Anonymous wrote:Metrics schmetrics. They've watered down the testing. I seriously doubt the NAEP testing being done today is exactly the same as it was in the 1970s.

Schools have gone downhill over the last several decades and everyone knows it.

actually, I think the early 80's gets the prize for American schools at their worst. Not every district, of course, but overall.

I'm truly hoping public works for us, but our public high school option is very big. If it doesn't work for his particular personality, we will switch him to a small private of some sort. I am glad I will have the option.

I know a lot of people with private school backgrounds and with public school backgrounds that I don't much like. You can be obnoxious from anywhere.

I'm not selling anything. Let's use your analogy.

A previous PP said, "Logan's exam grades keep going down!" I said, "No, actually, Logan's exam grades have been going up."

Now you say, "But it doesn't matter if Logan's exam grades are going up or down; the point is that Sophie's and Tristan's exam grades are much higher!"

Well, ok.

If you are the previous PP, then you're shifting the goalposts, by switching from a discussion of Logan's exam grades over time to a discussion of Logan's exam grades in comparison to Sophie's and Tristan's.

If you are not the previous PP, then why are you arguing with me? I haven't said anything about Logan's exam grades in comparison to Sophie's and Tristan's.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Metrics schmetrics. They've watered down the testing. I seriously doubt the NAEP testing being done today is exactly the same as it was in the 1970s.

Schools have gone downhill over the last several decades and everyone knows it.

You can rely on "everyone knows", or you can look at the data. Which method do you think provides more accurate information?

NCES data as above shows that American public schools are far behind most other advanced nations in education.

You can try all you like to promote a view that "it's better than it was a few years ago" via NCES statistics but that's in ignorance of the overall picture - which is that any improvements are but a drop in the bucket and that the US public school system has a long way to go. Look at CAS scores for DC as yet another example. Sure, we have schools going from, say 19 percent proficient to 23 percent proficient and yes, that's an improvement but it still means that the overwhelming majority of classrooms are not functioning at grade level for proficiency.

"How do our schools compare to the schools in other countries?" is a different question from "Are our schools getting better or worse?".

Here's an analogy that should make it more clear why some of us aren't buying what you're trying to sell.

You are basically caught up in a game of "see, my grade on this exam of 41 today is better than my score of 39 on the last one" as though it were some great success, evidently not realizing that the rest of the class is getting 80s and 90s and your 41 is still a failing grade. In the grand scheme of thing, it's just not all that meaningful. You need to do a whole lot better if you want to convince anyone.

Anonymous wrote:

No, the fundamental question is whether our own local public schools are any good or not. In comparison to US national averages, they are horrendous. And, in turn, if we compare US national averages to international averages, we aren't even doing all that well there, either

If that's the question you're interested in, that's fine, of course!

But other PPs (I assume) were addressing other questions.

Do the data support the idea that the educational outcome of DCPS as a whole is bad? Yes (although I don't know how DCPS compares to other public school systems in the US with comparable demographics).

Do the data support the idea that the educational outcome of the US public school system, as a whole, is worse than the educational outcome of public school systems in many wealthy European countries? Yes (although cross-country comparisons are always tricky).

Do the data support the idea that public schools in the US, as a whole, are worse than they used to be? No.

This link

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=16

is from the 2012 report, which has 2010 data.

Here are the tables for the 2013 report, which has 2011 data.

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013037_sup.pdf

For data on graduation and dropouts, see Tables 122-130.

And, again. "Are DC schools successful?" is a different question from "Are public schools in the US, overall, getting better or worse?"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Metrics schmetrics. They've watered down the testing. I seriously doubt the NAEP testing being done today is exactly the same as it was in the 1970s.

Schools have gone downhill over the last several decades and everyone knows it.

You can rely on "everyone knows", or you can look at the data. Which method do you think provides more accurate information?

NCES data as above shows that American public schools are far behind most other advanced nations in education.

You can try all you like to promote a view that "it's better than it was a few years ago" via NCES statistics but that's in ignorance of the overall picture - which is that any improvements are but a drop in the bucket and that the US public school system has a long way to go. Look at CAS scores for DC as yet another example. Sure, we have schools going from, say 19 percent proficient to 23 percent proficient and yes, that's an improvement but it still means that the overwhelming majority of classrooms are not functioning at grade level for proficiency.

"How do our schools compare to the schools in other countries?" is a different question from "Are our schools getting better or worse?".

No, the fundamental question is whether our own local public schools are any good or not. In comparison to US national averages, they are horrendous. And, in turn, if we compare US national averages to international averages, we aren't even doing all that well there, either

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So how does this "the schools are getting better" mythology square with all of the other statistics, such as ever increasing dropout rates?

