Education Next – Chad Aldeman
“Is the education space mature enough to handle NAEP tests every two or four years? I’m not so sure. NAEP is the “Nation’s Report Card.” It takes a representative sample of United States students and tests them in reading, math, social studies, science, the arts, etc. There are several versions of NAEP intended to sample different groups of students–the nation as a whole, individual states, or large cities–but its overall goal is to provide citizens a snapshot of how we’re doing as a country. The United States is a big country, and it takes a long time to move the needle on student achievement scores. Depending on the subject and sample, NAEP releases test results every two or every four years. When those scores come out, they almost always look flat. Once this same “flat” result gets repeated over and over, that starts to seep into our collective consciousness about how American students are doing.”(more)