whole, and for each of the fifty states.

In writing about Mississippi's public schools, the Associated Press was referring to that state's performance in recent years on the so-called Main Naep. Until a one-year delay in 2021 due to Covid, the Main Naep was being administered on a biannual basis.

The Long-Term Trend Assessment

Goldstein's report in the New York Times referred to brand new data from the Naep's parallel testing program, The Long-Term Trend Assessment. Like the Main Naep, this program tests students in reading and math—but it tests students who are 9, 13, and 17 years old, regardless of what grade they're in.

Key point—the so-called Long-Term Trend Assessment is older than the Main Naep! The program dates to the early 1970s, when the federal government began tracking student achievement. 

This original testing program is now administered more rarely than the Main Naep. As noted, Goldstein was reporting new results from the 2022-2023 school year.  Before that, the Long-Term Trend Assessment had last been administered in 2020, and in 2012 before that. 

For Kevin Drum's overview, click here.

When we return to Mississippi's kids, we'll be discussing the way they've performed in recent years on the Main Naep. That said, this passage from Goldstein's report applies to Naep testing in general:

GOLDSTEIN: In the highly decentralized American education system, NAEP is one of the few consistent tests given across states lines over many years, making the results easily comparable.

Scores on the exam do not result in any rewards or punishments for students, teachers or schools, making them especially useful for research purposes, since there are fewer incentives to cheat or teach to the test.

As compared to our various statewide testing programs, "there are fewer incentives to cheat or teach to the test" on the Naep?

We applaud Goldstein for her explicit reference to the outright "cheating" which has often occurred on less secure statewide tests. If anything, though, she may be understating the matter:

As far as we know, it isn't just that there are fewer incentives to cheat on the Naep. As far as we know, there are fewer opportunities for misguided teachers and principals to do so, given the way the Naep is administered.

We assume the worst about data from statewide tests. With a few caveats thrown in, we assume that the Naep's results are basically reliable.

That said, why have you never seen these matters fleshed out in more detail—in the New York Times, for example? 

Answer! Because no one actually cares about this, and no one ever will!

As always: According to Goldstein, "The last time math performance was this low for 13-year-olds was in 1990."

That's true if you don't disaggregate. If you make a few basic statistical adjustments, and if you also consult the Main Naep, less gloomy pictures emerge.

There has still been substantial loss, especially in the Covid years. But the picture isn't as thrillingly bad.

MISSISSIPPI'S KIDS: For one brief, shining (illusory) moment...

THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2023

...these Naep scores can look very good: Below, you see one of the sets of Naep test scores which helped launch a thousand ships.

If you're prepared to suspend disbelief, these numbers can look very good:

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
2022 Naep
U.S. public schools: 216.11
Mississippi: 217.16

For all Naep data, start here.

Say what? Mississippi's fourth graders outperformed their peers from across the nation on the most recent Naep test? They managed to do so despite the many demographic challenges in their economically challenged state?

On its face, a result like that can have the feel of a revolution—possibly even a miracle. And let the word go forth to the nations:

When we perform some thoroughly normal "statistical adjustments," Mississippi's performance on that test looks even better still.

Mississippi has an unusual number of kids who hail from lower income homes. It has more black kids than the average state—and black kids typically underperform white kids and Asian kids on measures of educational achievement.

Despite those demographic challenges, Mississippi's good and decent fourth grade kids outscored their nationwide peers! And here's the way the numbers look when we perform one basic set of statistical adjustments:

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
White kids, 2022 Naep
U.S. public schools: 226.03
Mississippi: 229.53

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
Black kids, 2022 Naep
U.S. public schools: 198.12
Mississippi: 204.41

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
Hispanic kids, 2022 Naep
U.S. public schools: 204.34
Mississippi: 213.71

Say what? Mississippi's good and decent black fourth graders outscored their peers around the nation by roughly two-thirds of an academic year?

(By a very rough but widely used rule of thumb, ten points on the Naep scales is said to be, very roughly, the equivalent of one academic year.)

Citizens, can we talk? The more we perform these very basic statistical adjustments, the better Mississippi looks! Here you see how the data look when restrict ourselves to fourth graders from lower-income homes:

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
Lower-income kids, 2022 Naep
U.S. public schools: 202.67
Mississippi: 211.74

Mississippi's lower income kids outscored their counterparts nationwide by almost one full year!

