The Best Takes on the Worst NAEP Scores Ever
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Today’s edition features analyses on NAEP from Marty West, Holly Korbey, and many more. Plus reactions to Tuesday’s newsletter from Mike Kirst, Sharif El-Mekki, and Lymaris Santana.
There was a time that I treated NAEP Day as a holiday. I’d beg reporters to share early findings with me (rarely successfully), rush out an analysis, and spend hours on social media debating what the latest ups and downs meant.
But in recent weeks, in preparation for the latest reading and math scores for twelfth graders and the latest science scores for eighth graders, all I could manage was a shrug. After all, there wasn’t exactly any suspense. As pandemic-era closures cast their long shadow, I don’t think anyone expected the scores to do anything but decline, and decline they did.
Still, I’m grateful to other intrepid wonks who mustered the energy to dig in and find nuggets of insight. Including:
Marc Porter Magee, who highlighted encouraging news from the charter schools sector, whose scores bucked the national trend.
Marty West, who parlayed his role as chair of the National Assessment Governing Board into an excellent commentary for Education Week ($), citing phones and social media as likely culprits in the longstanding downward trends.
Holly Korbey, who gladly did her Holly Korbey thing by sticking to questions of teaching and learning, especially in math.
Mike Goldstein, who wondered if we will start paying more attention to what kids are doing at night, since that’s where much of the problem lies.
Robin Lake, who bemoans that “downward spiral” that the results represent.
Plus the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal ($), which thinks that grade inflation, slipping graduation standards, and easier state tests are also to blame.
Good stuff, gang. As for me, I’m working on an updated analysis of college readiness versus college completion. And I’m trying to puzzle out whether our high schools can be blamed for the twelfth-grade declines or whether they started much sooner. Stay tuned!
As Marty West argued (above), the circumstantial evidence continues to accumulate that screens are at least partly to blame for our achievement declines. But why? What’s the mechanism? That’s the question that Dan Willingham dives into in this fantastic article for Education Next. His surprising conclusion: The problem isn’t that devices harm students’ ability to pay attention, but that they lower their motivation to do so. Living in a screen-dominated world where boredom has been banished makes it hard for kids to deal with the boredom, drudgery, and hard intellectual work required for learning.
In the Wall Street Journal ($), Roland Fryer argues that we know what to do to fix our schools, we just lack the political will to do it. We’ve all heard that line a million times before, and it always makes me cringe, but kudos to Fryer for bringing the receipts (mostly from Houston from over a decade ago).
Eric Hanushek, for his part, is done with incremental change and wants a return to “outcome-based accountability”—the only way to reverse the declines in student achievement that started way back in 2013.
“What Mississippi, Louisiana, Success Academy, and Steubenville, Ohio, are showing is the possibility of steady, persistent improvement when adults commit to what works.” So writes Robert Pondiscio.
In his quest to anger folks on both sides of the ed reform debate, my good friend Van Schoales decries ($) the dark money in Denver’s school board race coming from both charter school advocates and the teachers unions.
Rick Hess and Ashley Berner continue their conversation in Education Week ($), this time about “the biggest things people don’t know about school choice.”
Speaking of choice, Shaka Mitchell writes up the lessons learned by “Florida’s unlikely education champion,” John Kirtley.
DFER’s Jorge Elorza has been making waves by saying that Dems should embrace private school choice. Now he teams up with Ian Rowe to argue that blue states should opt into the One Big Beautiful Bill’s education tax credit initiative.
Some tests focus on phonics, and others on content knowledge. That’s why they report different trends, explains Chad Aldeman in The 74.
Speaking of testing, Christy Hovanetz tornadoes Oklahoma for its “misguided” plan to ditch statewide tests.
“A growing number of Colorado students attend a different school from the one their district assigns” —The Colorado Sun
A New York state legislator files a bill to require Empire State schools to teach the history and heroism of 9/11. —The New York Post
Yet another article blames testing for taking the joy out of reading in high school English class—even though the state testing footprint at that level is minimal. —The 74
A New Jersey district relied on the “64 Floor” and questionable credit recovery practices to inflate student achievement data and increase graduation rates. —Asbury Park Press
“Why some families are leaving public schools for other options” —Kerry McDonald, Forbes
On through-year assessments
Arthur VanderVeen (President & CEO, New Meridian)
Hi Mike,
Thanks for your thoughtful post. I’d like to “tell you you’re wrong” about through-year assessments—based on real-world evidence from Montana.
