EXPERTS, PROFESSORS AND JOURNOS: Fixed, fake, phony, fraudulent—faux!

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2015

Part 5—Today we have posting of scores:
We have an unusual exercise planned.

Today we have posting of scores!

When it comes to the public schools, such postings are rarely done. Instead, we get standard emissions from journalists like the Washington Post’s Nick Anderson, with the help of “educational experts.”

Their emissions peddle the fixed, gloomy themes the billionaire funders most love. But today, we’ll have posting of scores, with relevance to high school seniors.

Are American high school seniors doing less well in math? For ourselves, we have no idea. But we do know where the data are. Beyond that, we know how to post them.

The relevant data rarely appear in newspapers like the Washington Post, whose work about the public schools tends to be narrative all the way down. That said, everyone knows where those data are:

The relevant data come from the “Main NAEP,” the “federal tests” which test American students in reading and math in Grades 4, 8 and 12.

We said the NAEP tests “American students.” Let’s be more precise:

Unlike the SATs, the NAEP tests representative samples of American students! It even tests representative samples from all demographic groups.

The NAEP has been testing representative samples of American students for decades. Anderson and Petrilli both know this, and other things too.

And yet the fraud rolls on.

Are high school seniors doing less well in recent years? Is their performance possibly “stagnant,” a scripted term which almost makes matters sound worse?

On Thursday morning, September 3, the Washington Post ran a front-page “news report” in which Anderson advanced these gloomy ideas. He did so with the help of Michael Petrilli, an “educational expert.”

Gloomily, Anderson offered what follows. On a journalistic basis, this is horrible work:
ANDERSON (9/3/15): Scores on the SAT have sunk to the lowest level since the college admission test was overhauled in 2005, adding to worries about student performance in the nation’s high schools.

[...]

The steady decline in SAT scores and generally stagnant results from high schools on federal tests and other measures reflect a troubling shortcoming of education-reform efforts. The test results show that gains in reading and math in elementary grades haven’t led to broad improvement in high schools, experts say. That means several hundred thousand teenagers, especially those who grew up poor, are leaving school every year unready for college.

“Why is education reform hitting a wall in high school?” asked Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a think tank. “You see this in all kinds of evidence. Kids don’t make a whole lot of gains once they’re in high school. It certainly should raise an alarm.”
Anderson started with average SAT scores, which everyone knows can’t be used for this purpose. He then said that his gloomy portrait of high school seniors is supported by results on “federal tests.”

Petrilli was quoted, saying you can see the stagnation “in all kinds of evidence.” Later that day, he offered one of the dumbest blog posts we’ve ever seen—a blog post bearing this title:

“Why is high school achievement flat?”

If a college sophomore composed that post, it would be hard to give him a passing grade. A professor might wonder if this poor kid was really college material.

The blog post crawled with factual omissions and errors, and with logical howlers. That said, it reached a familiar conclusion. Based upon his errors and howlers, Petrilli knew what we have to do next:
PETRILLI (9/3/15): Perhaps we need to take Occam’s Razor out of the cabinet again and turn to the most straightforward explanation, which is that we simply haven’t done much to reform our high schools. We are holding them accountable for boosting graduation rates, but not much else. Most charter schools operate at the elementary or middle school level. Voucher programs don’t offer enough money for top-notch secondary schools. We’ve killed off much of our CTE system. And we pulled the plug on the small schools movement just as it was starting to show results.

If we want to stop seeing flat scores at the twelfth-grade level, we need a spike in high school reform efforts. Anyone ready to lead the charge?
Within our scripted mainstream discourse, al roads lead to this conclusion! Because of flat scores at the twelfth-grade level, we need charter schools in high school! We need more “high school reform!”

Petrilli is paid to say such things. For today, we have posting of facts.

The “federal tests” to which Anderson referred were, of course, the NAEP. When Petrilli referred to twelfth-grade scores, he could only mean the “Main NAEP,” which tests representative samples of American students in Grades 4, 8 and 12.

No one else performs that service—and the NAEP’s voluminous data are available for all to see. That said, are Grade 12 math scores actually “stagnant” or in decline? Has the performance of high school seniors been “flat” as compared to kids in the lower grades, a claim which was made by Anderson and Petrilli?

