Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is No Way to Go Through Life

On March 28^th, the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution released the newest version of its Child Well-Being Index (CWI), "an evidence based measure of trends in the social conditions encountered by American children and youth since 1975." Written by Duke Prof. Kenneth Land, the report shows evidence that youth smoking, drinking, drug use, crime, suicide, and pregnancy rates are all down. Unfortunately, though, children's health is getting worse, and their educational performance as measured by the national NAEP—which was the predetermined focus of the panel discussion Brookings held to announce the CWI this year—is frustratingly flat considering the number of reform efforts enacted over the past thirty years.

Coinciding with the CWI event was the release of a publication called "The Education Flatline: Causes and Solutions," which offers perspectives from Diane Ravitch, Kate Walsh, Ron Haskins, Isabel Sawhill, David Gordon, Gene Maeroff, and Education Sector board member Bruno Manno. This diverse group of thinkers put forward a number of suggestions for how to raise student achievement, including national standards, an increase in the number of charter schools, improving teacher quality, and reforming Pre-K-3 policies and practices.

Land used the CWI to make a noteworthy connection between the rise in Pre-K enrollment in the 1990's and the rise in NAEP scores for nine-year-olds in the early 2000's. While Land argues that Pre-K enrollment "may be a leading indicator" of later NAEP score improvements, to draw such a correlation requires a methodological evaluation of state—not national—NAEP reports, so that one can take stock of the widely differing state Pre-K programs. The CWI uses the national NAEP.

On a broad scale though, it seems that everyone loves Pre-K these days. It's gotten a lot of buzz, including support from our nation's governors. But any large scale reform effort should be spurred by empirical evidence and will have to make sense of the immensity of the implementation challenges. Watch for Education Sector's Sara Mead to weigh in and offer some innovative suggestions to expand Pre-K access next week. Stay tuned!

PS – Ironic reaction to the CWI report from U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings: "This year's Child Well-Being Index highlights the tremendous gains our students are making, thanks in large part to the landmark No Child Left Behind Act." Really? Thanks "in large part" to NCLB? Minority students have made tremendous gains if you look back as far as fifteen years ago. But they only made marginal gains from 2003 to 2005, which is the time in which NCLB would have had an impact. Given that the CWI event was organized for the express purpose of drawing attention to 30 years of mostly flat NAEP scores, Spellings big ol' NCLB slap on the back seems a bit out of place. It may make for a good quote but it's rooted in a flawed analysis of how the CWI relates to federal policy successes or failures.

- Posted by Ethan Gray