Low NAEP scores result of computer illiteracy, says Supt. John White

30th April 2018   ·   0 Comments

By Kari Dequine Harden
Contributing Writer

What do the recently released NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores reveal about the effectiveness of education reform in New Orleans and in Louisiana?

Are the results subjective? Is their measurement of success or lack thereof in the eye of the beholder?

They shouldn’t be, given the collection of average NAEP test scores from 4th- and 8th-graders in every state and the District of Colombia are recognized as a “gold standard” for tracking and comparing student achievement over time.

Compared to 2015, the 2017 results for Louisiana are dismal, with students falling to last place in 4th-grade math, and dropping from eighth from the bottom to third from the bottom in 4th-grade reading.

In 8th-grade math, Louisiana students dropped to 50th place, and while 8th-grade reading scores went up two points, they remained fourth from the bottom in the rankings.

After getting a preview of the less-than-impressive scores, Louisiana’s Superintendent of Education John White wrote a letter to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) expressing concerns the 2017 scores might have more to do with computer literacy.

“I would like to be assured, as soon as possible,” White wrote in the March 23 letter, “that when NCES reports math and reading results on a state-by-state basis over a two-year interval, the results and trends reported at the state level reflect an evaluation of reading and math skill rather than an evaluation of technology skill.”

He argues that “no Louisiana student in 4th grade or 8th grade had ever been required to take a state assessment via a computer or tablet as of the 2017 NAEP administration. This fact, coupled with a variety of social indicators that may correspond with low levels of technology access or skill, may mean that computer usage or skill among Louisiana students, or students in any state, is not equivalent to computer skills in the national population.”

In the letter, White also requests a more detailed breakdown of the data.

One problem for White regarding the NAEP scores is that they are immune from any delay in release, potential spin or manipulation at state and local levels. From White’s critics, his constant changing of grading scales, formulas and benchmarks has become an often scoffed at trademark in Louisiana Department of Education’s (LDOE) dissemination of annual data. His department has also made a practice of delaying the release of scores, taking down historical data from the website, and has been sued a number of times for refusing to release public data — or releasing it only to some institutions while refusing to give it to those displaying more charter skepticism.

Longtime educator, author, and host of “The New Orleans Imperative,” Dr. Raynard Sanders sees White’s justification of the dropping NAEP scores as part of a long pattern of misleading the public about how well reform efforts are working — and particularly in the center of that reform in New Orleans.

“When you peel back the onion, we’re not doing well at all,” Sanders said.

Hired to the position in 2012, White is considered a darling of the “reform” movement and ideology, of which the wholesale privatization of public education in New Orleans is a central tenet, as well as the statewide voucher program which funnels public money into private schools.

Michael Deshotels, retired educator and former executive director of the Louisiana Association of Educators, details other changes that came in with White in a blog post: “At the same time that [former Gov. Bobby] Jindal hired White, he passed two sweeping laws in early 2012 designed to implement every major school reform being touted as the holy grail for dramatically improving schools. The first bill took away teacher rights such as seniority, tenure, and standard salary schedules based on experience. It substituted teacher and administrator merit pay based on student test scores.”

There have been measurable successes during White’s tenure — including rising ACT scores, state test scores, numbers of students filling out college applications and graduation rates.

In response to the 2017 NAEP scores, White gave the following comment: “Long-term trends in Louisiana are on the rise on every measure of educational achievement. We are making progress. This information is one measure among many different measures, but it reminds us we have a long way yet to go. We must continue our efforts to do right by every family and child in our state.”

However, there are also significant concerns — especially with the “disaster capitalism” approach in New Orleans — that call some of those positive statistics into question, namely the widespread pushing out of children who may not score as high on standardized tests or may hurt graduation rates.

Many charter schools start with a larger-sized class and gradually eliminate students who don’t test well, ending with a much smaller class, described Dr. Lance Hill, historian and former Executive Director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University.

“What happened to those other kids?” Hill asked. “I read about them every day getting shot on the streets. With no functional literacy, they got pushed out.” In other states, access to raw data allows those kids to be better tracked, Hill said, but accessing that data has been a nearly impossible challenge for researchers in New Orleans seeking it.

There are many ways to manipulate data, as Deshotels points out: “The small increase in ACT average scores in Louisiana was engineered by revising the calculation to include only graduating students. When you leave out the scores of the dropouts after 11th grade who had taken the ACT, the average score will be boosted significantly.”

In terms of a longer-term measure of success for graduating students, Deshotels continues, “Furthermore there is no assurance that students will actually attend college. In fact, Louisiana has seen no improvement in actual college completion.”

But in terms of looking strictly at the NAEP scores under White’s reform efforts — even if the 2017 scores were impacted by computer literacy — it would be hard to claim success.

Looking at the 2011 scores, one year prior to White’s arrival, for 4th grade math, the average score dropped from 231 to 229 in 2017.

For 4th-grade reading, it went up just two points from 210 to 212. For 8th-grade math, it decreased from 273 in 2011 to 267 in 2017. For 8th-grade reading, it increased just two points from 255 to 257.