Below, you see the most recent data we have in math. In Grade 12, we can only go back to 2005, due to a change in the Grade 12 math test that year. The most recent year for which we have data is 2013. Results from the 2015 testing haven’t yet been released.

That said, these data cover the very period Anderson pretended to discuss in his incompetent front-page report. And how strange:

As we’ve noted in recent days, Grade 12 scores haven’t been “flat” in math at all! Meanwhile, the Grade 12 score gains have been somewhat larger than the score gains in Grade 4:
Gains in average scores, 2005-2013
Main NAEP, Grade 4 math
National public schools

White students: 4.21 points
Black students: 4.77 points
Hispanic students: 5.35 points
Asian-American students: 7.67 points

Gains in average scores, 2005-2013
Main NAEP, Grade 8 math
National public schools

White students: 5.62 points
Black students: 8.54 points
Hispanic students: 9.93 points
Asian-American students: 11.43 points

Gains in average scores, 2005-2013
Main NAEP, Grade 12 math
National public schools

White students: 4.32 points
Black students: 5.24 points
Hispanic students: 7.67 points
Asian-American students: 11.08 points
Judged by normal rules of thumb, those score gains, over an eight-year span, all seem rather healthy. Judged by normal rules of thumb, the gains in Grade 8 seem large.

At any rate, those are the actual results in math from the “federal tests” to which Anderson referred. Those data are hard to square with the familiar, gloomy claims in Anderson’s front-page report.

(Please note: The Grade 12 score gains may have been slightly depressed by the nation’s declining drop-out rate. In his blog post, Petrilli says that general theory “sounds plausible” to him. He then ignores its possible effect in everything else he writes.)

What might those Grade 12 score gains mean? Are high school seniors actually doing better in math? If so, how much better? What amount of academic improvement might be suggested by those gains on the NAEP?

We’ve already offered the standard, very rough rule of thumb which journalists often use when gloomily describing our so-called “achievement gaps.” (The gaps remain large, but they’re getting smaller.) According to that very rough rule, ten points on the NAEP scale is often compared to one academic year.

Should that rule be applied to those gains at the Grade 12 level? How should we assess those score gains? Should we think of those score gains as large?

Like you, we have no real idea. That’s because our public discourse is in the hands of tribunes like Anderson and his “educational expert.”

How should we assess those gains? For reasons which go unexplained, you’ll never see that question addressed in newspapers like the Post.

In such newspapers, you aren’t permitted to know that these score gains even exist! On that basis, when would a scrivener like Anderson assess the amount of academic improvement such score gains might reflect?

Those Grade 12 data are the most recent data we have. They reflect score gains by our high school seniors—score gains, which, by the rules of the post-journalistic road, simply cannot be reported.

By the rules of that road, knowledge of such score gains has persistently been withheld from the public. That leads us to an intriguing part of Anderson’s news report.

As required by Establishment Pundit Law, Anderson’s vision was gloomy that day. But to reach the current scripted version of gloom, he had to tell a secret.

Let’s look at that early passage again. A secret is being disclosed here:
ANDERSON: The steady decline in SAT scores and generally stagnant results from high schools on federal tests and other measures reflect a troubling shortcoming of education-reform efforts. The test results show that gains in reading and math in elementary grades haven’t led to broad improvement in high schools, experts say. That means several hundred thousand teenagers, especially those who grew up poor, are leaving school every year unready for college.

“Why is education reform hitting a wall in high school?” asked Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a think tank.
Say what? Test results show that American students have been making “gains in reading and math in elementary grades?”

The “test results” to which Anderson refers are largely those from the Main NAEP. That said, very few Washington Post subscribers are aware of the “gains in reading and math” which he fleetingly cites in that passage.

Over the past twenty years, those score gains have been very large—but mainstream newspapers have almost completely refused to report or discuss them. In his news report, Anderson was forced to give that secret away—but only so he could establish a bogus claim about smaller gains in high school!

How large have score gains been on the NAEP over the past twenty years? As we’ve noted again and again, the score gains have been very large. One prime example:

By 2007, black fourth graders were actually scoring higher in math than white fourth graders had scored in 1990. That is an amazing fact—but by law, it can’t be discussed or reported.

