Why Rising Test Scores May Not Equal Increased Student Learning

When state test scores go up, teachers and administrators often breathe a sigh of relief that their schools will not be declared failing under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Others feel the satisfaction that funding for their public schools, which is such a large part of their states’ budget, appears to be well spent and there is an increased likelihood of having an educated work force to meet their community’s future economic needs. The positive feelings associated with rising test scores are based on our interpretation about what that increase in scores means. A rise in state, distr... More

Reading First and its Impact on Poor Children

BY NOW the failures of prepackaged, lockstep, skills-heavy Reading First instruction are as apparent as the failures of its homunculus version when it was proclaimed as George W. Bush’s “Texas Miracle.” During the time of the “Texas Miracle,” independent national testing (i.e., tests not devised in Texas) revealed that the instruction not only did not produce superior reading comprehension or academic achievement, it ... More