NAEP Scores: Why Do We Tolerate Poor Teaching Performance?
The NAEP scores (Nation’s Report Card) were released this week. Of course the Executive Summary for Math and Reading talk about the gains made over previous years. Once you click through the charts and State comparisons you can finally discover how effective children are actually being taught in our Public Government Schools. I have extracted the percentages below for convenience.
| Grade | % Below Basic |
%Basic | % Proficient | % Advanced | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reading | 4th | 32.84 | 67.16 | 33.09 | 7.90 |
| 8th | 25.96 | 74.04 | 31.23 | 2.77 | |
| Math | 4th | 17.83 | 82.17 | 39.40 | 5.56 |
| 8th | 28.68 | 71.32 | 32.19 | 7.00 |
Take a close look at the percentage of children at or above proficient level. These range from 31% – 39%. Our government schools are only able to effectively teach only a third or our children to be proficient in reading and math. No wonder we have so many functionally illiterate people in this country now.
Why do we tolerate such poor teaching performance? Government schools continue to beg for more money even though the large amounts of money (over $500 Billion) we provide them now is not being spent to effectively teach. We waste money on the Department of Education and failed attempts at legislating improvement (NCLB) while our government schools prevent parents from having a choice in their child’s education.
It is time to stop tolerating the poor performance of our governmnet run schools. It is time to stop funding the government bureaucracy and start funding the child. It is time to make schools are about the education of our children instead of the money. It is time to provide all children equal access to a good education. It is time to empower the parents instead of the bureaucracy.
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