That amazing fact has not been reported. Almost no one has ever heard it. The public is unaware of such facts. An alternate story rolls on, wrapped in gloom, fueled by deception.

“The test results show that gains in reading and math in elementary grades haven’t led to broad improvement in high school?” Most Post readers have no idea what sorts of “gains” that sentence describes! Most often, they've heard that nothing has worked in the schools! Our discourse about the public schools has been fake, phony, fraudulent—fixed.

It’s very hard for people to grasp how fake our discourse has been in this area. Our public discourse is a joke in our area after another. But we know of no area where even the most basic facts are so thoroughly disappeared.

Anderson’s “news report” was a sick joke. Presumably, it was an act of fraud. There’s no way he’s that incompetent.

(Repeat after us: “The SATs can’t be used for that purpose. The SATs can’t be used for that purpose.” There’s no way Anderson doesn’t know that. And yet, you can see what he wrote.)

Anderson’s report was a joke. That said, Petrilli’s blog post should be preserved in amber. In the course of a few hundred words, the well-known educational expert made a succession of factual and logical “errors” which would have embarrassed the press corps under Stalin.

That said, it all worked out in the end! We were told that we need more charter schools! More “reform” at the high school level!

Petrilli is paid to say things like that. Luckily for such agents, the liberal world, gazing lazily on, doesn’t care about topics like this.

We simply don’t care about low-income kids. If we might adapt the words of Bruce Springsteen, we prove it all year long.

Still coming: Those two professors from Penn! Also, Chait walks to New Orleans!

Questions for small group discussion: What do those score gains in math really mean? More fundamentally:

Why won’t Anderson/Petrilli report that those score gains exist?

For highest achievers only: In what way is Michael Petrilli like Amanda Ripley?

Hints for discussion leaders:

In her widely-praised but horrible book, The Smartest Kids in the World, Ripley discussed American results on the PISA, an international test battery. But how odd! She never mentioned the higher scores our kids attain on the TIMSS.

How odd! There are two major international test batteries, the TIMSS and the PISA. But in the course of an entire book, Ripley disappeared the TIMSS, on which our students do better!

In his recent blog post, Petrilli did something very similar. He disappeared Grade 12 test scores from the Main NAEP!

Instead, he switched to the less relevant Long-Term Trend Assessment, working a few statistical plays to make the scores by 17-year-old students look distressingly “flat.”

Uh-oh! On the directly relevant Main NAEP, Grade 12 math scores aren’t flat! When Petrilli forgot to disclose this fact, we recalled Ripley’s book.

Today we had the posting of scores. What do those rising test scores mean? Why won't the Post report them?

42 comments:

  1. One reason why the scores on the Main NAEP and the Long-term NAEP differ is that the content of the questions is different. The Long-term NAEP tests paper and pencil computation ability, calculation ability. The Main NAEP also tests problem-solving and application of mathematical knowledge and mathematical reasoning ability.

    For a summary of the differences see: https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/ltt_main_diff.aspx

    When tests measure different things, it is entirely possible for them to produce different results. For purposes of discussion you have to decide which test is most appropriate for the question at hand. As a country, we decided to deemphasize calculation in favor of reasoning and problem solving. Many school allow kids to use calculators and computers instead of doing calculations by hand. That is bound to affect scores on a test that measures ability to compute using mathematical formulas. That scores on the Long-Term NAEP are merely flat and not decreasing while those on the Main NAEP are increasing suggests we have been meeting our goals to switch from an emphasis on computation to one on reasoning and problem solving, and that those changes have been successfully implemented and kids have gained in those areas, as intended by education policy makers, administrators and teachers.

    Only someone who believes in strict back-to-basics and mourns the loss of ability to compute by hand, someone who doesn't understand how math is used in technical fields, would consider the Long-Term NAEP a better indicator of mathematical achievement than the Main NAEP. That is where some conservative educational experts are coming from -- Back to Basics is at heart a conservative movement.

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    1. Excuse me if I prefer to look a bit deeper into Long-Term vs. Main than Anonymous in TDH Combox.

      Your explanation sounds like it took you all of five seconds to Google up.

