Category Archives: Big Lies of Education

Big Lies of Education, Education, education reform, Educational Research, NAEP, PISA, Testing

Big Lies of Education: International Test Rankings and Economic Competitiveness

“Human development is an important component of determining a nation’s productivity and is measured in employee skills identified by employers as critical for success in the modern global economy,” claims Thomas A. Hemphill, adding:

The United States is obviously not getting a sufficient return on investment in elementary and secondary education, as it has mediocre scores in mathematics literacy and declining scores for science literacy for 15-year-old students surveyed in 2022. The only significant improvement for 15-year-olds is in reading, where the United States finally entered the top 10 in 2022.

Commentary: We must improve students’ math, science skills to boost US competitiveness

Hemphill reaches an unsurprising conclusion:

If these educational trends continue, the United States will not have an adequate indigenous workforce of scientists, engineers and technologists equipped to maintain scientific and technological leadership and instead will become perpetually reliant on scientifically and technologically skilled immigrants. We must demand that elementary and secondary education systems reorient efforts to significantly improve mathematical and scientific teaching expectations in the classroom.

Commentary: We must improve students’ math, science skills to boost US competitiveness

However, for decades, evidence has shown that there is no causal link between international rankings of student test scores and national economic competitiveness.

This Big Lie is purely rhetorical and relies on throwing statistical comparisons at the public while drawing hasty and unsupported causal claims from those numbers.

If you really care about the claim, see Test Scores and Economic Growth by Gerald Bracey.

Bracey offers this from researchers on the relationship between international education rankings and economic competitiveness:

Such countries [highest achieving] “do not experience substantially greater economic growth than countries that are merely average in terms of achievement.”

The researchers then lay out an interpretation of their findings that differs from the causal interpretation one usually hears:

“We venture, here, the interpretation that much of the achievement ‘effect’ is not really causal in character. It may be, rather, that nation-states with strong prodevelopment policies, and with regimes powerful enough to enforce these, produce both more economic growth and more disciplined student-achievement levels in fields (e.g., science and mathematics) perceived to be especially development related. This idea would explain the status of the Asian Tigers whose regimes have been much focused on producing both economic growth and achievement-oriented students in math and science.”

Test Scores and Economic Growth

Bracey quotes further from that research:

“From our study, the main conclusion is that the relationship between achievement in science and mathematics in schoolchildren and national economic growth is both time and case sensitive. Moreover, the relationship largely reflects the gap between the bottom third of the nations and the rest; the middle of the pack does not much differ from the rest. . . . Much of the obsession with the achievement ‘horse race’ proceeds as if beating the Asian Tigers in mathematics and science education is necessary for the economic well-being of other developed countries. Our analysis offers little support for this obsession. . . .

“Achievement indicators do not capture the extent to which schooling promotes initiative, creativity, entrepreneurship, and other strengths not sufficiently curricularized to warrant cross-national data collection and analysis. Unfortunately, the policy discourse that often follows from international achievement races involves exaggerated causal claims frequently stress- ing educational ‘silver bullets’ for economic woes. Our analyses do not offer defini- tive answers, but they raise important ques- tions about the validity of these claims. In an era that celebrates evidence-based policy formation, it behooves us to carefully weigh the evidence, rather than use it simply as a rhetorical weapon.”

Test Scores and Economic Growth

A key point to note here is Bracey is writing in 2007, and the OpEd above is March 2024. The Big Lie about international education rankings and economic competitiveness is both a lie and a lie that will not die.

I strongly recommend Tom Loveless exposing a similar problem with misrepresenting and overstating the consequences of NAEP data: Literacy and NAEP Proficient.

Bracey offers a brief but better way to understand test data and economic competitiveness: “education is critical, but among the developed nations differences in test scores are trivial.”

Instead of another Big Lie, the US would be better served if we tried new and evidence-based (not ideological) ways to reform our schools and our social/economic structures.

Big Lies of Education: Series
Big Lies of Education, Education, education reform, NPR

Big Lies of Education: National Reading Panel (NRP)

Similar to A Nation at Risk and a core part of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the National Reading Panel (NRP) was a bi-partisan committee formed under Bill Clinton and then elevated under George W. Bush.

Joanne Yatvin, a panel member who issued a Minority Report, wrote in Education Week in 2003, warning that the NRP’s conclusions would be misrepresented and misused.

Yatvin was right.

And 15 years later, Emily Hanford—among dozens of journalists—continued to prove Yatvin correct:

The battle between whole language and phonics got so heated that the U.S. Congress eventually got involved, convening a National Reading Panel to review all the research on reading. In 2000, the panel released a report. The sum of the research showed that explicitly teaching children the relationship between sounds and letters improved reading achievement. The panel concluded that phonics lessons help kids become better readers. There is no evidence to say the same about whole language.

