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The Daily Signal
Nation’s
‘Report Card’ Shows Federal Intervention Has Not Helped Students
Lindsey Burke
April 10, 2018
When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act into law in 1965, he vowed the unprecedented new federal
intervention in K-12 education would “bridge the gap between
helplessness and hope” for “educationally deprived children.”
When President Jimmy Carter signed the Department of Education
Organization Act into law in 1979 creating the Department of Education,
he exclaimed that “the time has passed when the federal government can
afford to give second-level, part-time attention to its
responsibilities in American education.”
When President George W. Bush began making the case for No Child Left
Behind, he elegantly stated that his federal education policies would
end the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”
And when President Barack Obama signed into law the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act, more commonly known as the “stimulus”—sending an
unprecedented $98 billion to the Department of Education—he said that
it represented “the largest investment in education in our nation’s
history” and would ensure American children wouldn’t be “out-educated”
on the international stage.
Yet more than half a century after Johnson signed Elementary and
Secondary Education Act into law, and 38 years after the Department of
Education became operational, it has become clear that federal
intervention in K-12 education has failed to achieve its primary goal:
reducing gaps in academic outcomes between disadvantaged students and
their more advantaged peers.
On Tuesday, the National Center for Education Statistics at the
Department of Education released the highly anticipated results of the
2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as
the nation’s “report card,” underscoring that point.
The scores are a particular indictment of Obama-era education policies,
including historically high levels of spending, the addition of new
programs, numerous federal directives, and perhaps most
consequentially, Common Core.
Here are the key results.
Raw Scores (and Student Achievement) Flatline
Eighth-grade reading increased one point in 2017 from 2015, up to 267.
Fourth-grade reading was not significantly different, declining from
223 in 2015 to 222 in 2017. Fourth-grade math scores were unchanged, at
240 in both 2015 and 2017, and eighth-grade math scores did not
significantly change, moving from 282 in 2015 to 283 in 2017.
Both the math and reading scores on the National Assessment of
Educational Progress are measured on a point scale of 0 to 500.
In terms of the percentage of American students considered proficient
in math and reading, the 2017 report card has little to cheer.
37 percent of fourth-graders scored proficient or better in reading,
unchanged from 2015.
36 percent of eighth-graders scored proficient or better in reading,
significantly better than in 2015, when 34 percent of eighth-graders
reached proficiency or better. This was the only subject and grade
level to show any significant improvement since 2015.
40 percent of fourth-graders scored proficient or better in math,
unchanged from 2015.
34 percent of eighth-graders scored proficient or better in math, which
was not significantly different from 2015.
Only a single state—Florida—posted gains in fourth-grade math since
2015. Florida was also the only state to post gains in eighth-grade
math. And while nine states saw improvements in eighth-grade reading,
not a single state increased fourth-grade reading performance over 2015
levels. Fourth-grade math scores also decreased by two points in the
nation’s largest districts.
Achievement Gaps Persist
The achievement gap between white students and their nonwhite peers
also remained unchanged. The gap actually widened between students who
were the lowest performers in math and reading, and students who were
the highest performers.
For example, eighth-graders in the lowest 25th percentile of
performance saw a statistically significant two-point decline in math,
from 258 to 256, while eighth-graders in the 90th percentile of math
performance saw a significant increase from 329 to 333.
A Trend Line Emerges
Although the 2017 scores are uninspiring, they should be particularly
concerning when considered in conjunction with the 2015 results, the
most recent release prior to this year’s report card.
The 2015 National Assessment of Education Progress represented the
first time math and reading scores had declined or remained stagnant
since the test was first administered in 1990. Further declines and an
overall stagnation in 2017 suggest a trend—namely, scores are going in
the wrong direction.
Forty-nine out of 50 states were stagnant on the 2017 report card, and
achievement gaps persist. Historically, federal education spending has
been appropriated to close gaps, yet this spending—more than $2
trillion in inflation-adjusted spending at the federal level alone
since 1965—has utterly failed to achieve that goal.
Increasing federal intervention over the past half-century, and the
resulting burden of complying with federal programs, rules, and
regulations, have created a parasitic relationship with federal
education programs and states, and is straining the time and resources
of local schools.
Instead of responding first to students, parents, and taxpayers,
federal education micromanagement has encouraged state education
systems and local school districts to orient their focus to the demands
of Washington.
Instead of building on the failed policies of the past and continuing
top-down education mandates from Washington, a drastically different
approach should be taken to significantly limit federal meddling in
education and to empower state and local leaders.
It is time for the federal government to re-examine its intervention in
local school policy.
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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