It stood out when Louisiana gained reading comprehension skills in a recent council mandatory assessment.
NAEP, known as the national report card, has drawn rigorous pictures of reading skills across the country.
However, Louisiana was the exception.
The state has one of them The highest rate of illiteracy Still in the US, the latest NAEP results show that the state performs better than 2019, making it one of the rare places to see academic recovery. Louisiana Rose National rankings Among the student performances, particularly in fourth grade reading, they moved from 42nd to 16th in the country.
Peggy Kerr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, pointed to improvements in Louisiana as a silver lining in a grey cloud of disastrous scores. “I’m not saying that hope has been lost. I’m not saying that I can’t turn this around. Even reading has proven that I can do what I can,” Kerr said.
However, the national report does not establish a well-known cause, only to give a snapshot of learning. So, if there are insights buried in Louisiana’s uplifts, what are they? And will the current uncertainty about federal education programs undermine them?
Haze
According to Natalie Wexler, author of Beyond The Science of Reading, the first analysis suggests that reading science is often understood as mere phonics, and it is worth improving Louisiana’s performance. It’s there.
Carefully, Wexler emphasizes that NAEP scores are intended solely as a rough barometer of where students are located, rather than as a teaching approach. Certainly, NAEP is not intended to test students’ ability to decipher words, Wexler says. It’s about understanding. Therefore, in Wexler’s view, the answer may also include policies aimed at enhancing the student’s academic knowledge and grasping the syntax.
For some in Louisiana, the answer has become the basis.
Cade Blumley, the head of education, declared that the improved rankings reflect the nation’s fundamental approach to literacy. Blumley said.
In fact, Louisiana has been undergoing important literacy reforms in recent years. Laws of 2021 However, teacher training for literacy instruction is required It reportedly has a high percentage of teachers.
The state also poured money into the Cuttoring Corp program.
For example, last year, the Congress Over 30 million people invested We participated in a targeted program that included a voucher for high-dose individualized instruction. This is an intensive form of tutoring for small groups identified as an important way to promote academic recovery after the pandemic.
State law also allows schools We will hold back the third graders People who are not fully proficient in screening.
Louisiana was chosen for improved reading scores on the latest NAEP ratings, while other southern states (Mississippi and Tennessee) saw small clashes in report card scores across the country.
Some argue that this is not an accident.
Parent advocate Karen Weitz called it “Surge of the South.” Teacher training and curriculum improvements.
It’s an interesting pattern.
Education writer Wexler suggests that Blue State does not accept phonics and knowledge-based curricula to the same extent as Red State. It doesn’t necessarily make sense, but it sets dynamics where wealthy students acquire the knowledge they need to succeed outside the classroom, but low-income students do not.
However, there are other proposed takeaways that could affect future policies.
In Louisiana, conservative legislators are keen to bring school choices to this conversation.
The state has passed Universal School Selection for 2024. Louisiana has a robust charter system.
Republican Rep. Julie Emerson told Edruge that public school alternatives are surged in Louisiana as the state’s education system has been ranked at or near the bottom for many years. It’s shaking confidence in public schools, at least compared to nearby states like Texas. Within the state, alternative schools allow families to “find the right one for each child,” thus offering overall better educational outcomes potential.
Anyway, examining potential answers and assessing how they will develop in the future can be more difficult.
The problematic sea
Whatever the lesson is, there is uncertainty at the moment.
With the Trump administration’s federal government purges and cuts, education researchers are scrambling to assess the damage.
concern? Disposal programs may delete important data sources. For example, researchers use the common core of data to access demographic information about the school, such as the number of English learners and the number of special education students. The district and schools rely on Clearinghouse, an initiative of the Institute of Educational Sciences, dating back to 2002, for information on programmes in the market. Both seem to have been affected by the cancellation of the government’s contract. Published on x (formerly Twitter).
This has an impact.
Curriculum information and professional development programs usually claim to be “evidence-based” and “standard alignment,” but according to Heather Hill, a professor at Harvard School of Education, the term is quite substantial depending on provider. it’s different. “For example, curriculum materials and professional development programs claim that they influence students based on a single case study. Hill wrote in an email to Edsurge.
Ultimately, Hill believes that losing clearinghouse information will make it difficult for schools to choose high-quality educational programs.[Without it] “Schools are returning to the 1990s west of educational programs selling materials to schools, mostly based on evidence that they work to help children learn,” she writes.
So far, national principals and teacher research, the main source of teacher preparation and exhaustion, will continue.
However, there is room for anxiety.
Initially, it was thought that NAEP evaluations were spared from the cuts. But last week The US Department of Education has been yank Planned evaluation of a 17 year old.
At this point, Cut has seped the confusion and researchers have expressed trouble and concern as the education system is on the frontier.
Even assuming that survives as it is, NAEP only offers regular glimpses of student performance, says Alexander Kurtz, a leading consultant at the Center for Public Education Reform.
These recent cuts limit important signals from the field and limit visibility to those that cause trends listed in the NAEP, Kurz says.