And not only that! After another basic adjustment, we're left to marvel at such data as these:

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
Lower-income white kids, 2022 Naep
U.S. public schools: 211.49
Mississippi: 224.45

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
Lower-income black kids, 2022 Naep
U.S. public schools: 193.42
Mississippi: 202.76

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
Lower-income Hispanic kids, 2022 Naep
U.S. public schools: 198.70
Mississippi: 210.58

In all three racial / ethnic groups, Mississippi's lower-income kids outscored their nationwide peers by roughly one year—or more!

On their face, statistics like these may have the look of a miracle. After adjusting for Mississippi's unmistakable demographic challenges, it looks like the good and decent kids of that state are outperforming their national peers by very substantial margins.

In our next installment of this report, we're going to show you how Mississippi's fourth graders performed in 2022 on the Naep math test. For today, we're going to take you back to that challenging passage from the Great American Novel. 

We posted the passage yesterday. The passage goes like this:

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

Tom and Daisy Buchanan were careless people, Fitzgerald famously said. In our view, so are the "education tourists"—journalists and experts alike—who look at pleasing data like these and ask no further questions, turning instead to pleasing Storyline.

For one brief, shining (illusory) moment, those Naep scores from Mississippi can look very good! We can look at those surprising numbers and do what journalists have done for at least the past fifty years:

We can talk about a revolution, even about a "Mississippi miracle." We can talk about "Schools That Wotk," or about The Little Low-Income State  That Could.

That's how Tom and Daisy would have done it. In our view, that's very much what the Associated Press, and then Nicholas Kristof and the Times, happily hauled off and did.

Mississippi is full of good, decent kids. By all accounts, it's also full of good, decent people who are working very hard to improve that state's public schools.

That said, for reasons we started to explain before our recent surgery, those numbers strike us as highly illusory. Almost surely, those numbers are highly misleading.

Beyond that, let us add this:

Before we start saying that "we know how to teach reading," we badly need to slow our roll. We need to look at a data set like this:

Average scores, Grade 4 reading
Mississippi, 2022 Naep
White kids: 229.53
Black kids: 204.41
Hispanic kids: 213.71

That black / white "achievement gap" is enormous—and those kids are just in the fourth grade! If you can see a "miracle" there, we'll have whatever you're having.

Tom and Daisy would have walked away at this point. They would have walked away while enjoying the latest happy talk.

In our view, Nicholas Kristof did much the same thing in his essay for the Times. We'd say that the Associated Press, and then the New York Times, were having some fun with Storyline—and were being uncaring and careless.

Mississippi's kids are decent and good. Our major elites, maybe not!

Tomorrow or Saturday: For some perhaps slightly peculiar reason, the Grade 4 math scores in Mississippi were almost as good!

MISSISSIPPI'S KIDS: Kristof made two instant mistakes!

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 2023

Our press corps' careless ways: In fairness, let's be fair.

In the reports we're starting today, we'll explore the basic claims which are currently being made about Mississippi's public schools. 

Here's a quick review:

In a lengthy report on May 17, the Associated Press alluded to the "Mississippi miracle." That language strikes us as pleasing but very careless.

On June 1, in the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof didn't repeat that deeply unwise formulation. Still, the hint of revolution was in the air. Early on, in his third paragraph, Kristof offered this overview:

KRISTOF (6/1/23): In the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a series of nationwide tests better known as NAEP, Mississippi has moved from near the bottom to the middle for most of the exams—and near the top when adjusted for demographics. Among just children in poverty, Mississippi fourth graders now are tied for best performers in the nation in NAEP reading tests and rank second in math.

According to Kristof, Mississippi's fourth graders were rocking the world on the Naep. After adjusting for demographics, Mississippi's fourth graders had moved near the top of the nation in both reading and math.

Compared to the other 49 states, Mississippi's lower-income kids were tied for best in the nation in reading, and were now second in math! On this basis, Kristof was claiming that the public schools of this low-income state have a lot to teach everyone else.

For the record, Nicholas Kristof isn't an educational expert. Neither are the careless editors who waved his lengthy essay into print.

Above, we've shown you the third paragraph in Kristof's lengthy essay. The cluelessness is already apparent. Consider two instant mistakes:

In the passage we've posted, Kristof refers to Mississippi's high national ranking on the Naep among "children in poverty." 

