And the Washington Post doesn’t want you to know.
On June 18 the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a research organization in Washington, released a report titled “High Achieving Students in the Era of NCLB” highlighting that the needs of America’s brightest students are not being met. You can read the full report here, the PowerPoint here, the executive summary here, and the report in a nutshell here. It basically confirms everything I’ve been writing since I started this blog. Trust me, there is a ton of good stuff here. Just read the full report.
Divided into two studies, the first is based on analysis of 2000-2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores and concludes that while the lowest-achieving youngsters have gained significantly, top pupils have “languished” academically. The second part of the report is based on a national teacher survey that found while most teachers believe that all students deserve equal attention, advanced pupils are a lower priority in their schools and receive dramatically less attention than low-achievers. Here’s a sample:
Asked “Who is most likely to get one-on-one attention from teachers?” 81 percent of teacher named “struggling students” while only 5 percent named “advanced students.”
Asked about the needs of struggling students, 60 percent of teachers say they are a “top priority” at their school. Asked a similar question about “academically advanced” students, only 23 percent of teachers say they are a top priority. (They could give multiple answers to this question.)
While 85% liked the idea of subject matter acceleration, 63% opposed grade skipping. This is reflected in school policies. 46% said that their schools do not allow grade skipping, and 27% say they are not sure, which means that it must be extremely rare in these teachers’ schools.
Half of teachers agree (50%) with the statement that, “Too often, students are labeled as advanced only because their parents are overzealous and know how to work the system” (47% disagree). High school teachers (61%) are more likely to agree than are elementary school teachers (40%).
Some teachers doubt that the system can be relied upon to effectively identify true academic talent. If a lot more attention were paid to the needs of academically advanced students, almost half (47%) of teachers say they would be very (8%) or somewhat (39%) concerned that “the tests and the experts will misidentify which students are advanced and which are not.” On the other hand, half say they would not be worried about this (37% are not too concerned and 13% are not concerned at all).
I could go on. A lot of it is pretty scathing stuff. The New York Times, Education Week, Chronicle of Higher Education, Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune and Washington Times all carried stories on the study’s findings. It was blogged about widely, for example here and here.
And where was the Washington Post on this? Um, nowhere.
On June 19th we were treated to a warmed-over bit of puffery, “6 Montgomery High Schools Ranked Among Top 100 in US“. The story rehashed the old news of the Newsweek Best High Schools list (Newsweek, btw, is part of the Washington Post conglomerate), while slipping in the elegant resolution to the mini prinicpal scandal that had been brewing in Montgomery County. What’s up with this? Why wasn’t the Post all over this story? The findings are particularly devastating for high ability kids–most often minority kids–caught in low performing schools, something one would think the Post would be interested in.
Meanwhile Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings had this to say in the Des Moines Register a few days later:
Q. The No Child Left Behind law has been criticized for focusing attention on struggling students at the expense of high achievers, who many say are most likely to keep the nation competitive. How do you answer that concern?
A. I say that I don’t see that assertion borne out in data. It is kind of the rising tide lifts all boats. And the federal role in education for the last 40-plus years has been on behalf of the nation’s neediest kids. As such, No Child Left Behind is written primarily around their needs. I would say those are the kids who are being grossly underserved in our schools. That’s the raging fire in American education.
Nothing like ignoring the data.
Well, of course the WP ignored this — it might mean critiquing Bush, for one thing, (and unless I am terribly, terribly mistaken, the WP has been Bush’s buddy throughout his administration, yes?). I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. Thanks for all the links, though!!
I’m surprised at the finding that elementary school teachers are supposedly less inclined to believe that gifted kids simply have pushy parents. It’s been my experience that they are among the most hostile to the idea of intellectual giftedness. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard the nonsense about all kids “evening out by 3rd grade” from elementary teachers. Umm, sorry, my 5 year old who’s reading at a 5th grade level is not being “hothoused” and most of her chronological peers are never going to catch up to her. Granted, not all gifted kids show obvious signs of it at an early age. But that doesn’t mean that those who do show early signs of giftedness are going to “even out” later on.
[...] On Mom sums it up quite simply with her post title- Confirmed: It stinks to be a gifted student. She reports key findings, such as the fact that No Child Left Behind policies have indeed help [...]
Finally…It’s here! Jay Mathews has an article on Fordham Institute report. Here’s the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/14/AR2008071400379.html