The term crisis is defined by mirriam-webster as either “a difficult or dangerous situation that needs serious attention” or “a situation that has reached a critical phase.” The term crisis is also the one that Governor Andrew Cuomo used to describe education in New York. Were there actually a crisis, his draconian solution of denying money to school districts unless they bend to his will would still constitute an over-reaction. The reality is that, although education in New York could and should improve, it is nowhere near a crisis state. Governor Cuomo, Merryl Tisch, and their former minion, John King, are using as their tools the New York State assessments. Keep in mind, these assessments have cut scores selected AFTER the students take the test, the test is scored, and the scores renewed. If I did that in my classroom, my administrator and parents would, with good reasons, want my head on a plate. So let’s use some real data, the data that people with a different agenda use to compare educational systems. Using the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores for math, science, reading and writing and comparing New York’s scores on that with Florida’s scores, we can actually compare New York’s education with that of foreign nations. Bear with me for a moment. New York State does not participate in the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) nor in the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment). Florida does, however, participate in those assessments. If we compare New York State’s and Florida’s NAEP scores, we can get an idea as to how well New York compares to other nations. Don’t get me wrong, New York is not number one, and we need to work toward that. New York, though, is not the bottom of the barrel and Cuomo’s crisis is as fictional as a story about a pineapple without arms. In both 2011 and 2013 New York State ranked higher than Florida on the NAEP for math and reading. The actual scores in some cases were not statistically significant, so the phrase, ‘higher than or equal to’ is appropriate. On the PISA in 2012, fifteen-year-old Florida students performed as well or better in math as 29 nations, including Hungary, Israel, Greece and Sweden. They performed less well than 39 nations, including the US average. In reading the Florida students performed as well or better than 45 nations (including the UK, US, and Sweden), but not as well as 23 nations. On the TIMMS, 8th grade students in Florida did less well than only 10 cohorts, three of which were other US states. We can assume that New York students would have, if they took the PISA and TIMSS, have performed as well, if not better that their Florida peers, given New York’s performance relative Florida students on the NAEP. Given the data, and the comparisons cited above, a few things are obvious. First, the NYS assessments are not great indicators of students’ knowledge or skills. Second, there is no crisis in education. Thus there is no need for harming taxpayers who will suffer in the governor’s game of ‘money, money, you can’t have the money’ in order to fix New York education. Yes, the system needs to be fixed, but it needs to be fixed by people who actually know what is and isn’t developmentally appropriate for children.
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 19:04:58 +0000
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