Latest news with #2024NationalAssessmentofEducationProgress
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Opinion: Teacher Preparation Needs to Catch Up with School Reform
The 2024 National Assessment of Education Progress results show that public school students haven't made the rebound that everyone had hoped for post-COVID. While math scores rose slightly for fourth graders and did not change for eighth graders, reading scores for both groups of students fell to the lowest levels in decades. But if classroom instruction isn't improving, we shouldn't be surprised that test scores are stagnant or dropping. How teachers are taught to teach—along with what curriculum materials they use with students and how they use those materials—are the most critical factors for improving student learning. Many state education leaders are doing their part to ensure school districts adopt high-quality curriculum materials and help teachers use them well. The colleges and universities that prepare teachers to enter the profession largely have not. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Back in 2017, the Council of Chief State School Officers formed a network of interested state departments of education – called the High Quality Instructional Materials and Professional Development Network – to put good curriculum into the hands of teachers. The network is getting its job done: According to RAND's own research and that of the states themselves, more teachers are using curriculum materials for English language arts and mathematics that are aligned with rigorous state standards. More schools are also providing professional development to teachers that is grounded in their curriculum materials. Louisiana – a network state that is also a model for state curriculum reform efforts – was the only state to see gains in fourth-grade reading scores on NAEP since 2017. Louisiana and Mississippi, another network member, were two of only four states that have seen gains in fourth-grade mathematics since 2017. Related But one area where we consistently have seen little change is in college and university teacher preparation programs. In surveys every year since 2019, RAND has asked teachers across the nation which approach their teacher preparation program emphasized: (a) 'how to develop my own lessons and unit plans,' or (b) 'how to skillfully use and modify curricula provided to me.' Year over year, only about 10% of U.S. teachers indicate that their program emphasized helping them use curriculum materials. A little less than half say the emphasis was on how to develop their own lessons and unit plans. The balance say their program emphasized both or neither. These percentages hold regardless of the teacher's state, whether the teacher is in an elementary or high school; in an urban or rural school; in an English language arts/reading, math or science classroom; or was trained 20 years ago versus in the past five years. All teacher preparation programs should show teachers-in-training how to skillfully use the curricula they are given. This is a prerequisite to ensuring that most children meet state academic standards. Think about it: If every teacher uses a school-provided curriculum that is aligned with their state standards, the chances of meeting those standards is better than if teachers are reinventing the wheel by developing their own lessons. Related Other data beyond our surveys underscore this point: Teacher preparation is slow to incorporate what we know about good classroom instruction. For example, the 2000 National Reading Panel report and follow-on research confirmed that elementary schoolers need instruction in five key components: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Yet, in NCTQ's 2023 nationwide review of the elementary reading course syllabi of nearly 700 teacher preparation programs, they found that only 25% of those programs adequately addressed those five core components of reading instruction. Another 25% didn't adequately address any of those components. The idea that teachers should write their own curriculum is outdated and ill-serving; it's a holdover from the era before the advent of academic standards in the U.S. and growing knowledge about what makes a good curriculum material. These days, according to a recent RAND American Instructional Resources Survey, less than 2% of school principals encourage teachers to develop their own curriculum. Instead, most principals expect teachers to use their required curriculum materials. At their best, professional curricula are developed by experts in subject matter and pedagogy, are written to build students' knowledge over time, and have been endorsed by third party organizations such as EdReports that deem the material aligned with state academic standards. Adopting a prepared curriculum needn't turn teachers into robots; it takes considerable skill and subject-matter knowledge to use any materials thoughtfully and productively. Teacher prep programs should give teachers ample, hands-on training on how to use their grade-level curriculum materials and the expertise to make just-in-time adjustments that help students catch up when they are struggling to master those materials. States and school districts know that curriculum matters. Many have revamped their policies accordingly. It's time for teacher preparation programs to do the same.