Actually, high school dropout rates are down too.

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=16
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/22/education-high-school-dropout-rate/1855233/
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/22/nation/la-na-nn-high-school-graduation-rate-increasing-20130122

The two news articles cited bomb when trying to link to the NCES report but the first link works but shows old data. It shows an average dropout rate of 7.4 percent overall, 8.0 percent for AAs in 2010. How does that square with DC's dropout rate? DC is still pretty dismal. Only 56 percent graduate - 44 percent dropout rate. and only 42 and 46 percent are at grade level proficiency. http://dc.gov/DCPS/About+DCPS/Who+We+Are/Facts+and+Statistics

DC schools have a long way to go if anyone wants to claim success.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Metrics schmetrics. They've watered down the testing. I seriously doubt the NAEP testing being done today is exactly the same as it was in the 1970s.

Schools have gone downhill over the last several decades and everyone knows it.

You can rely on "everyone knows", or you can look at the data. Which method do you think provides more accurate information?

NCES data as above shows that American public schools are far behind most other advanced nations in education.

You can try all you like to promote a view that "it's better than it was a few years ago" via NCES statistics but that's in ignorance of the overall picture - which is that any improvements are but a drop in the bucket and that the US public school system has a long way to go. Look at CAS scores for DC as yet another example. Sure, we have schools going from, say 19 percent proficient to 23 percent proficient and yes, that's an improvement but it still means that the overwhelming majority of classrooms are not functioning at grade level for proficiency.

"How do our schools compare to the schools in other countries?" is a different question from "Are our schools getting better or worse?".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Metrics schmetrics. They've watered down the testing. I seriously doubt the NAEP testing being done today is exactly the same as it was in the 1970s.

Schools have gone downhill over the last several decades and everyone knows it.

You can rely on "everyone knows", or you can look at the data. Which method do you think provides more accurate information?

NCES data as above shows that American public schools are far behind most other advanced nations in education.

You can try all you like to promote a view that "it's better than it was a few years ago" via NCES statistics but that's in ignorance of the overall picture - which is that any improvements are but a drop in the bucket and that the US public school system has a long way to go. Look at CAS scores for DC as yet another example. Sure, we have schools going from, say 19 percent proficient to 23 percent proficient and yes, that's an improvement but it still means that the overwhelming majority of classrooms are not functioning at grade level for proficiency.

Anonymous wrote:Metrics schmetrics. They've watered down the testing. I seriously doubt the NAEP testing being done today is exactly the same as it was in the 1970s.

Schools have gone downhill over the last several decades and everyone knows it.

You can rely on "everyone knows", or you can look at the data. Which method do you think provides more accurate information?

Anonymous wrote:

So how does this "the schools are getting better" mythology square with all of the other statistics, such as ever increasing dropout rates?

Actually, high school dropout rates are down too.

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=16
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/22/education-high-school-dropout-rate/1855233/
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/22/nation/la-na-nn-high-school-graduation-rate-increasing-20130122

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP - Interesting study, 10:16. But is it actually measuring by the exact same standard across all years going back to 1973? Somehow I doubt it is.

Luckily, you don't have to speculate about the answer for this question. You can look it up:

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/ltt_main_diff.aspx

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they delegate that testing to the states (i.e. CAS) - and the states in turn define their own standards, state by state, and year by year?

Not exactly a "common yardstick". Anything but.

You are wrong. Read this link:

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/ltt_main_diff.aspx

So how does this "the schools are getting better" mythology square with all of the other statistics, such as ever increasing dropout rates?

How does that square with the fact that, according to a Common Core study most American high school students don't even know a lot of basic historical information, like who Adolph Hitler is, or when the Civil War was fought, or when Columbus arrived in the Americas? http://www.examiner.com/article/shocking-things-many-u-s-high-schoolers-don-t-know

And here are some NCES statistics that show that American teens do far worse on most subjects than students in other industrialized nations: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d08/tables/dt08_403.asp

NAEP is just smoke and mirrors. The sad reality is that our kids are woefully undereducated and underprepared.

Metrics schmetrics. They've watered down the testing. I seriously doubt the NAEP testing being done today is exactly the same as it was in the 1970s.

Schools have gone downhill over the last several decades and everyone knows it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP - Interesting study, 10:16. But is it actually measuring by the exact same standard across all years going back to 1973? Somehow I doubt it is.

Luckily, you don't have to speculate about the answer for this question. You can look it up:

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/ltt_main_diff.aspx

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they delegate that testing to the states (i.e. CAS) - and the states in turn define their own standards, state by state, and year by year?

Not exactly a "common yardstick". Anything but.

You are wrong. Read this link:

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/ltt_main_diff.aspx