Numbers Gaming 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Christopher J. Ferguson makes a strong case that the recent dip in school children’s test scores on the NEAP standardized test was not nearly so severe nor so alarming as depicted by (some) press reports and politicians. He points out:
When we look at the official charts released for the NAEP, we can see a small 4-point drop in reading and a larger 9-point drop in math.
. . . even across 5 decades, scores overall didn’t change very much. For reading, scores improved slightly over time before becoming largely static since 2012, then dropping a bit during Covid. Math scores improved a bit more, then dropped a tiny bit since 2012, then more rapidly during Covid. Since scores can range 500 points, how worrisome is a drop of 4 or even 9 points?
Follow the link for his answer to his (admittedly rhetorical) question.
(Broken link fixed.)