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
National scores show Mass. students leading
A reading assignment on a chalkboard in a Massachusetts school. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current) Two things can both be true, and that was on full display when new results were released last week from national student achievement tests. 'Massachusetts ranks #1 in national education assessment' trumpeted the headline on the press release from Gov. Maura Healey's office. The Boston Globe headline in its print edition told a decidedly different story: 'National test shows little recovery in Mass. schools.' WBUR captured the mixed message in its headline, 'Mass. leads in reading and math scores, but still lags pre-pandemic levels.' Massachusetts 4th and 8th grade students placed first in the nation in math and reading on the 2024 National Assessment of Education Progress, a test given to representative samples of students across the country that allows for direct comparison of student performance in different states. The state reclaimed the top spot on all four tests for the first time since 2017. But it did so against a dismal backdrop of overall achievement in US schools that is woefully below where it stood before the pandemic. What's more, Massachusetts has been on an even longer slide down, with achievement levels starting to fall well before the pandemic school disruption. While our relative ranking may still put us on top compared to other states, education analysts at the Urban Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit focused on upward mobility and equity, say it also can be misleading to judge states entirely by their NAEP scores because they serve such different student populations. The share of lower-income students a state has, for example, or how much of its student population is made up of Black and Hispanic students, can all affect overall state scores, since these groups historically perform worse on achievement tests. For a decade the Urban Institute has issued a report that adjusts state scores based on their demographic make-up. In the 2024 analysis, Massachusetts falls to fifth place in 4th grade math and fourth place in 4th grade reading after the demographic adjustments. We maintain our top spot in 8th grade reading even after demographic adjustment but fall to second place in 8th grade math. 'Massachusetts does produce good outcomes with the kids they have,' said Matt Chingos, vice president of the Work, Education, and Labor Division at the Urban Institute. But the state's demographics also 'favor' higher NAEP scores, he said. According to the Urban Institute report, 42% of Massachusetts students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch compared with 57% of students in Florida, 60% in California, and 75% in Louisiana. What people often want to know in comparing NAEP scores, said Chingos, is whether one state has better schools than another. The scores can't directly answer that, he said, but the demographically adjusted scores 'get you closer' to answering that than just looking at the unadjusted raw scores. 'The more you're trying to inform judgements about what schools are contributing to student success, the more useful the demographically adjusted scores become,' said Marty West, a member of the Massachusetts state board of education who also sits on the NAEP governing board. 'Just as you wouldn't want to compare scores in Lexington and Lynn, and based solely on that data conclude Lexington schools are more effective, we shouldn't do the same thing among states whose demographics differ dramatically.' That said, West emphasized that 'what ultimately matters to kids is their unadjusted scores,' since those measure whether they are on track to graduate with the skills needed for college or career success. While Black and Hispanic students in Massachusetts score higher than their peers in most other states, there are huge racial achievement gaps among Massachusetts students. On the 4th grade math test, for example, Black and Hispanic students both score 30 points lower than white students. Hispanic 4th graders are tied with those in Connecticut for the largest gap with white students of any state. Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler acknowledged those gaps at a recent press conference, where state leaders not only boasted about the state's No. 1 ranking on NAEP scores but emphasized the ongoing learning setbacks from the pandemic. 'While today's results are not quite where we want them to be – we want to be No. 1 for all students –- there is recognition of the work to get there,' Tutwiler said, touting the administration's focus on early literacy among other efforts. West pointed out that concerns about flagging student achievement Massachusetts long pre-date the pandemic. 'Scores have not been moving in the right direction for more than a decade now and have fallen substantially from our prior peaks in 2011 in reading and in 2013 in math,' he said. West said the score that gave Massachusetts the top ranking in 8th grade math on the 2024 NAEP test would have landed us in 30th place in 2013. 'That's how much scores have fallen in Massachusetts and overall,' he said. Massachusetts has been the overall top performing state on NAEP since 2005. But math skills that include basic statistics help explain why focusing on that misses the bigger story. 'The only reason we haven't lost our top ranking,' said West, 'is that scores have been slipping for much of that period nationwide.' This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