Hard Words

In 2024, as the “science of reading” (SOR) movement continues to steamroll state reading legislation, journalists persist in misrepresenting the panel’s findings as well as ignoring that the NRP is over two decades old, which means reading science has moved well beyond what the panel claimed to find.

Often ignored, panel members admitted the NRP was underfunded and understaffed, resulting in the panel’s overview of reading research was greatly limited to only a narrow type of published research.

Further, despite the Urban Legends of the findings repeated by Hanford and other journalists, the NRP’s conclusions are not what has been claimed.

First, Tim Shanahan, a panel member, admitted that the report did little to support classroom practice.

But more importantly, the actual findings of the panel in no way support the media claims about what research says about teaching reading, the role of phonics instruction, or the evidence on whole language.

Diane Stephens, University of South Carolina emeritus professor, provides an excellent summary of the findings:

  • Phonemic Awareness: PA is a “means rather than an end”; doesn’t increase comprehension; only one of many elements needed to read independently.
  • Phonics: Minimal value in kindergarten; no conclusion about phonics beyond grade 1 for “normally developing readers”; systematic phonics instruction in grades 2-6 with struggling readers has a weak impact on reading text and spelling; systematic phonics instruction has a positive effect in grade 1 on reading (pronouncing) real and nonsense words but not comprehension; at-risk students benefit from whole language instruction, Reading Recovery, and direct instruction.
  • Fluency: The ability of students to make sense of text grammatically and with understanding of punctuation.
  • Vocabulary: Vocabulary is acquired many ways by readers; number of words acquired cannot be accomplished through direct instruction. About 1/3 of vocabulary learning in grades 3 – 8 linked to reading.
  • Comprehension: Weak evidence in report on comprehension. Emphasizes need for SBRR (scientifically based reading research) and “putting teachers in positions where their minds are the most valued educational resource.”

As many scholars have noted (see below), the NRP found that systematic phonics and whole language were about equally effective, but the key here is that phonics instruction was found to be effective for pronunciation, not comprehension, and only in grade 1.

In short, the NRP was never a definitive overview of reading science (or a confirmation about teaching systematic phonics to all students), and now that we are 20-plus years past the report, citing the NRP should be limited to historical references, not evidence of the current state of reading science.

I recommend the following to understand fully the NRP:

Big Lies of Education: Series
Big Lies of Education, NAEP, reading, reading proficiency

Big Lies of Education: Reading Proficiency and NAEP

Some Big Lies of Education start with journalists (even at the biggest of media outlets).

“One of the most bearish statistics for the future of the United States is this: Two-thirds of fourth graders in the United States are not proficient in reading,” wrote Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times.

Kristof’s piece in 2023 can be traced back to a similar claim by Emily Hanford in 2018: “More than 60 percent of American fourth-graders are not proficient readers, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and it’s been that way since testing began in the 1990s,” including a surprisingly ineffective graphic:

The student reading proficiency Big Lie grounded in misrepresenting or misunderstanding NAEP is likely one of the most complicated Big Lies of Education.

In media and political rhetoric, first, the terms “reading proficiency” and “grade level reading” are commonly jumbled and used inappropriately as synonyms.

Achievement levels such as “basic” and “proficient,” used in NAEP for reading, are misleading and complicated for most people not familiar with technical terminology.

NAEP “basic” is approximately grade level (although even that claim is problematic since no standard exists in the US for “proficient” or “grade level”), and “proficient” on NAEP is high:

Rosenberg, B. (2004, May). What’s proficient? The No Child Left Behind Act and the many meanings of proficiency. Washington, DC: American Federation of Teachers. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED497886.pdf

NAEP testing and data are normative, measuring what a general population is achieving (not individual students), and as noted above, NAEP “proficient” is aspirational.

State accountability testing is measuring individual achievement, and states tend to use “proficient” as a measure that falls in the “basic” range of NAEP, suggesting that state-level proficient is “grade level” approximate or at least what most student should be able to achieve at that grade [1]:

Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto NAEP Scales, 2007–2019

Hanford’s and Kristof’s Big Lie, then, is a combination of blurring NAEP achievement levels with grade level reading achievement and manufacturing a reading crisis with that misinformation.

Ironically, NAEP grade 4 reading scores for a decade show that 2/3 of students are reading at or above grade level, the inverse of the false crisis claims of the media:

NAEP Grade 4 Reading National Trends

The Big Lie about reading proficiency and NAEP help perpetuate the Big Lie about educational crisis, but it also masks the more complicated truths: the US has no standard metric for assessing the national reading achievement of students, and focusing on manufactured reading crises distracts reformers from addressing what we can identify—inequitable access to reading proficiency among minoritized and marginalized populations of students.

