WaPo: Students Show Few Gains Since 'No Child'

[deadparrot]

Despite a new federal educational testing law championed by the Bush administration, scores among fourth and eighth graders failed to show any improvements in reading, and showed only slow gains in math nationally during the past two years, according to a study released today.

Most troubling for educators are the sluggish reading skills among middle school students, which have remained flat for 13 years, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which has been testing students for three decades and bills itself as the "nation's report card."

"I think educators and parents of elementary schools students should feel pretty good about this report. There is progress," said Darvin M. Winick, chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the testing. "There is no rationale on eighth-grade reading other than we are not making progress."

In fourth-grade math, more that 30 states -- including Virginia--and the District posted statistically significant scores. Maryland scores made a modest one-point gain. Seven states showed significant gains in eighth-grade math. Virginia and the District showed a small gain; Maryland remained the same as 2003.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

[barbaraann]

1. Many liquor store clerks can't even do the math to check ages on ID's,

I heard this on the radio yesterday. Some undercover cops did a sweep somewhere in Western Washington state.

Pathetic.

[Hobarticus]

2. The hits just keep on a-comin'...

America, you've been had.

[leesa]

3. Huh?! Is Mr Winick part of the problem? Feel good about progress we are

not making?

"I think educators and parents of elementary schools students should feel pretty good about this report. There is progress," said Darvin M. Winick, chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the testing. "There is no rationale on eighth-grade reading other than we are not making progress."

[Sabriel]

4. Yes, but they're better at test PREPARATION

We're beating Japan and Germany in the areas of filling-in-circles-completely, focusing-on-trivia, and stopping-where-you-see-a-stop-sign-symbol.

I call that progress!

[central scrutinizer]

5. Doh

Underfund the schools for years, watch classes grow to unmanageable sizes, then ladle on an under-funded federal mandate to test, test, and test again, and you get exactly what you would expect to get. The fact that scores haven't dropped shows how hard teachers are working with less than ever before.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. Call Armstrong Williams this afternoon at 4:00 p.m. EST on his

drive-time radio program on WWRL and tell him how he got it wrong.
[phone]

http://www.wwrl1600.com/personalities.asp?PID=10

[sam sarrha]

7. there is an epidemic of 3rd graders, cant pass .and 18% of FL seniors fail

the FCAT... a boycot is brewing

[Earth_First]

8. In our experiences with our 7-year old daughter...

we have found that the textbook fundamentals of reading such as phonics have been completely stripped of the curriculum. It has become a strictly sight word oriented reading program in the elementary schools throughout the area. I cannot wrap my brain around why teaching children to sound out words rather than memorize them has become the standard. Perhaps someone with an elementary academic background could explain this to us.

THANKS in advance!