We're going to assume that he meant something else. Why do we say that? Here's why:

How incompetent are Kristof, and his editors at the Times, in the realm of public school Naep scores? Sadly and inexcusably, the answer starts with this:

In support of his upbeat claims, Kristof links to this unofficial but valuable site maintained by the Urban Institute. Unfortunately, the site has only been updated through the 2019 Naep testing. The site contains no records from last year's testing—from the 2022 Naep.

Did Kristof even know that the Naep was administered again last year? There is no sign that he did. In our view, that is very much what elite indifference looks like.

The site to which Kristof links isn't current. Then too, also this:

At the site to which Kristof links, there is no way to adjust Naep data for "children in poverty." Instead, the site uses a more conventional measure of economic disadvantage—it allows you to see the average scores within each state which were achieved by children eligible for free and reduced priced meals within the federal lunch program.

Within the world of public school test statistics, that's a conventional measure of economic status—but it isn't a measure of poverty. Children are eligible for the federal lunch program even if their family incomes are roughly twice as high as the federal poverty level.

In short, Kristof's essay starts like this:

Right at the start of his essay, Kristof links to a site which doesn't include any data from the 2022 Naep. He also seems to think that eligibility for the federal lunch program is a measure of poverty. 

"Education tourists" within the upper-end press make that mistake all the time, if only to make the results they are pimping sound that much more exciting. In our view, this persistent error is a familiar marker of drive-by public school journalism.

By the third paragraph in his long essay, Kristof and his careless editors have performed this pair of  mistakes. In our view, these are the marks of an essentially uncaring elite.

Tom and Daisy Buchanan were careless people, or so Fitzgerald said. Right there in The Great Gatsby, they were described in this manner:

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

The Buchanans would let other people clean up the messes they made! So it frequently tends to go when upper-end journalists like Nicholas Kristof take a few hours out of their lives to look in on the good and thoroughly decent kids in our low-income public schools.

They offer some bromides, then wander away. They retreat back into a world which doesn't care about low-income kids, or at least doesn't care enough to manage to get such things straight.

At one point, Kristof's essay took a very familiar form—a form our careless upper-end journalists have loved for the past fifty years. 

Our journalists love to show up on the ground and write about "Schools That Work." In this passage about Mississippi's alleged success, Kristof borrows a very familiar part of this Storyline-driven literary form:

KRISTOF: Other states, particularly Alabama, have adopted elements of Mississippi’s approach and have improved outcomes—but not nearly as much as Mississippi has. Perhaps that’s because those states’ leaders didn’t work as hard or because Alabama until recently didn’t have a must-pass third-grade reading test, but it’s also true that Mississippi has been guided by a visionary leadership team that may be difficult to recreate elsewhere.

Maybe the other states just haven't worked as hard! In our own direct experience, careless observers like Nicholas Kristof have offered such thoughts for the past fifty years, often while praising high test scores which resulted from outright fraud.

We know of exactly zero reason to think that Mississippi's current Naep scores result from some sort of fraud. We do suspect that the state's improved scores in Grade 4 reading and math have resulted, in whole or in part, from the policy in which something like ten percent of the state's public school kids spend two (2) years in third grade, giving them an extra year of instruction before they take those Grade 4 tests.

As you may recall, we were exploring this topic a few weeks back, but then we had to take a break for a surgical procedure. 

We apologize for the backtracking and the confusion. That said, we want to walk you through the evidence regarding this general matter, if only because the lives and interests of Mississippi's low-income and minority kids should, at long last, be examined in full.

Kristof dropped in on the state, then declared that all was well. Based on those Grade 4 scores, you can see why he might have thought that.

That said, Nicholas Kristof isn't an educational expert. Based on their lazy lack of performance, neither are many of the professorial types who carelessly drag that appellation around.

In fairness, let's be fair! Mississippi's Grade 4 scores can look extremely good.

Tomorrow, we'll walk you through those Grade 4 scores in a bit of detail. Those scores reflect the lives and the interests of the good and decent low-income kids who, just be completely honest, no one has ever cared about and no one ever will.

We're going to show you lots of scores. We're going to "adjust for demographics" until we're all blue in the face.

