New NAEP results

The latest NAEP results are public, with no real surprises. Now we'll have to spend the next 24 hours or so sifting through various news stories, spin, and counter-spin focused on NCLB reauthorization. I guarantee that 99 percent of all of this -- both the stories and the warring spin -- was put together well ahead of time, and today's work is mostly just a matter of filling in the numbers in various pre-written statements supporting or denouncing the law.

As for my take, Kati Haycock sums up the two most important points well, from the Ed Trust press release:

Since 1996, the percentage of our nation’s fourth-grade students performing below the Basic achievement level in math has been cut in half, from 39 percent to 19 percent, with even stronger improvement among poor and minority students (from 73 percent to 37 percent for African Americans, 61 percent to 31 percent for Latinos, and 60 percent to 30 percent for poor students). At the same time, higher performers also posted significant gains, increasing the ranks of students at the Proficient and Advanced levels.

“Learning is not a zero-sum game,” said Haycock. “These results refute the false premise that increased attention to our lowest-performing students means that progress among higher achievers must be sacrificed.”

I've said it before and I'll say it again: NAEP results, particularly in elementary math, absolutely disprove the notion that public education is unreformable and nothing can be done for disadvantaged students. And while there's a lot of talk about how NCLB's focus on bringing up low-performing kids is pulling down the top and short-changing the gifted, I've yet to see any compelling evidence that this actually true. Our society is relentlessly focused on providing all manner of opportunity to people with an excess of talent, money, and social capital, and no federal law--particularly one narrowly focused on education--is going to change that.