Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger’s analysis does not refute the data that I offered in my article inThe New York Times. The editor at the Times required documentation for every singlefact in the article, and I supplied it.Her biggest error is that she uses the wrong baseline data in presenting state test scores.She chooses 2002 as her starting point, which is wrong. The baseline begins whenChancellor Klein’s reforms begin, and not sooner. The Legislature approved mayoralcontrol legislation in June 2002, and Chancellor Klein assumed office in August 2002. Hespent the next six months conferring with consultants. He and the mayor announced their plans and their pedagogical choices in January 2003. At that very time, students in thecity and state were taking the state tests. The chancellor had done nothing in the schools prior to January 2003 to raise student achievement. His reforms were introduced into theschools in September 2003. Thus, it is inappropriate for Dr. Bell-Ellwanger to take creditfor any gains registered on the state tests that were administered in January 2003.The reason that Dr. Bell-Ellwanger wants to claim credit for that particular year is thatthere were huge gains across the city in both reading and mathematics. But at the time,Chancellor Klein did not claim credit for the gains of that year. It was widely understoodthat his program would not start until September 2003.David Herszenhorn wrote in the Times on May 21, 2003, “New York City public schoolstudents posted sharp gains on the state’s standardized reading and writing test this year,with striking double-digit jumps in some of the city’s poorest and historically lowest- performing school districts…In both the city and the state, black and Hispanic fourthgraders significantly narrowed the gap with white and Asian students…City officials,who might otherwise have been jubilant about yesterday’s results, offered a mutedreaction, saying that the gains were not broad enough and that the school system as awhole was failing at least half the city’s children.”A few months later, Elissa Gootman wrote in the Times on October 22, 2003:Fourth graders across the state made stunning gains in their math scores lastspring, with even sharper increases in New York City…In the city, news of thegains, which were particularly pronounced in the Bronx and in some of the poorest-performing districts, elicited cheers among teachers and principals. Butnot everyone greeted the news so enthusiastically:The suggestion that city schools were on the upswing put Chancellor Joel I. Klein,who is overhauling them, in a tricky position. While the chancellor’s critics pounced upon the higher scores as evidence that the school system did not needsuch an overhaul, some of his allies acknowledged that he would now be under even more pressure to show gains next spring.Mr. Klein’s reaction to the good news was muted, as it was to news of higher reading scores last spring.If Chancellor Klein thought he had produced those sharp gains, why was his reaction“muted”? Obviously he did not take credit for the scores because the scores wereannounced before his reforms had been introduced. Why does he take credit for them
now? Quite simply, the gains in that one year were so large that they became irresistible.Fourth grade reading scores from 2002-2003 were up by 6 points, a larger gain than inany subsequent year. Fourth grade math scores jumped by an astonishing 14.7 points, alarger gain than in any subsequent year under Chancellor Klein.In the interests of honesty, Ms. Bell-Ellwanger must deduct the scores of 2002-2003 fromher claims for this administration and revise the city’s gains on state tests accordingly.Yes, I agree that the massive investment in test prep, interim assessments, and testing, aswell as bonuses for principals and some teachers tied solely to test scores has certainly produced increases in state test scores. No question about it. But it is worth rememberingthat the city’s education budget has grown from $12.5 billion to $21 billion, and onewould certainly expect that expenditures of that size should buy some improvements.I don’t agree with Ms. Bell-Ellwanger that the state test scores are somehow more validthan the federal NAEP scores. Quite to the contrary. The NAEP test is a far superior testto the state tests; Congress has invested tens of millions of dollars in making NAEP the best testing program in the nation. As for the state tests, they are not reliable because theRegents and the State Education Department have repeatedly changed the testing pool bymanipulating which groups of students are tested and which are not. Just this pastSeptember, the Regents decided that students who are LEP and who have tested proficient may be excluded from state testing for up to two years after they passed theEnglish proficiency test. So, once again, the testing pool has changed, and some potentially low-scoring students may be excluded. I feel that it is safe to predict another big increase in state scores that will soon be released because of the removal of thesestudents from the testing pool.The claim that the state tests are more valid because students practice for them is silly. Irecommend that Dr. Bell-Ellwanger read Harvard Professor Dan Koretz’s recent book Measuring Up, in which he demonstrates that when students practice repeatedly for a test,the test becomes less valid. I suspect she already knows this.If students do well on the state test, but not on other tests because they didn’t practice for those specific tests, then they really haven’t mastered the skills. If all they learn in a NYC public school is to take state tests, then their skills will not be transferable to reading incollege or in the workplace. I have never heard anyone claim — aside from the NYCDepartment of Education — that NAEP is less valid because students don’t practice for it. The point of NAEP is that it is an audit test. Students are not supposed to practice for it. As an audit test, it is far more consistent and meaningful than the state tests.Dr. Bell-Ellwanger gets the NAEP results wrong. As I said in the article, NYC showedsignificant progress in fourth-grade math, but those gains were suspect because of theextraordinary number of students who were given accommodations (extra time, extrahelp). I served on the National Assessment Governing Board for seven years, and I knowthat a sharp change in the accommodations rate raises questions. In fourth grade math,25% of NYC students got accommodations in 2007; this compares to only 12% whoreceived them in 2003. Why the sharp increase? NYC’s accommodations rate far exceeded that of any other city. Los Angeles, with many more limited-English-proficient
students gave accommodations in this subject and grade to only 8%.On the NAEP fourth-grade reading test, she again errs by giving the Klein regime creditfor the big gains of 2002-03, before he had introduced Balanced Literacy as the standard,mandated reading curriculum in the elementary schools. The correct baseline year is not2002 but 2003. New York City fourth-graders made no significant gains in reading from2003 to 2007. I have often wondered why the Chancellor did not replace BalancedLiteracy after he saw these unimpressive results. NAEP showed no significant gains infourth grade reading for black students, white students, Hispanic students, Asian studentsor lower-income students. NAEP found no narrowing of the gap between the city andstate from 2003 to 2007.On the NAEP eighth-grade reading test, NAEP showed no significant gains for any racialor ethnic group from 2003 to 2007. Fifty percent of black students and 49 percent of Hispanic students in eighth grade were “below basic,” which is the lowestclassification (only 20 percent of whites and 21 percent of Asians scored so low on thereading test). And these were students who had spent four years in the Children Firstreforms.There were some shifts in the racial gaps. But once again, Dr. Bell-Ellwanger mistakenlyuses 2002 data for reading, which do not belong to the Klein regime. In addition, her datafor the fourth-grade math scores are just plain wrong. I have the NAEP report in front of me (it is also online and anyone can check: Google NAEP TUDA 2007 mathematics, p.62).From 2003 to 2007, these were the changes in the gaps, as reported by NAEP:
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On fourth grade reading, the black-white gap narrowed by four points, from 30 points to 26 points.
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On fourth grade reading, the Hispanic-white gap increased by two points, from 26 points to 28 points.
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On eighth grade reading, the black-white gap increased by five points, from 25 points to 30 points.
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On eighth grade reading, the Hispanic-white gap increased by six points, from 23 points to 29 points.
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On fourth grade math, the black-white gap decreased by 3 points, from 25 to 22 points.
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On fourth grade math, the Hispanic-white gap decreased by 6 points, from 24 to18 points.
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On eighth grade math, the black-white gap decreased by six points, form 36 to 30 points.
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On eighth grade math, the Hispanic-white gap decreased by 3 points, from 29 to26 points. So, yes, there were some small improvements up and down, but not the large gains whichshe erroneously claims. And NAEP does not say that any of these are statisticallysignificant changes.
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