Along the way, a ballyhooed miracle may possibly start to fade.

It's fun to talk about Schools That Work. It feels inspiring to be talking about The Little Low-Income State That Could. 

Everyone gets to feel good for a while when this familiar Storyline makes its latest appearance. Also, everyone gets to pretend that they really, really care about low-income kids.

It seems to us that Mississippi's Naep scores are nowhere near as impressive as has been widely said. Sadly, we're forced to inform you of such things because our "experts" and "journalists" won't.

Tomorrow: Let's take a look at the Naep scores!

STARTING TOMORROW: Experts away!

TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 2023

The silence of the elites: In the end, it has come down to this. It has come down to those four (4) letters in yesterday's New York Times.

The letters appear beneath the heading shown below. The letters appear in service to long-standing, vastly-preferred, lazy elite Storyline:

Mississippi’s Many Education Lessons

The letters appear in response to Nicholas Kristof's June 1 essay about the current state of Mississippi's public schools. To read the four letters, click here.

For the record, Nicholas Kristof is not an educational expert. It may seem, to the average Times reader, like yesterday's first letter writer is:

Mississippi’s Many Education Lessons

Re “Mississippi Is Offering Lessons for America on Education,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, “How America Heals” series, June 1):

Mississippi schools prove that all the reasons for the failure of children to learn how to read and excel have been excuses. Critics will no doubt claim that its success is an aberration, but the evidence is clear. The only question now is whether its approach is scalable.

Walt Gardner / Los Angeles

The writer taught for 28 years in the Los Angeles Unified School District and was a lecturer in the U.C.L.A. Graduate School of Education.

The writer may seem to qualify as an educational expert. In support of the claims in Kristof's essay, he says that Mississippi's public schools now prove "that all the reasons for the failure of children to learn how to read and excel have been excuses."

In fairness to Gardner, that's a perfectly reasonable summary of the claims in Kristof's essay. Kristof isn't an educational expert, but along the way in his lengthy piece he quoted someone who allegedly is:

KRISTOF (6/1/23): In the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a series of nationwide tests better known as NAEP, Mississippi has moved from near the bottom to the middle for most of the exams—and near the top when adjusted for demographics. Among just children in poverty, Mississippi fourth graders now are tied for best performers in the nation in NAEP reading tests and rank second in math.

[...]

“Mississippi is a huge success story and very exciting,” David Deming, a Harvard economist and education expert, told me. What’s so significant, he said, is that while Mississippi hasn’t overcome poverty or racism, it still manages to get kids to read and excel.

“You cannot use poverty as an excuse. That’s the most important lesson,” Deming added. “It’s so important, I want to shout it from the mountaintop.” What Mississippi teaches, he said, is that “we shouldn’t be giving up on children.”

There you see the heart of Kristof's claim. When you adjust for demographics—for family income, for race and ethnicity—Mississippi's kids are performing "near the top" of the nation, at least on the Naep's Grade 4 reading test.

That might look like a "Mississippi miracle," to cite the phrase the AP used in its earlier, May 17 report. To review that report, click here. 

Colorful language to the side, Kristof was making an impressive assertion about Mississippi's schools. Right on cue, we were handed a full-fledged "education expert," advancing these latest pleasing claims about educational success among the nation's many deserving low-income kids.

In Kristof's essay, we were explicitly told that Deming is an educational expert. Plainly, Deming has no qualms concerning the claims which are being advanced about Mississippi's schools.

Yesterday morning, the Times finally published four letters about the Kristof essay. Gardner is cast in the role of the apparent educational expert. 

The other three writers, though wholly sincere, are not education experts. That said, none of the four disagree, in any way, with Kristof's basic statistical claims, or with the conclusions he draws from those Grade 4 reading scores.

This is a pattern as old as the hills. Journalistically, it reeks of human indifference.

In the 1960s, the liberal world began to concern itself with the educational disparities which had emerged from centuries of racial brutality. 

It soon became clear that it wouldn't be easy to erase our nation's deep-seated achievement gaps. At that point, liberal journalistic elites fell back on the practice of offering high-minded accounts of the occasional low-income "Schools That Work."

