SATURDAY, JULY 1, 2023
Several key questions emerge: Long ago and far away, the Associated Press published a lengthy report under a very familiar type of feel-good headline:
‘Mississippi miracle’: Kids’ reading scores have soared in Deep South states
Actually, the report appeared on May 17 of this very year. Two weeks later, Nicholas Kristof followed suit with a lengthy essay in the New York Times.
His essay carried this headline:
Mississippi Is Offering Lessons for America on Education
According to Kristof, an "education revolution" is underway in Mississippi's public schools. He quoted David Deming, a Harvard education expert, saying that Mississippi's recent performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress constitutes "a huge success story.”
"I want to shout it from the mountaintop.” the high-ranking expert said.
The AP headlined claims of a "miracle" within Mississippi's schools. Kristof said "a revolution" was underway. His expert said that "a huge success story" already existed.
Somewhat oddly, all these claims were built around only one set of test scores—Mississippi's improved performance, in recent years, on the Grade 4 Naep reading test. That improved performance is said to have resulted from a set of education reforms the state legislature passed ten years ago, back in 2013.
Full disclosure:
At a glance, Mississippi's Grade 4 scores can look quite impressive. As we showed you on June 27, here are some Grade 4 reading scores from the last year's Naep:
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
There you see the average scores for several groups of lower-income Mississippi kids. Within each group, Mississippi's fourth graders outscored their counterparts from across the nation by a strongly significant margin on last year's Naep reading test.
At a glance, those scores can look quite impressive! That said, you can also see the very large achievement gap which still obtains between the state of Mississippi's lower income white and black kids.
Has a revolution been achieved in Mississippi's public schools? If only on the basis of that very large black/white achievement gap, we can't imagine why a decent person would ever want to make such a remarkable claim.
No, Virginia! If only on the basis of that very large gap, we think it's disgraceful to be pimping claims about a miracle, or a revolution, or a huge success story. We can't imagine why a decent person would ever say such a thing.
That said, we haven't yet looked at Mississippi's Grade 8 scores on last year's Naep tests. Ten years after Mississippi's reforms were instituted, how well do the claims of revolution and huge success stand up in the face of those Grade 8 scores?
We'd say that those familiar, feel-good claims disappear in the face of those Grade 8 Naep scores. Mississippi may yet thrill us in the future, but no sensible journalist or expert can seriously claim that a miracle, revolution or huge success has been accomplished now.
Sadly, our journalists have periodically pimped this type of story since the dawn of time. When they do, they tend to showcase their remarkable lack of technical competence—a technical incompetence which is easily wed to an apparent lack of concern about the actual lives, and the actual interests, of our nation's good, decent black kids.
Just look at the large achievement gap on display in the data we've posted! In case you aren't sure what we mean, we'll spell it out more clearly:
Average scores, Grade 4 reading
2022 Naep
Asian-American kids, U.S. public schools: 238.49
White kids, U.S. public schools: 226.03
Black kids, Mississippi: 204.41
Lower-income black kids, Mississippi: 202.76
Look on their Works, ye Mighty, and [perhaps] despair!
Even on the ballyhooed Grade 4 reading test, Mississippi's deserving black kids seem to be, very roughly, performing two to three years behind the other kids from across the nation who are their counterparts and their peers.
It looks like they're several years behind after four years in school! Who would call that a huge success story? Who would say such a thing?
That's the way this "miracle" looks just on the Grade 4 level. On Monday, we're going to show you how the revolution looks in the face of Mississippi's Grade 8 scores from last year.
Starting on Wednesday, we'll be out of commission for a while. We want you to see those Grade 8 scores before we get (temporarily) carted away from our sprawling campus. We'll also run through three key questions involved in this latest journalistic debacle.
By the way:
This latest debacle is a journalistic and academic debacle. We salute the efforts the state of Mississippi has been making within its public schools.
Nicholas Kristof is a good, decent person. As a general matter, he has superlative values. That said, he has also published the latest debacle about the nation's low-income schools.
Our journalists and our experts have been pushing variants of this Storyline for the past fifty years. To us, their conduct reads in a very unflattering way:
We'll call it an anthropology lesson! It suggests the possibility that, in the end, these people don't actually care!
ReplyDelete"Somewhat oddly, all these claims were built around only one set of test scores—Mississippi's improved performance, in recent years, on the Grade 4 Naep reading test. That improved performance is said to have resulted from a set of education reforms the state legislature passed ten years ago, back in 2013."
This is an odd formulation on Somerby's part. The improved performance is not based on "one set of test scores" but on increased performance COMPARED TO the scores before the reforms were implemented. Somerby seems to be implying that these scores are a fluke, but they are not.
And today he continues asserting that the gains don't matter because there still exists a racial gap. But the reforms in MS were not designed to eliminate racism in the state. To do that, they would need to address the continuing segregation that exists (32 school districts are still under a court desegregation order). Somerby doesn't talk about that specifically because he opposes desegregation efforts anywhere, especially in the North (see his previous efforts on that topic, including the efforts to desegregate New York City's special high schools and its majority minority schools). Somerby pretends to care about those gaps, but he denigrates the efforts to address them.