After three years of development and piloting, we launched the Montana Aligned to Standards Through-Year (MAST) assessment statewide this year for 68,000 students in grades 3–8. MAST isn’t just another interim or mini-summative—it’s a fundamentally different model. Students take short, standards-aligned “testlets” (12 in math, seven in ELA) throughout the year, each lasting about 25 minutes and administered flexibly based on local curriculum pacing. Teachers get timely, actionable data on student understanding and misconceptions, enabling early intervention. And at year’s end, we aggregate scores to produce a valid summative result—no separate end-of-year test required.
I’d like to address your key concerns:
“It’s all about the stakes.” We studied this closely. Students reported less stress and more engagement. Because testlets follow instruction and are administered on demand, there’s no need for test prep. Teachers saw assessment as part of learning, not a disruption.
“Through-year assessments distort the curriculum.” That’s true of rigid through-year models that chunk learning standards into beginning-, middle-, and end-of-year blueprints that should be covered statewide, as Indiana is attempting to do. MAST is different: Districts and schools “build their own test,” aligning testlets to their local scope and sequence. Assessment reinforces instruction rather than distorting it.
“Shorter tests drill superficial skills.” Not with MAST. Each testlet targets one or two standards deeply. Math tasks emphasize modeling and reasoning; ELA tasks require close reading and evidence-based writing.
“Just use interims.” Commercial interims aren’t aligned to local curricula and often promote drill-and-kill strategies. MAST is aligned to green-rated HQIM programs, supporting coherence between instruction and assessment—and it replaces the summative, reducing overall testing time.
We believe MAST offers a promising path forward: a modular, curriculum-connected through-year system that supports learning and accountability. We invite other states to explore this innovative approach.
Sharif El-Mekki (CEO, The Center for Black Educator Development)
Having these mid-year tests should not be driven by states, but by schools/districts. Having benchmark assessments that are aligned, responded to by instructors and coaches, and a part of overall standards curricula alignment and lead and lag measures is best.
What should be happening is district/school leaders should get technical assistance in how to design their benchmark tests better, not for the state to hop on and mandate. The year-end should be state/national. In between them should be great instruction and feedback that's aligned to the highest standards.
Michael W. Kirst (Professor emeritus, Stanford University)
A bigger issue than one-state test changes is we have no idea about the quality and rigor of the various tests 50 states use for accountability. I have advocated a study of this status, but nobody has led a process of knowing what the state testing variations encompass.
[Note: Mike K. is right. Funders, please step up!]
On Democrats and education
Lymaris Santana, Ed.D. (Education specialist, Florida)
It is tempting to read NAEP results as a red versus blue report card. After all, Democrats hold full control in 17 states while Republicans control 23. Yet the data does not follow partisan lines. Blue states like Massachusetts and New Jersey continue to rank among the highest performers, despite their own recent decline in scores. Red states like Mississippi and Tennessee show notable improvement, but everywhere, the lowest performing students are falling further behind. There is a need to look deeply into the data to understand the conditions (e.g., socioeconomic) that lead to these results in each state.
The claim that Democratic states are doing nothing to raise achievement does not hold up. It is true they have not outperformed the nation, but neither have they failed uniquely. The truth is that nearly every state is still grappling with pandemic learning loss. Where real progress exists, it comes from targeted reforms, not party labels.
The Nation’s Report Card reminds us that America is not facing a blue state crisis or a red state crisis. It is facing a national one. The way forward requires persistence, investment, and a willingness to adopt proven strategies. Above all, it requires moving past party lines to focus on what unites us: the responsibility to ensure every child in every community has the literacy skills needed to succeed.
See ya next week!
Mike
There is an abundance of handwringing about the current reality, a few high-minded proposals on "what" needs to change, and nearly zero discussion of the specific actions that will be required to reengineer the system.
For example, I appreciate Fryer's focus on what leads to increased learning and closing gaps, but how does it scale? Where will we find all of these outstanding principals and teachers? We can't replace 95% of principals nationwide unless we have a mammoth reserve hidden in the wings somewhere. Do we? If not, what incentives are we offering to attract the best-and-brightest to a career field that is already experiencing nationwide shortages across all staff classifications?
We bemoan the funding that has been "poured" into education with few positive results. Yet across much of the nation, our professional educators can make half of what they would earn in the private sector for comparable education and experience. How is that to be rectified without an influx of significantly increased funding?
"In the Wall Street Journal, Roland Fryer argues that we know what to do to fix our schools, we just lack the political will to do it." Unfortunately, it will take more than just political will--as important as that is. I wrote about some of these obstacles in Listening to the Experts Doesn't Mean Giving Them the Last Word (https://harriettjanetos.substack.com/p/listening-to-the-experts-doesnt-mean?r=5spuf). Thanks for all the links!