      Delete
    2. Follow the link. It leads to the testmakers .gov webpage. They ought to know what their tests are about.

      Googling takes 5 seconds. Readings what is at the site takes a little longer. Feel free to add thinking to that investment of time.

      Delete
    3. Took you five seconds to google it, 10 minutes to read it, and now you know everything, and are qualified to spread the good news far and wide. Amazing!

      Delete
    4. Sounds to me from your description that the Main NAEP has changed quite a bit over time.

      That would mean, of course, that only a complete idiot would think it could possibly measure progress and gains over time, even using a "very rough rule of thumb."

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    5. I agree!

      I support the Anonymous who *didn't* spend those seconds and minutes.

      And assures us that he's "looking deeper".

      Good on you, Anonymous of 1:44 and 2:09!

      Keep going deeper!

      We're all hoping you'll do us a huge favor and disappear right up that deep hole you pull your comments from.

      Delete
    6. "Sounds to me from your description..."

      Seriously?

      Bwah hahahha ha!!!!!

      You criticize 1:18 for Going To A Source To Find Something Out --- and then you post a foolhardy assumption based on no information at all, just how it "sounds to you!"

      No one could make you up, but here you are, utterly, depressingly real.

      Delete
    7. Yes, indeed, the deep research of five seconds of googling and 10 minutes of reading us to be commended.

      It is pseudo-intellectualism at its finest.

      After all, aren't Internet and its comboxes wonderful? We all get to pretend to know so much.

      Delete
    8. "We all get to pretend to know so much?"

      Well, everyone but you maybe. You've decided knowing anything at all is the problem.

      Keep going with your gut, Anonymous troll! How does it all "sound to you?" Everyone's just dying to know!

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    9. Wow, you just live for flame wars, don't you?

      Let me help you here, sonny. No I have not decided that knowing anything at all is the problem.

      I have decided that googling something up, reading it real quick, then racing to a forum to show off all that you know, complete with one link, is the problem.

      Comboxes are filled with people like that. And also people who are easily fooled by that.

      Delete
    10. Yep, the info somebody found and commented on is worthless -- worse, it's "the problem."

      Your own petty troll insights? Gold. Thanks so much for them.

      Delete
    11. @ 2:14, 2:35, & 5:32 - TDH's own Karnak the Magnificent.

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    12. @2:14

      There is continuity from 1990 to 2005 and from 2005 to 2013. That should be enough to see trends.

      You would know that if you had bothered to follow the link and read the webpage.

      Delete
    13. Ah, but can you take test scores from 1990 and compare them to test scores from 2013, and using a very rough rule of thumb, marvel at all the fantastic gains in fourth grade?

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    14. Who has done that?

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    15. Ummm, Bob Somerby. Repeatedly.

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    16. Somerby is careful to state that he is comparing within the range of years permissible. Above he says "2005-2013" not "1990-2013". I think you are lying.

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  2. "Why won't the Post report them?"

    Petrilli's wish list seems like the answer to this question. How can you call for more "reform" if tests show that schools are doing well?

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  3. IMHO it's all right to show the scores by ethnic group, but it's spin to exclude the total scores. According to the link. from 2004 to 2013, the math NAEP was virtually unchanged, going from 305 to 306. Reading slightly improved, going from 283 to 287.

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    1. IMHO - who cares what a wingnut troll thinks about anything, especially one as dishonest as you. Finished reviewing the PP tapes, numbnuts?

      Delete
    2. Simpson's paradox. Since you're an actuary who is expert at statistics, you know what that is. Why then are you insisting that the overall averages are meaningful and tell a more accurate story than the disaggregated scores?

      Because the US population has changed in major ways, looking at the total scores is wrong because it conceals the impact of demographic changes on testing. YOU should know that. It has been explained enough times here. Pretty dishonest, David.

      Delete
    3. Neither of those assumptions are necessary to apply Simpson's law. You only need to assume that the scores within the subgroups have a different impact on the overall mean because the subgroup means varying widely and because the sizes of the subgroups are also different. You don't have to assume anything about Asians being better than blacks. You don't assume because you can calculate the means of the groups and see how they differ, as in the disaggregated means Somerby presented.

