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Tuesday, June 14, 2011

History Sacrificed on Altar of Math and Reading

The National Association of Education Progress (NAEP) released the history testing information today.  As a history lover and teacher it made me sad.  For those not associated with the education world, NAEP provides some of the best data for analyzing school performance because of the way they go about testing.  Some highlights from the eighth grade results:

  • Only 17 percent of eighth grade students scored at or above the proficient level
  • 31 percent of eighth grade students scored below basic 
  • Interestingly, males did slightly better at the extremes than females.  That is a greater percentage of females scored below basic and a greater percentage of males scored proficient or better.  The differences between the genders were only a few percentage points. 
  • Not surprisingly, family income was a strong predictor of scores.  Fifty percent of free lunch students scored below basic while only 19 percent of those students not eligible for free lunch scored below basic.     
  • I can not back this statement up from the NAEP data, but NBC News commented tonight that the reason for these disappointing numbers is that reading and math get ten times as much instructional time as history does.  
 Curious how you would do?  You can take some sample questions at all three tested grade levels.

What do you think about the results?  I appreciate that you took time to read my post.     
 
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2 comments:

  1. MattJune 14, 2011 at 6:14 PM

    Man some of those questions are phrased awkwardly. I wonder how much of the issue is bad test questions?

    I missed one of the 12th grade ones, got all the others.

    One of my big issues with the way history is taught (when it's taught) is the fact that it's still incredibly focused on the U.S. and Europe. We live in an increasingly global society and economy, but we're not teaching our students much at all about the history of any non-white people (except when non-whites come into conflict with whites or are subjugated by them, of course!).

    I also think the biggest problems with history lay in how it is taught, not the amount of time given to it.

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  2. TomJune 16, 2011 at 4:02 PM

    I don't know that the phrasing is awkward, just more formal. I missed one on the 12th grade questions too. Matt, I can not agree more that our history is incredibly focused on old, dead, white men from the U.S. and Europe. Not sure what you mean about how it is taught. I do know that a big issue with history is that we focus too much on random facts and not enough on the skills of analysis, interpretation, and puzzle solving that history is really about.

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