Yesterday brought news that NAEP test scores had dropped yet again. If you disaggregate by race here's what they look like:
First look at the green bars. They're for 2024 and they show only a minuscule one-point drop—except for Hispanics, who dropped a full six points. They account for almost the entire overall drop.
Why? Who knows. But this kind of thing is weirdly common. In 2022, for example, there was hardly any drop except among white kids. There have been other recent years where only Black kids fell.
I don't have any point to make here, and this is just one set of results (NAEP also released math scores and 4th grade scores). But overall, the entire last ten years have been pretty grim. Test scores have dropped substantially for everyone except Asians, and most of the drop had nothing to do with the pandemic. If NAEP scores are accurately reflecting actual outcomes, we've lost roughly a full grade level in a single decade.
Try graphing hispanic deviations against immigration. Might be telling.
Yeah, testing a bunch of refugees who are new to English are going to be behind a little. But they'll catch up.
When I taught art in a San Francisco high school it was obvious that many of the students probably from Mexico were often at a very low level in at least visual literacy. It had nothing to do with language. I suspect their academic level was similarly on average way behind native US students. Maybe someone has the facts on that.
But the big two year drop is weird. There were already plenty of Hispanic immigrant kids in 2022. And 2012.
Why do you think they will catch up? Do you have any evidence for this?
BTW, if you are right, Trump's deportations and reduction in new immigrants will presumably raise NAEP scores making him look like the Education President🤣.
NAEP has accommodations for students whose first language is not English: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/focus_on_naep/student_groups/#/english-learners
Wonder about geography? Perhaps the assault on education is pronounced in the south?
From https://apnews.com/article/naep-test-scores-nations-report-card-school-60150156e41b8518be3b6eabf77d0c66 which likely has plenty of grist for everyone’s favorite axes to grind…
One interesting thing to me is that at the same time that this is happening, the number of kids getting really high scores on the SAT is only going up. That doesn't mean the average score is going up; it's flat. But the group who are competitive to go to elite colleges is only getting larger and it's the same for graduate/professional schools.
What this says to me is that educational outcomes across the board are just getting more unequal. More kids are scoring very poorly on these basic reading and math tests, while at the other end, a different group of kids are scoring even higher than their already-well-educated parents did.
I don't know if this is relevant, but it makes me think of the quip "Computers make smart people smarter and dumb people dumber."
There has been a lot of Asian immigration in recent years and the cliches are true. A lot take their classes seriously and study hard, often in groups, and go to after school cram/SAT schools. More wealthy parents send their kids to SAT schools also.
Same thing at a younger age with competitive public high schools like Lowell in San Francisco or Stuyvesant in NYC.
I've been teaching in Los Angeles middle & high schools since 2005. It's gone from very few students read at grade level to almost no students read at grade level. With a handful of exceptions, the only things students have ever read were school assignments and only those done in class. They tend to view reading assignments at best as a chore like cleaning their rooms or at worst, as a form of punishment.
Parents generally do not support efforts to improve their children's reading. Most do not think it is necessary or important. That may be a reflection of the parents' own experience.
How do they play games or text their friends without reading?
Texting emojis etc isn’t reading. Game directions are likely written at low-levels. Question is: what do they read?
With regards to gaming, it very much depends on the type of games they play.
Some have minimal text to read (sports, most first person shooters), but others require the equivalent of reading an entire book or series of books (Role playing games, some simulators).
Texting and game play may involve some reading but it isn’t going to expand vocabulary.
It's a confounding problem. I loved to read as a kid and we live in a house filled with books and magazines and my wife and I still spend most of our leisure time reading. Our teenager won't touch 'em, regardless of how often we take her to libraries, bookstores, buy her books for Xmas, etc.
There was a brief time in the late 90s/early 00's when it appeared that the Harry Potter books had turned a new generation on to the joys of reading. But then social media came along and J.K. Rowling came out as a raving anti-trans loon and so that was that.
Reading as a family is a nice tradition. Pick something like Dickens and read a chapter a night after dinner, taking turns.
It's because people want to be stupid because not being stupid is too frustrating.
Fox news
I’m not sure it’s helpful to show these racial categories. Are Indian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Pakistani, etc all “Asian”?
And the rest make little sense now with all the kids born from parents of different “races”. I have several “black” relatives now because of this. What does that even mean?
Clearly reduction in lead levels have left kids without any reading impulse...
It's the smartphones and social media combo. Not only, probably. But that's the major factor. It's why schools are starting to come up with systems to check in the phones at the start of the day.
They didn't even come around until I was 50. But I feel the magnetic, addictive pull. Can't imagine what it must be like for the phone crack babies of today.
Damn it, I'm old and slow and lazy. I should check the source data, but is it really too much to ask: "drop from what"??? Is it a baseline score, or from prior year?
Or are my reading skills showing holes (they are) and you specified the base and I missed it?