      Those assumptions make it sound like you know nothing about how to combine a group of scores to produce a mean. Since that is so basic to statistics, I can only assume you are now lying in order to confuse naïve readers here and that shows beyond a doubt that you are a troll and not a misguided but sincere conservative commenter. It also suggests you are a racist. On that basis, I am done talking to you.

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    4. There you go with the "R" bomb. He's actually a bigot.

      Delete
  4. OMB (Alliterating With the Almighty BOB)

    Part 2: Are our One True Bob learning how to ask questions better?

    He has certainly learned to whip out more F sounds in a name game than anyone since Shirley Ellis!

    In Part 1 we asked one question nobody would answer. Has anyone BOB has quoted in this series said American high school seniors are doing less well in math?

    Nobody has.

    It is part of the strawman tactic BOB would deplore if others used it, but as we have long noted, doing exactly what he attacks others for doing is BOB's most consistent characterisitic as a critic.

    Even Bob can spin his own detection as he does when he again modifies his repeated, but always slightly different question:

    "Are high school seniors doing less well in recent years? Is their performance possibly “stagnant,” a scripted term which almost makes matters sound worse?"

    --"No", BOB seems to say, "nobody said they did worse, in math or anything else, so we, the One True BOB will admit they only used the term stagnant when describing test scores and proclaim that nasty word stagnant is even worse than actually saying "worse""

    Horse manure, BOB.

    But throughout his strawman attack BOB has chosen to focus on math. And in particular NAEP math in the 12th grade. He disappears all other test subject scores and dismisses the other major NAEP test' the Long Term Trend Test as "less relevant." He has, in the past, trotted out data from the Long Term Trends Study when it fit his purpose. Its relevance is entirely dependednt on the narrative of his post.

    In our view, that is the reason his evolving questions in this series about American students dropped references to them doing less well in "reading" and dropped reference to "17 year olds" doing less well, and concentrated on only seniors. Because 17 year olds are tested in the Long Term Assessment. And the NAEP Main math test is the only one where BOB can make the case that scores are not stagnant. They test 12th graders...seniors.

    We won't make a long presentation of data here to demonstrate whether BOB is right or Anderson/Petrilli are right. Our point is simply that Bob is manipulating data just as fraudulently as they are while accusing them of being fakes.

    We'll demonstrate that point BOB-style using one of his own examples:

    BOB: " By 2007, black fourth graders were actually scoring higher in math than white fourth graders had scored in 1990. That is an amazing fact—but by law, it can’t be discussed or reported."

    KZ 1: By 2008 black 9 year olds still could only reach the the same score in math that white 9 year olds had scored in 1978. when test records began. That is an amazing fact—but by law Somerby disappears it.

    KZ 2: By 2013 white 4th graders math scores soared to a level black 8th graders could not reach until 2003, just a decade ago.

    The fact is, the presentations we made, just as the one BOB made, should not be made using NAEP data. The NAEP Validation Panel study made that warning in the same paper which also stated BOB's rough rule of thumb had no basis in fact, and while it might be close to accurate for reading in Grades 4-8, it was not close in math.

    Which brings us to the final evidence of both hypocrisy, loose screws at work in these posts by the OTB. In Part 3, The Game of Thumbs.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. KZ did not argue Somerby hasn't closed gaps between the races. He suggested Somerby was manipulating statistics by picking selected ones and spinning them, just as the Post and their expert did.

      Delete
    2. Are you aware that supporting KZ is making you look ridiculous?

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    3. To you? Who cares?

      Delete
    4. To all regular readers of this blog, who knew KZ back before he changed his name. You look like a ridiculous wanna be troll baby trying to join in but not sure how to do it. So you just attack someone in your generic way without any understanding of the topic under discussion. Newbie troll with nothing original to say, adding his "me too" to KZ's louder troll voice.

      Delete
    5. 6:44 you have yet to do anything but make yourself look ridiculous. You made a comment about gaps, which KZ made no reference to. You were corrected. You then said correcting your comment constituted support for someone rather than respond to it as a correction of your fallacious comment.

      I am sorry. Making a false assertion, then responding with name calling is the work of a troll. It doesn't matter if you do it in defense of the blog writer. It is still a trollery.