In terms of national rankings, things are even worse, with Louisiana dropping in every category since 2005. Looking back to the 2005 NAEP results — when major school reform began in the state — Louisiana was ranked seventh from the bottom in 4th-grade math (now last). For 4th-grade reading, Louisiana was eighth from the bottom (now third). For 8th-grade math in 2005, Louisiana was 6th from the bottom (now 2nd).

For 8th-grade reading, Louisiana was ranked seventh from the bottom (now fourth).

“The chickens are coming home to roost with the release of the most recent 2017 NAEP test results,” writes Deshotels. “Most real experts believe that NAEP is the best way to measure academic progress or lack of it.”

But with all the spin, data manipulation and mainstream media compliance, “People don’t know how little progress has occurred,” Hill said.

And many of the schools in New Orleans seized by the Recovery School District remain the worst in the state in terms of School Performance Scores, also with ACT scores at the bottom of the heap.

Backed by massive corporations and powerful politicians, the pro-charter lobby is indeed a powerful one.

And according to Hill, as long as Louisiana’s DOE is run by somebody from the non-educator led “reform” realm, “The public will not know the failures of that system.”

According to a 2013 study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes, charter schools on the whole were not producing better academic results than traditional public schools.

The study found that 56 percent of the charters produced no significant difference in reading, while 19 percent showed worse results than traditional public schools. In math, 40 percent of charter schools produced no significant difference, while 31 percent were significantly worse than traditional public schools.

The often high rate of closure — which can be highly disruptive and damaging to a child’s education and stability — must also be taken into account. According to the Stanford study, states that shut down at least 10 percent of their charter schools had the best overall results.

For Hill, given this study from an organization he considers pro-charter, “If there is no difference between charter and public schools in New Orleans, what price are we paying when we lose schools to outside nonprofit organizations which govern with impunity, and who can kick students out if it increases their scores?”

But the spin hardly belongs to White alone.

After the release of the NAEP results, the New Orleans Times-Picayune/Nola.com’s headline declared the results “mixed outcomes.”

The story never mentions Louisiana’s bottom or near-bottom rankings in the country. About half of the story is devoted to the issue of computer versus paper-and-pencil testing.

In contrast, The Advocate lays it out at the beginning: “In the latest snapshot of education achievement, scores for Louisiana public school fourth-graders plunged to or near the bottom of the nation in reading and math.

In addition, eighth-graders finished 50th among the states and the District of Columbia in math and 48th in reading.”

Hill calls The Times-Picayune’s “mixed outcomes” approach “an insult to readers’ intelligence.”

The LDOE is also quick to point to a statement from the The Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, which urges “Because research shows that lack of experience with computers correlates with lower scores on computerized tests, and because students in different states had very different prior exposure to computers and computerized tests, we believe that the state-level results of 2017 NAEP should be viewed with caution.”

So even if the 2015 to 2017 scores were impacted by the switch to online testing, the historical NAEP data still makes it a stretch to conclude that White’s tenure and reform in Louisiana is working.

In addition, author and former educator Mercedes Schneider points to a letter sent by LaSalle Parish math teacher Herb Bassett to White and several members of the BESE board. In the April 2017 letter, Basset asks in regard not to NAEP but to state LEAP tests, “What accommodations will be made or what revision process will be implemented to adjust for the shift in achievement level distribution that likely will accompany the transition to computer-based tests from paper-and-pencil based tests this year (for K-8 students)?”

White gives Bassett the following response in the other letter Schneider published on her blog: “Some districts have already made the shift to online testing in elementary/middle school grades without a significant impact on results. Additionally, all districts have had many years to prepare for the transition. Thus, no major impact on results is expected. . Ultimately, the Department’s objective is not to create a particular distribution of results, but rather to build a fair and honest accountability system that holds students and schools to the same high expectations as anywhere else in the country. A core component of that system is expecting students to use computers, as is required for all adults and children in the 21st century.”

Given White’s “live-with-it answer” written to Bassett, Schneider doesn’t buy White’s deep concern about the impact of the switch to computers for the 2017 NAEP tests.

If White’s reform agenda isn’t working, what will? According to Sanders, the solutions to genuinely improving education are not so complicated: follow best practices, hire qualified teachers and teach comprehensively — not just to the test.

Released on April 3, Sanders co-authored the book Twenty-first Century Jim Crow Schools: The Impact of Charters on Public Education.

He sees reform in New Orleans more about an agenda to privatize a public resource rather than improving educational outcomes.

“The obvious conclusion,” Deshotels writes, “is that Louisiana has squandered millions of dollars on standardized testing, and huge chunks of the school year on useless test prep, while the teaching profession has been crushed… all so that student performance could move closer to the bottom of the state rankings.”

Regardless of viewpoints on reform, regardless of the impact of the switch to computer-based testing, the 2017 NAEP scores and Louisiana’s consistent place at the bottom of the nation should concern everyone who cares about the education of future generations.

This article originally published in the April 30, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.