This week in the blogosphere, I chose to examine the National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP. The NAEP is a standardized tests that is used in both public and private schools. Students are tested in arts, civics,economics, geography, mathematics, reading, science, U.S. history, and writing. The first blog I read and responded to addressed an interesting statistic that public schools are currently outscoring private schools in the NAEP math test. The author, Jim Horn, PhD closely examines a Science Daily article in which the results of the NAEP math assessment are released showing that public schools are outperforming the private schools. In his blog, he discusses the current issues of why public schools are thriving in areas such as math, while private schools are not. I enjoyed reading this article because everyone naturally assumes that students in private schools would achieve higher scores on standardized tests than public school students, but this blog proves that that is not necessarily true. The second blog I chose to respond to was addressing how the NAEP will add a tech literacy component to their test. The author, Sean Cavanagh, looks at the changing face of the “nation’s report card”. The tech literacy component added to the NAEP should help better assess the student’s ability to see the “interconnections among technologies.” I was unaware of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, so I found the blogs useful because they provided background about current assessments, such as math tests and future tests, such as tech literacy. It will be interesting to see if the test will be able to successful incorporate technology. Additionally, it will be fascinating to see if public schools and private schools will perform on a level playing field or if one will outshine the other in both math and technology literacy.
Public Schools Outperform Private Schools in NAEP Math Assessments
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It was quite interesting to read about the contrasting school curriculums and lifestyles of public and private schools. The outcome of the NAEP math results surprised me because of all the attention that private academic institutions receive for their academic standards. This blog and article raised the interesting question, is private schooling necessarily better than public? In terms of math scores you brought up the point that, “Lubienski thinks one of the reasons that private schools don’t adopt a more reform-minded math curriculum is because some parents are more attracted to a “back-to-basics” approach to math instruction. The end result, however, is students who are ‘prepared for the tests of 40 years ago, and not the tests of today,” she said.”’ With new technology and developments, one would think that parents and teachers would gladly change with the times to maximize a child’s learning experience. Do you think that private schools will be able to reform and get back on track to be able to compete once again with public schools? For the higher rates parents have to pay for private education it is shocking that teachers and administrators would not raise their standards in the classroom. Do you believe that private schools are suffering because they are not following education trends? How might private schools better distribute their money to have more academic success? Teacher development and certification should be a top priority for all schools because in all studies done an effective teacher is more influential than having a small classroom. Do private schools set an illusion of higher success by using small class sizes as a selling point? It is sad that parents are investing large sums of money into their child’s education only to find out that their counterparts are doing better in the public school system. Math is a foundational life skill that every child needs to have so that they are able to thrive in the world. Private schools are greedy and selfish because they are not willing to go the extra mile to ensure that the money they are receiving is put towards the betterment of each child. For the high costs of private schools, the students should be outshining their public school counterparts instead of falling behind them. Parents send children to private schools assuming that they are getting the best possible education, the least that private schools could do would try and have certified teachers and updated teaching methods.
Testing Tech Literacy
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The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is seen as the “nation’s report card” may be receiving modifications as soon as 2012 when they add a new technology aspect to the test. With increasing technological advances and technology used daily in classrooms, it is naturally assumed that all children are knowledgeable about it. The proposal of adding a new component to the NAEP brings up the intriguing question if whether students will be able to excel at this kind of test. With the constant new developments, how long do you think these test will be able to be used before they are outdated? In your blog you wrote about Friedmen’s view that, “the goal is to evaluate their understanding of ‘interconnections among technologies,’ with technologies including processes from the designed world, he said. This could include not only computers but technology's relationship to processes such as metallurgy (in the manufacture of buildings, or individual products) or woven textile technology (used to make clothes and fabrics).” Do you think this integration of technology and topics such as textiles is useful for younger students? How much of the NAEP test would be dedicated to technology? Is there another way to incorporate technology that might be more successful? Would technology mainly be used to assess areas of science? In the upcoming years it will be interesting to see how all standardized tests change in order to accommodate the ever-changing educational developments. In another article I read addressing the NAEP, the author discussed how public schools did higher on their math assessment than private schools. Do you think that private or public schools will have the upper hand in tech literacy? Will school funding play a role in tech literacy? I hope that the tech literacy program is successful and is able to properly assess student’s technical knowledge. I really enjoyed reading your article and look forward to your response!
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