      Delete
    6. Blogger Reader Since 2000September 19, 2015 at 10:53 PM

      I'm a regular reader of this blog and you don't speak for me, Anon. at 6:44 PM. What a pretentious statement to make.

      Delete
  5. OMB (Lyin and Bloggin and Thumbs, Oh My!)

    Part 3. Applying Normally Rough or Loose Thumb Screws

    Throughout this series the thumbs have been at work on math scores.

    In Part 2 BOB wrote

    "When reporting results from the NAEP, journalists frequently apply a rule of thumb. We’ve always referred to it as a very rough rule of thumb... according to this very rough rule of thumb, ten points on the NAEP scale is often compared to one academic year.

    Applying that very rough rule of thumb, those look like substantial score gains on the Grade 12 NAEP....

    Good grief! If we apply that very rough rule of thumb, black high school seniors gained more than half a year in average math achievement over an eight-year period. The gains by Hispanic and Asian-American high school seniors were even larger."


    Good grief! indeed.

    Somebody in the comment section noted that the 12th grade test no longer uses a 500 point scale like the other tests and the math test before 2005. What a spoil sport.

    In fact it was the 500 point cross-grade scale scoring NAEP developed for its original Long Term Trend test that allowed BOB and other charlatans to pull the Rule of Thumb out of their behinds and smear it on test results incorrectly. Under revisons made in 2005, the math test no longer uses a cross-grade scale. Its point system implies no added years of learning at all. It applies only to the grade being tested, 12th, in the subject being tested, math.

    So what does BOB say today? Does he say he was wrong? No, he does just what the "Fixed, fake, phony, fraudulent—faux!" do.

    He fudges:

    "Judged by normal rules of thumb, those score gains, over an eight-year span, all seem rather healthy....

    What might those Grade 12 score gains mean? Are high school seniors actually doing better in math? If so, how much better? What amount of academic improvement might be suggested by those gains on the NAEP?

    Should that rule be applied to those gains at the Grade 12 level? How should we assess those score gains? Should we think of those score gains as large?

    Like you, we have no real idea."

    BOB is now blaming the journalists for the rule of thumb he has been perpetuating. And now he says he has no real idea about the meaning of a "rule" he applied just a few posts back.

    Bob said Anderson couldnt be so incompentent so he must be a fraud.

    We'd say Bob can be this incompetent which does not relieve him of being judged a fraud.

    On, and a shout out to BOB! Nice red baiting with the Stalin reference.
    It was a nice way to round out your opening about the exploding Soviet TV sets.

    BOB. Full of Foofaw.

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    1. If the 12th grade test uses a 300 point scale instead of a 500 point scale, that makes the gains even larger than stated by Somerby. His comments are then conservative. So what are you crying about? Since Somerby didn't claim there was a 300 point scale -- someone in the comments did that and we don't know whether it is true or not, why are you trying to hold Somerby responsible for someone else's comment? I'd say you are incompetent.

      Delete
    2. Lord, how sad 9:25 is.

      "Since Somerby didn't claim...we don't know whether it is true or not"

      Are you trying to prove KZ's claim that the average Bobfan will follow him blindly?

      From NAEP...You can go literally dozens of place to find this:

      "The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assesses student performance in mathematics at grades 4, 8, and 12. NAEP mathematics scores range from 0 to 500 for grades 4 and 8. The framework for the 12th-grade mathematics assessment was revised in 2005; as a result, the 2005, 2009, and 2013 results cannot be compared with those from previous years. At grade 12, mathematics scores on the revised assessment range from 0 to 300."

      http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cnc.asp

      Delete
    3. Which NAEP test are you talking about -- the Long Term or the Main test? I know -- do you?

      I don't know whether you are KZ giving himself an anonymous boost or some other troll who likes to jump into the middle of other people's disputes and sling poo (as Somerby would put it). Doesn't matter -- either way you are a troll with nothing to do on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. So sad.

      Delete
    4. And how is your sad Saturday @ 1:28? Rainy no doubt?

      Since you are here, it must be. Take the time and follow the link since you didn't learn from reading this series that the test by grade level refers to the Main NAEP. The Long Term Trend test is given by age.