I recommend the following to understand the essential failure, the Big Lie, of using NAEP to manufacture a crisis around reading proficiency in the US:

Media Misrepresentations of NAEP

Understanding NAEP

[1] State achievement level descriptors (ALD) vary greatly:

Big Lies of Education: Series
A Nation at Risk, Big Lies of Education, Crisis, Dyslexia, Education, education reform, Educational Research, Florida Miracle, grade retention, Grit, growth mindset, literacy, Media, miracle schools, NCTQ, No Excuses Reform, Poverty, race, racism, reading, School choice, Science of Reading, Social Context Reform, social justice, Teacher Autonomy, Teacher Evaluation, teacher preparation, Teaching, Testing, VAM

Big Lies of Education: Series

Here I will collect a series dedicated to the Big Lies of Education. The initial list of topics include :

  • A Nation at Risk and education “crisis”
  • Poverty is an excuse in educational achievement
  • 2/3 students not proficient/grade level readers; NAEP
  • Elementary teachers don’t know how to teach reading
  • NRP = settled science
  • Teacher education is not preparing teachers based on science/research
  • Education “miracles”
  • Reading program X has failed
  • Whole language/balanced literacy has failed
  • Systematic phonics necessary for all students learning to read
  • Nonsense word assessments measure reading achievement
  • Reading in US is being taught by guessing and 3 cueing
  • Balanced literacy = guessing and 3 cueing
  • K-3 students can’t comprehend
  • 40% of students are dyslexic/ universal screening for dyslexia needed
  • Grade retention
  • Grit/ growth mindset
  • Parental choice
  • Education is the great equalizer
  • Teacher quality is most important factor in student achievement (VAM)

Series:

Big Lies of Education: A Nation at Risk and Education “Crisis”

Big Lies of Education: Reading Proficiency and NAEP

Big Lies of Education: National Reading Panel (NRP)

Big Lies of Education: Poverty Is an Excuse

Big Lies of Education: International Test Rankings and Economic Competitiveness

A Nation at Risk, Big Lies of Education

Big Lies of Education: A Nation at Risk and Education “Crisis”

Some Big Lies of Education start with politicians (even the biggest of politicians).

“And please abolish that abomination, the Department of Education,” implored Ronald Reagan as he established his goals for the committee charged with producing A Nation at Risk (1983). Reagan sought to shift the public’s support from public schools to school choice as well as, in his misguided words, return prayer to schools.

A Nation at Risk represents two important aspects of US education reform.

First, as noted by several scholars and committee members, the charge of the committee was primarily about partisan politics and not about substantive education reform.

Second, the report established the manufactured “crisis,” which is eagerly perpetuated by mainstream media, as the basis for decades of accountability-based reform that has resulted in an unproductive cycle of crisis/reform that never accomplishes any effective change for students, teachers, public education, or democratic society.

The narrative created by A Nation at Risk has none the less some enduring elements that are uncritically supported by mainstream media (complicit in the Big Lie):

  • Educational failure is grounded in the educational system itself, and thus, education reform has been in-school-only reform policies.
  • Identifying systemic societal, community, and home influences on measurable student learning is rejected as using poverty/inequity as an “excuse.”
  • Teachers are simultaneously the most important factor in education and the agents of failure due to poor training and/or low expectations for marginalized student populations.
  • The rhetoric is grounded in crisis/miracle binary and the primary evidence for those claims are standardized tests (mostly state-level accountability testing and NAEP).
  • Policies tend to be one-size-fits all solutions to overstated and unsupported problems.

Edling (2015) has identified similar patterns grounded in media rhetoric resulting in education policy internationally:

• Viewing education as being in more or less permanent crisis

 • Taking the role as a spokesperson for teachers and on behalf of the field of education

 • Excluding the knowledge and experiences of teacher(s), educators and/or educational researchers in the public press

 • Simplifying the notion of being a good teacher through stereotypes and dualistic frameworks that overlook task and relational complexity.

Edling, S. (2015). Between curriculum complexity and stereotypes: Exploring stereotypes of teachers and education in media as a question of structural violence. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 47(3), 399-415. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2014.956796

The template established by A Nation at Risk can bee seen in every reform movement since the 1980s, first at the state level and then at the national level with No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

From the standards and testing reforms in the 1980s and 1990s to the charter schools and value-added methods for teacher evaluation under Obama and to today’s “science of reading” (SOR) movement, the essential elements noted above characterize the obsession in the US with crisis/reform in education with no real change ever accomplished.

Ironically, neither the claims of educational crisis nor the reforms proposed throughout the past five decades have been grounded in credible evidence.

A Nation at Risk established the manufactured crisis approach to education reform, which has created only political and market profits for those driving the crisis rhetoric and the reforms.

I recommend the following to understand the essential failure, the Big Lie, of A Nation at Risk as a template for crisis/education reform in the US:

Big Lies of Education: Series