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There is good news and bad news on the education front.
The U.S. Department of Education has a National Assessment of Educational
Progress program, and annually they produce The Nation’s Report Card, based on
testing data.
The good news is that on the eighth-grade reading scores on the Nation’s Report
Card, the District of Columbia and the State of Hawaii beat out California for
last place.
The bad news is that California graded below such educational powerhouses as
Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee…
Our new Official State Education Cheer: “We’re Number 50! We’re Number 50!”
(With Department of Defense Schools and the District of Columbia, there are 52
possible positions…)
Actually, I mentioned the worst news first because there is a tendency to “bury
the lead” in bad news stories. After the eighth-grade awful testing story, the
news gets only slightly better – but in no case do California students test up
to the national average.
For example, in fourth-grade reading the numbers are just as bad – California
readers tied with Nevada and New Mexico – and ahead of only Mississippi and the
District of Columbia! Nice work – we finished behind Louisiana, Alabama,
Arkansas…and other educational blockbuster states.
Now to put things in perspective, California students did better on the math
portion of the Nation’s Report Card – better, but not good enough to be up to
the national average.
Our eighth-grade students missed the national state average of 278 with a grade
of 269…placing them in the last half of the states – again! Our eighth graders
finished behind the math whizzes of, for example, Arkansas, Utah, Kentucky,
Oklahoma and many others.
Our fourth-grade math geniuses were again below the national average. We were
equal in math score with Hawaii and Louisiana, and below many states including
Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky…all states that jump to mind when we think of
education, of course.
What happened to the vaunted California education system? The problem certainly
is not spending – we spend more than $12,000 per student per 180-day school
year. We easily stand in the top half of states in educational expenditures, but
we are in the bottom half in results.
Considering how great our 330,000 teachers are, I do not understand why we have
this problem.
How do I know we have great teachers? They are the third best-paid in the
nation. They are tested also, and boy are THEY good.
When Massachusetts first tested their teachers in 1998, 59% failed the basic
test, and Massachusetts began a crash course in improving their Schools of
Education. When Massachusetts examined their graduates, they discovered that
only two Massachusetts schools had a prospective teacher 80% passing rate
John Silber, then the president of Boston College, said, “Schools of education
have dropped their standards to negligible, risible proportions and they give
grade inflation and they graduate without competence, and everybody knows that
the average student in a school of education is below average. That is a safe
generalization. There are very few schools of education in which the average
combined SAT score of their incoming freshman exceeds the national average. Most
of them fall about 50 points below the national average.”
Back then, the results of the literacy test for incoming teachers in
Massachusetts…teachers have long opposed testing existing teachers…was written
at the 9th grade level, according to the Speaker of the Massachusetts House,
Thomas Finnernan
I looked into the testing of prospective California teachers. There are many
subject proficiency tests, but one, called the CBEST, is designed to test basic
knowledge, the same literacy area that tripped up Massachusetts teachers in
1998.
I decided to check the School of Education of National University, a San Diego
based private university that probably provides the largest number of teacher
credentials in California. National University suffers from a reputation
established many years ago, but in the past 10 years or so it has been an
excellent university with great accreditation. (In the interest of full
disclosure, I spent 6,000 classroom hours teaching computer science at
National.)
The State tested 3,140 teachers at National University (Year 2003-2004) – and
3,140 passed! Now, it is possible that there were no bad hair days that day – no
spouses had recently filed for divorce, no children had run away or been killed,
no…
The odds of 100% of 3,140 students passing anything more difficult than fogging
a mirror, tests my credulity…and probably yours as well…
San Diego State students, on that same exam for the same year, also passed at a
100% rate: 510 of 510!
San Francisco State University reported a statistical 100% but only 634 of 635
passed! (Slacker!)
UC Berkeley passed 100% also: 631 out of 631.
San Jose State – 540 out of 540.
UCLA – 175 for 175.
Pepperdine, 310 for 310.
Stanford, 57 for 57. (O.K., that is possible…)
Santa Clara, 43 for 43.
The aggregate score for the entire state is astonishing: 20, 741 tested, 20,723
passed. That is still a statistical 100% with appropriate rounding – and is
reported on the official website as 100%.
Of course, it is possible that California teachers are simply brilliant when
compared to 1998 Massachusetts teachers…
But here is the problem…in The Nation’s Report Card, Massachusetts stands right
at the top of student testing, and California right at the bottom.
How is it possible that Massachusetts has such poor teachers that they
personally fail a basic literacy exam, but their students score at the top of
the scale – while California teachers score beautifully in a basic literacy
exam, and their students score right at the bottom?
There is something very wrong here.
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