Somerby calls this a journalistic debacle, but it is the scores he keeps focusing upon. The journalists have done nothing more than report the improvements. Somerby has been attacking the improvements themselves, implying first that they resulted from cheating (which he never proved), then that they were the result of a statistical anomaly (which he never proved either), and now that they are invalid because there is still a racial gap (which is no worse because of the new program to improve reading scores (which have risen among both white and black kids). How is any of that the result of journalism? If anything, journalists do not display the obvious animosity toward progress that Somerby has been exhibiting here for 5-1/2 weeks now.
It is perhaps a good thing that Somerby is taking a break. His response to these score increases makes no sense. We are all tired of reading this shit and it is depressing to see someone off on a bender like this and lost in his own negativity.
Kudos to MS for improving the reading scores of its students. I doubt Somerby is on their radar but in any case, I hope they continue to help their students to read well, especially the ones who struggle and need intervention, the kids who are now receiving early help so that they do not fall behind their peers. Journalists are right to applaud their efforts.
What does Ozymandias have to do with NAEP scores? The traveller comes upon a decaying monument buried in sand. There is nothing decaying and no monument involved in the current situation, no decaying civilization -- a Southern state revamped its reading program and got better results from its students. No obvious comparison there are all.
ReplyDeleteIt is probably because Somerby likes the phrase "look on their works...and despair." But why should we despair over better reading scores? We should rejoice that a backward state is now taking reading seriously and cleaned up its act. If it is encouraged to take racism seriously (in a state that is nearly 50% black), perhaps we will see similar progress at reducing the gaps between black and white students. I've never seen Somerby urge anyone to take racism seriously -- he tends to argue that it is no longer a thing, except when pointing out these NAEP gaps. One wonders what Somerby thinks is causing those gaps. Perhaps he is like David in Cal and thinks black kids are just born stupider, but he knows he shouldn't say so (unlike David). Somerby is cagey about hinting instead of saying bigoted stuff.
His use of this Shelley quote would make the poet blush, but at least he has cited the author. That respect for another author's creation is a huge step in the right direction.
"Our journalists and our experts have been pushing variants of this Storyline for the past fifty years."
ReplyDeleteThat's funny. Maybe it is because there has been such clear academic progress (evidenced by the increasing NAEP scores from 1969 to the present). Clear gains in scores should be discussed by journalists. Why wouldn't they be?
Amazon is pushing RFK Jr's anti-Fauci book in its emailed Kindle recommendations. First, it is disinformation. Second, it is political support for a fringe candidate. Why is Amazon involved in this?
ReplyDelete"engineered a revolution" is an obvious metaphor, since teaching has little to do with actual engineering. The state of MS made a big improvement in how it teaches reading. That should be good news to any rational person.
ReplyDeleteFrom Lawyers Guns & Money blog:
ReplyDelete"That doesn’t mean Kennedy poses an electoral threat to Biden; he almost certainly does not. Still, the movement around him represents a significant post-Covid social phenomenon: a coalition of the distrustful that cuts across divisions of right and left."
I like the phrase "coalition of the distrustful" because it describes what Somerby works to foster here, while claiming to be liberal but attacking journalism, academia and the idea of expertise. Most recently, he has spent 5-1/2 weeks attacking education itself by denying that it works for children learning to read. This is how you build distrust on right and left.
Do we need to be so skeptical? I think we need to defend truth and facts and the notion that there are people who seek knowledge. In the midst of disinformation coming from all directions, the ability to assess truth by analyzing claims is at risk. Somerby's repetition wears away at people. He ignores objections to his misstatements and simply repeats them, without addressing critics of his attacks, defenses of those he targets. Many people will stop commenting in the face of this treatment. But that then leaves Somerby's claims to stand unrefuted, day after day. If opponents of disinformation are not dedicated to protecting the truth, then people like Somerby, who repeat their lies, will win hearts and minds of those who do not know how to address them.
In the long run, the purpose of teaching children to read is so that they have the means to find out for themselves what it is true and what to believe. It is to equip them to be informed voters, not credible dupes. Somerby's cynical attack on the institution he once served, is a horrible example of corruption of our system by right wing interests. If the public cannot itself investigate the details of NAEP scores, they can at least wonder why someone who once served the ideals of education is not bent on destroying its credibility.
Somerby is as goofy as RFK Jr., and no more of a Democrat. He is clearly part of the coalition of distrust. Cynicism and nihilism lack the capacity to help individuals or our society because they only tear down and do not build anything worthwhile.
2020 election:
ReplyDeleteWhite college graduates: Biden 51 Trump 48
White no college degree: Biden 32 Trump 67
The facts tell us that Republicans have a vested interest in perpetuating lower education levels for White Americans.
I published a story on the Emily Hanford /APM Reports / MPR News SoR hoax back in April - but not ONE media outlet in MN would even mention it, such is their reluctance to hold one of the colleagues accountable. This is paywalled, but if anyone wants to read it contact me https://racketmn.com/science-of-reading-minnesota-read-act
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ReplyDeleteThis article asserts that there's a remarkable transformation occurring in Mississippi's public education system, as highlighted by Kristof. Citing Harvard expert David Deming, it emphasizes Mississippi's significant achievement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) as a triumph worth celebrating. If you're looking to dive deeper into this topic, consider order term paper with service cite my paper for me for more insights and information on the subject matter.
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