Education Research vs. Rhetoric during Congressional Hearings on No Child Left Behind
by Tim D'Emilio, 1/4/071.� What are the Department of Education�s Information Quality (IQ) Guidelines?
The Department�s Information Quality Guidelines (IQ Guidelines) are a set of standards to ensure that the information ED makes available or disseminates to the public is accurate, reliable, useful, and of high quality.1��
2.� What is the Secretary of Education testifying before Congress about the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind legislation?
�We�ve made more progress in the last five years than the previous 28 years.�2�
3.� What does the Department of Education�s research establishment 3 report about student progress in the last 18 years (from its first assessment in 1992)?
The average reading scores of fourth- and eighth graders, evaluated by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), increased by two points between 1992 and 2005.4
The percentage of fourth-graders performing at or above proficient in general academic achievement on the national assessment between 1992 and 2002 increased from 29 to 31 percent, and has remained steady since.� In 2005, 31 percent of eighth-graders performed at or above proficient.
The relative good news is in math.� The average NAEP math scores of
fourth-graders increased 25 point from 1990 to 2005 (213 to 238), and the
average score of eighth-graders increased 16 points, ��but this still leaves 65
percent of
The principle selling point for No Child Left Behind has been its potential to reduce the achievement gap for minorities.� NAEP results indicate that the achievement gaps in reading among white, black and Hispanic fourth- and eighth-graders have shown little measurable change.�� Beyond race, a strong negative association exists in grades 4 and 8 between a state�s average NAEP math scores and its percent of students eligible for school lunch (correlation coefficient = -0.80 and �0.82).6
[2]�
[3]� The
[4] Except otherwise indicated, data were extracted from a summary in the Washington Post, Tuesday, November 21, 2006; p. A8.
[5] https://www.ed.gov/doc_img/mathchartbook.doc
[6] Ibid.