Again and again, it turned out that these pleasing accounts were built on statistical fraud and deception. In the current case of Mississippi, this basic Storyline is back, with the story of the occasional Schools That Work bumped up in this manner:

The Little Low-Income State That Could

The Little Low-Income State That Could! That where preferred elite Storyline currently takes us, with experts suggesting that other states could match Mississippi if they'd just work equally hard.

What follows this week will be an anthropology lesson about modern American culture, such as it actually is.

We'll walk you through the Naep scores recorded by Mississippi's good, decent lower-income kids in both Grade 4 and Grade 8. Especially after considering the likely statical effects of Mississippi's third grade retention policy, we'll show why there's much less to be thrilled about there than may seem to meet the eye. 

To their vast credit, many people are working hard in Mississippi's public schools. By way of contrast, this nation's educational experts hardly seem to be working at all.

These lofty losers have been missing in action—have been reliably silent—every single step of the way over the past fifty years. That said, the nation's journalistic elites have been missing in action too.

Long ago, these sets of elites walked off their posts. At present, that includes Kristof himself, and any such editors may have reviewed his essay.

We got lucky long ago, starting in the fall of 1969. We got to spend nine full years as a classroom teacher to nine different arrays of Baltimore's lower-income black kids.

We were exposed to some very good kids. They were being badly served at that point in time.

Today, other kids are badly served by the likes of Kristof and Deming. For today, we'll explain it like this:

A detailed look at Mississippi's Naep scores puts Kristod's thesis in doubt. It has now been a month since that AP report appeared, and none of our educational experts has sallied forth to say that.

They're missing in action on leafy campuses, where the ivy seems to blow in the wind. Yesterday, pretending to close the book on that upbeat essay by Kristof, the Times presented letters from four readers.

None of them, Gardner included, seems to have the slightest idea how to assess Kristof's statistics-based basic claims. None of the four seems to be an educational expert in any relevant sense.

Citizens, can we talk? No one cares about low-income kids, and no one ever has. More specifically, no one cares enough to speak up about Kristof's shaky claims, whether on our Ivy campuses or at the uncaring Times.

There may be delays in our reporting in the days to come. We're dealing with the after effects of a June 7 surgical procedure, and we're losing large chunks of time.

That said, the world is full of good, decent kids like the kids we once taught. It's also full of lazy, indifferent, incompetent experts and elites who seem to love good Storyline more than life itself.

Long ago, our experts walked off their posts. In thrall to pleasing Storyline, they've wandered far away.

Tomorrow: We may not be able to post tomorrow, although we'll dang sure try.

BREAKING: We won't be posting till later today!

 MONDAY, JUNE 19, 2023

Back in the saddle again: On this glorious Juneteenth Day, the New York Times is at it again:

LETTERS / Mississippi’s Many Education Lessons

Inevitably, three readers fumble and flail.

Incompetence is in the saddle, as always.  At the highest end of this discourse, the incompetence (along with the attendant elite indifference) pretty much never ends.

Storyline is in the saddle. Storyline rides humankind.

NONRATIONAL ANIMALS: We've never seen a less rational column...

SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 2023

...than the one David Brooks wrote: How rational are we rational animals, even at the highest end of our upper-end mainstream press corps?

At long last, you ask! 

For an answer to your question, we direct you to David Brooks' latest column for the New York Times.

For the record, we aren't bashers of David Brooks as a general matter. For us, that makes his latest column especially puzzling, and especially instructive.

Has any column by any journalist ever made so little sense? Slightly peculiar headline included, the column started like this:

I Won’t Let Donald Trump Invade My Brain

I try to be a reasonable person. I try to be someone who looks out on the world with trusting eyes. Over the decades, I’ve built up certain expectations about how the world works and how people behave. I rely on those expectations as I do my job, analyzing events and anticipating what will happen next.

And yet I’ve found that Donald Trump has confounded me at every turn. I’ve found that I’m not cynical enough to correctly anticipate what he is capable of.

I have consistently underestimated his depravity. I was shocked at how thuggishly Trump behaved in that first debate with Joe Biden in 2020. As the Jan. 6 committee hearings progressed, I was stunned to find out just how aggressively Trump had worked to overthrow the election. And then, just last week, in reading his federal indictment, I was once again taken aback to learn how flagrantly he had breached national security.

So far, so basically rational! We're looking at a type of confession: 

Like a great many other people, Brooks admits that he has consistently been astonished by the depravity of Donald Trump's acts.

