A new analysis of student test scores reveals that American schools were in a “learning recession” for seven years before the COVID-19 pandemic, with student test scores in math and reading on a steady decline since 2013. This reversal ended two decades of progress, according to Sean Reardon, the Professor of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford Graduate School of Education, whose data forms the backbone of the new research.
The study found that the slowdown in learning coincided with two major shifts in American childhood and education policy: the widespread dismantling of test-based accountability systems that defined the No Child Left Behind era and the rise of social media use among young people. Reading scores, in particular, suffered consistently, with the average annual loss in the years just before the pandemic being just as large as the loss during it.
Even before reading the article I said to myself that timeframe would likely correlate to the kids going all the way through Bush’s Every Child Left Behind changes.
To be clear, they are crediting the NCLB act as a positive. They suggest that the NCLB act created an era of progress and that dismantling it was an issue. It gets a lot of flack for being too test driven, but it seemed to have improved outcomes.
After seeing the damage done to my high school in the years following my graduation, you can add my name to the large list of critics who argue that NCLB led us to where we are now. Although I should also give a shoutout to the state of North Carolina for their commitment to no longer being a serious state, after that brief window of time where they had their shit somewhat together.
I obviously can’t speak for any specific school, and I don’t have any hard data in front of me nor am I particularly interested in looking for it at the moment, but I was just passing along what they found in the original report.
Do you mind providing more information on why you think it led us to where we are now? Apparently the report found evidence to the contrary, so I’m just interested in what individuals have to say about it.
One of the main drawbacks of the program was that it punished schools for low test scores with decreased funding, which directly led to schools in impoverished areas or with high numbers of students with learning disabilities being further left behind.
Additionally, teachers in these schools were directly held accountable for students tests scores. While this sounds good on paper, it results in two obvious problems. The first being that good teachers at poor schools are either forced out or voluntarily leave as a result of a diminished workplace. The second applies to all schools and is that teachers no longer educate children, instead focusing on ‘teaching the test.’ Basically the entire focus of a child’s education was changed to making sure that they were prepared to pass a specific set of question types at the end of the year, as opposed to a more holistic education. ‘Teaching to the test’ also had other unintended downstream negative effects, such as reduced funding for the arts and humanities, as they were not a part of the testing protocol.
In [the most disadvantaged schools] in America, even the most earnest teacher has often given up because they lack every available resource that could possibly make a difference. … When we say all children can achieve and then not give them the additional resources … we are creating a fantasy.
-Susan B Neuman, U.S. Department of Education’s former Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education
As for my anecdotal experience, I went to a school in NC as part of the magnet program which, along with bussing, sent students to the poorer districts as an attempt to both integrate as well as increase funding and educational outcomes of schools in those districts. This all came to a screeching halt when the NC judiciary deemed this practice unconstitutional. As a result my school, which was largely held afloat by these measures was no longer capable of getting by. The results of this decision were immediately noticeable, with test scores plummeting and the state taking over almost immediately. This resulted in decreased funding, both from the state/feds and from the withdrawal of more affluent families in the Parent Teacher Associations (which have a high impact on school conditions in the state). All of the more exceptional teachers that were there when I was a student were forced out or chose to leave due to conditions, and I can remember reading articles of teachers literally driving around the ghetto trying to find their students to convince them to show up for the end of year tests. Twenty years later and the school still has not recovered.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
And they scapegoat the phones because they want to admit the systems fundamentally broken
I don’t think phones are a scapegoat. Its sensible to not allow them during instruction. I could not pull out a portable tv or calculator when I was in class. It is easy enough to simply not allow them though and I for the life of me don’t get why that is controversial.
Because it’s intentional information control, not about education. They’ve admitted it. It’s a foothold into total bans on the internet for young people
I think we are talking about two different things. I thought you were talking about phones in class but sounds like your talking about some sort of blanket ban for all kids or something.
Source?
We see the exact same trend here in Sweden. We have the phones but we never had the president.
weve experience it in 2008, and the effects of it lasted like another 8 years and we dint fully recover since. it got so bad one time our CC had to cancel summer semester.
