Consider a classroom in which the average score is a B, which the teacher gives to students who score 80 to 89 percent correct. In one year, the average raw score is 83, and in the next, it’s 88. In both years, the letter grade is the same: B.

NCES, a unit of the U.S. Department of Education, has historical data for the national test as well as for states. It looks like Ed has made it more difficult than it was in the past to find the information.

1. Go to this link: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/states/
2. Click on “Accessible version”
3. From the drop-down menu box labeled “Select a State,” choose Kansas.

Or you can go here (http://kansaseducation.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/assessments-through-the-years/) and download a one-page PDF, which contains the same information.

To summarize:

The percentage of fourth-grade students scoring “proficient” increased a lot from 2000 to 2003, and slightly after that. Eighth-grade scores have showed some improvement, too, though not as much.

Reading scores have barely moved (grade 4) and may have slightly declined (grade 8).

About one-third of students are proficient (grade level) in reading.

About half are proficient in fourth grade, but that drops to only a third in the eighth grade.

Certainly nothing too impressive, overall.

I had a son with special education needs. There was never an arbituary figure thrown out on what they needed to spend on him. They first determined exactly what he needed.

I taught math. I can tell what is needed: a classroom with heat and electricity, a chalkboard with chalk, textbooks printed before 1980, and someone with a math degree (not a math ed degree.

Even in that unlikely case, it would be further evidence of stagnant scores as proficiency couldn’t skyrocket without scores also increasing.

So while unlikely hypotheticals are interesting, they serve only to detract from the real issue identified here; test scores remain stagnant at best (lower at worst), even with billions more being spent on education in the past decade.

Where’s all the money gone?

Also, what is your basis for believing that the bar is raised every year? The overview of the NAEP states: “The assessment stays essentially the same from year to year, with only carefully documented changes. This permits NAEP to provide a clear picture of student academic progress over time.”