So far, so basically rational! That said, as Brooks continues directly, he moves past the boundaries of confession. The spinout is already underway here:

And yet I can’t quite feel ashamed of my perpetual naïveté toward Donald Trump. I don’t want to be the kind of person who can easily enter the head of an amoral narcissist.

I’d rather not let him infect my brain. I’d rather not let that guy alter my views of the world. If occasional naïveté is the price for mental independence from Trump, I’m willing to pay it.

Consistently, Brooks has been wrong in his assessments. But he wants to remain that same way!

Brooks doesn't want to let Donald J. Trump "alter my views of the world." To what view of the world does Brooks want to cling? Bizarrely, he offers this:

I cling to a worldview that is easy to ridicule. I hold the belief that most people, while flawed, seek to be good. I hold the belief that our institutions, while fraying, are basically legitimate and deserve our respect. I hold the belief that character matters, and that good people ultimately prosper and unethical people are ultimately undone.

I don’t think this worldview is born of childish innocence. It comes out of my direct experience with life, and after thousands of interviews, covering real-life politicians like Barack Obama, John McCain and Mitt Romney.

[...]

Over the coming months, we face not merely a political contest, but a battle between those of us who believe in ideals, even though it can make us seem naïve at times, and those who argue that life is a remorseless struggle for selfish gain. Their victory would be a step toward cultural barbarism.

Like the teenaged (and brilliant) Anne Frank before him, Brooks wants to maintain "the belief that most people, while flawed, seek to be good." 

Also, he wants to cling to a second idea:

He wants to retain the belief "that good people ultimately prosper and unethical people are ultimately undone."

Earth to Brooks: As history unmistakably teaches, good people do sometimes prosper. But also, sometimes they don't!

Surely, all rational animals understand that basic fact. 

Concerning his desire to believe in the basic goodness of most people, it's astonishing to see the way Brooks relates that belief to the deeply unfortunate case of Donald J. Trump.

Let's agree with David Brooks.  Most people, while flawed, seek to be good. 

Let's agree with that view of the world, as we actually do! But because we ourselves aren't wholly irrational, medical science has presented us with a second basic understanding:

Some people—people like the vastly disordered Donald J. Trump—do not seek to be good because, just as a matter of fact, they're severely mentally ill.

We've been writing, for years, about the refusal of the mainstream press corps to consider this fairly obvious fact about Donald J. Trump. 

As 37 psychiatrists warned in a best-selling 2017 book, Trump is likely afflicted with antisocial personality disorder, a severe disorder which may be inherited. That's the clinical term describing the affliction of people who are colloquially described as sociopaths.

It's easy to read about sociopathy. Online, one medical authority after another describes its horrible characteristics.

For whatever reason, Brooks wants to go on believing that no such people exist. We recall a line from Nietzsche we can't take the time to search, in which the dreamer knows he's dreaming and says he wants to continue.

The robots of our upper-end press corps went to the finest schools. In 1983, Brooks graduated from the University of Chicago.

Our journalists are the kinds of people we think of as being "educated." And yet, from 2011 on through to the present day, they have agreed to abide by a dictum of their unimpressive guild:

We must not discuss that obvious fact about that deeply dangerous person.

Earth to those who can hear:

David Brooks is a good, decent person. On the other hand, Donald J. Trump is almost surely severely mentally ill.

Donald J. Trump is severely afflicted. We've recommended pity for Trump on that point, even as we all should continue to work to strip him of his considerable power.

Brooks doesn't have to follow us there. Also, he doesn't have to surrender his preferred view of the world to accept the obvious fact that a certain percentage of people are profoundly disordered.

Has any column ever been stranger than the one David Brooks wrote? He prefers to keep pretending that sociopathy doesn't exist!

Warning! Nonrational animals crossing! You can see them every day on your favorite cable channel.

These people went to the finest schools. They've all agreed that we mustn't discuss the actual state of the world!

BREAKING! We lost a large chunk of time today!

 FRIDAY, JUNE 16, 2023

We expect to post tomorrow: As you've almost surely already heard, we lost a large chunk of time today, on this our latest Bloomsday.

What the Vinegar Hill can you do? We expect to post tomorrow.

NONRATIONAL ANIMALS: "Fundamentally different from normal people!"

THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 2023

Dr. Dodes describes Donald Trump: As he has occasionally done in the past, Lawrence O'Donnell spoke with Dr. Lance Dodes in the final segment of last evening's Last Word.

Who the heck is Dr. Dodes? At the start of the brief closing segment, Lawrence let viewers know:

Joining us now is Dr. Lance Dodes, retired assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Dodes is a contributor to the best-selling [2017] book. The Dangerous Cast of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.

That book was assembled by Dr. Bandy X. Lee, who was, at the time, a psychiatrist at Yale.

Why does Donald J. Trump behave in the ways he does? In the first year of Trump's presidency, the book examined that highly important question. 

As Lawrence noted, the book became a New York Times best-seller, but it was largely ignored by the upper-end press. For better or worse, the following is still plainly true:

Psychiatry of the type explored within the book may be a part of 20th century medical science. But our major news orgs largely agree that it can't be part of 21st century journalism, at least not where major political figures are involved.

We're left with a stunningly bowdlerized account of Trump's extremely unusual conduct. We're stripped of the chance to hear carefully selected medical specialists offer their best estimates of where things might go next.

O'Donnell has been one of the very few high-end journalists to permit such discussions—in this case, on high nightly cable news show. 

That isn't to say that he's done a good job in his intermittent, brief interviews with Dr. Dodes. But last night, the last of his five exchanges with Dodes gave viewers a chance to hear this:

DODES (6/14/23): I think to the extent that the trials are able to go forward, despite his bluster, despite the possible bias of the judge in Miami, to the extent they go forward, he will look worse and worse. He won't be worse and worse, but it will be less of a veneer. We will see how much of a psychopath he is. 

I mean, that's the psychiatric explanation. He is fundamentally different from normal people, and we'll see more and more of that.

For the second time in this five-minute exchange, Se. Dodes described Trump as a psychopath. He wasn't asked to explain what that term means, but he did say this:

"He is fundamentally different from normal people."

Donald Trump is fundamentally different from normal people! In a less nonrational realm, that would be the start of a discussion of antisocial personality disorder, the clinical term for the severe disorder being diagnosed here, not the end of a five-minute segment at the end of an hour-long show.

We can think of many questions we'd like to see Dr. Dodes (and others) respond to. Has Trump been this way from childhood? Possibly even om birth? Could this be an organic disorder over which he, and others so afflicted, lack any basic control?

(Think colorblindness, or allergies.) 

Also, is it possible that Trump believes the baldly inaccurate things he says? Earlier, Dodes said this, and Lawrence let it pass:

DODES: I think he is aware of the threat to him [in the difficult road ahead]. I don't think he is capable of being aware that he has actually done something that is a problem. 

Dodes doesn't think that Trump is capable of being aware that he has actually done something that is a problem? 

Does that mean that he truly believes his endless ridiculous claims?  Lawrence didn't stop to ask, and the segment hurried along.

What does it mean to be afflicted by antisocial personality disorder? For starters, is "afflicted" even the right word?

We'd prefer to inhabit a realm where rational discourse was permitted, possibly even encouraged. Instead, our journalists have almost wholly split into tribes. They offer selective presentations designed to entertain and flatter their segregated audiences, and they agree that they'll never discuss what they all surely believe.

We're restricted to one-handed typing today, and so we'll stop right here. For a longer excerpt from Dr. Dodes, we'll link you to this June 1 essay at Salon.

For our money, the author of that essay is much too strongly inclined to politicize and tribalize this type of discussion. But that author, Chauncey DeVega, is right as rain on this point

DEVEGA (6/1/23): For all its strengths, however, this new reporting by The Washington Post continues with the same dangerous choice(s) that has plagued and undermined the mainstream news media's ability to accurately and effectively communicate to the public the extreme dangers to American society and democracy embodied by Donald Trump and the Republican fascists and larger MAGA movement: No mental health experts were quoted or otherwise featured in the text of the article.

DeVega believes it, and we agree:

You can't conduct a serious discussion of Donald J. Trump without contributions from mental health specialists. 

At present, that isn't allowed in our major newspapers. Our national discourse, such as it is, lies in the hands of an unusual breed:

It lies in the hands of nonrational animals who went to the finest schools!

Tomorrow: IN RE Hillary's emails