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    5. Poor 1:28 - finding Kulaks under every bed.

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    6. Not fat Kulaks, we suspect. Stalin took care of them during forced collectivization. If any escaped they were probably wiped out by the exploding TV's or resulting house fires.

      KZ

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  6. Zarkon or KZ or whoever he or she is seems to have no idea of the difference in support needed to make an independent assertion -- like the claim of so-called journalists that tests show gains in elementary grades are evaporating in high school, and that needed to show weakness in that support. For the latter purpose, "cherry-picking" is completely legitimate when the discrepancy it appears to show was neither explained nor even cited in the original assertion.

    It's a subtle and completely illegitimate shift in burden of proof that KZ/Zarkon applies. He/she sure does expend an enormous amount of energy in his relentless assaults. One might think he/she is a paid troll for Eli Broad or any of the other wealthy players whose billions allow them to diddle around in so-called school reform with no knowledge whatsoever about public schools. They could not possibly like the detailed way he goes after their reliable propagandists in the media.

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    1. Good to see urban legend weighing in. One might think you are more reliable than the usual band of Somerbian sycophants.

      Your point --- that "the claim...gains...are evaporating" must be made with a higher degree of proof ---requires you to add the word "evaporating" as a synonym for stalling or stagnating.

      But we'll skip debating definitions and add more facts for you to ignore. For free.

      BOB argues that 12th graders are showing real progress in math on the MAIN NAEP and "experts, professors and journos" are falsely stating they are not doing so while they "disappear" other relevant facts.

      Since BOB has put all his cherries in the NAEP 12th Grade Math test basket to prove his case, let's focus on that.

      Here's a fact BOB disappears. He notes the 2005 NAEP 12th grade math test changed, making its scoring not comparable to testing in the previous decade. But he doesn't note the 2009 test was changed as well. If you look at the vaunted score gains BOB delineates from 2005 to 2013, they took place between the 2005 test and the changed 2009 test.

      Did the changes in the test contribute to the gains between 2005 and 2009? We don't know. We do know BOB didn't tell his readers there were changes. We do know that when the test was the same, between 2009 and 2013, there were no gains.

      We are told you cannot compare results made after the 2005 changes to 12th grade NAEP test scores given before the change. BOB did not detail the change in the score scale, perhaps not noting either the change itself or that the change also rendered his "rough rule of thumb" as imaginary and useless as the tears of his analysts.

      BOB disappeared another key fact. Raw scores from 1990 to 2000 cannot be compared to scores from 2005 to 2013, but achievement levels can. The people who designed the Gold Standard Test also designed four levels of achievement for all NAEP tests, Advanced, Proficient, Basic, and Below Basic. And even though they changed test scoring for 12th grade math from 500 to 300 points, they kept those achievement levels and simply found the proper score level in the new system needed to reach them.

      Do you know what you find when you measure the achievement levels of 12th graders since the Main NAEP 12th grade math test began? Heck, do you know what the achievement levels are since 2005? Have the achievement levels gone up like the raw scores? Like BOB, we can say we don't know, but like BOB we know where the data can be found.

      BOB spends a lot of time telling readers what other people left out that he thinks should have been covered. He likes to imply sinister motives and/or pathetic intelligence as the cause for these facts to be disappeared. Much, we regret, like you say someone might pay us to be here.

      Why did BOB leave out that there were changes to the 2009 Math test from 2005? Why did BOB not mention the same achievement levels are still being applied to NAEP math scores, and that while scores from 1990 cannot be compared to 2013, achievement levels can be compared?

      When you answer those questions we will look at Petrilli's famous four words "Twelfth-grade NAEP: Flat" and see if BOB can actually refute them using only one set of scores on the two NAEP tests alone.

      You question our motives not our facts. You suggest that by equating Bob with those he criticizes we defend the work or aims of those he criticizes. We don't. Finally you suggest we might be paid becasue those with money who favor "reform" can't like what BOB is doing. Hell, we doubt they know he exists, and if they got wind of his work they might want pay him to keep making a fool of himself.

      KZ

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    2. Just a suggestion to UL: next time, english subtitles would be helpful.

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