Tag Archives: Chad Aldeman

Questioning the Mississippi Miracle Again

21 Mar

By Thomas Ultican 3/21/2025

The national assessment of education progress (NAEP) is a biennial effort of the Department of Education. At the end of February, Chad Aldeman of The 74 – a billionaire created propaganda rag – asks, “How did Mississippi go from 49th in the country a decade ago to near the top today?” The simple answer is they didn’t. Still Aldeman’s article carries the title, “There Really Was a ‘Mississippi Miracle’ in Reading. States Should Learn From It.”

Australian, Noel Wilson, published his dissertation “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” in 1997. This work, which has never been refuted, says that error in standardized testing is too large to reliably compare student outcomes. Psychologist Donald Campbell observed, “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” This is known as Campbell’s Law. Together, these two seminal works tell us that standardized testing to monitor and evaluate education is both unreliable and bad policy.

I have finally found something positive coming out of our felonious president’s administration. ABC News reports that he has ended the agency that compiles the “Nation’s Report Card” also known as NAEP. He eliminated the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) which had existed for more than 150 years. Now, we won’t know how many students or schools our nation has or other important data about them, but we will no longer be wasting money on standardized testing.

This may be the last time we get a chance to look at billionaire sponsored deceptions based on NAEP testing.

Not a Miracle

Aldeman states:

“… [W]hen the Urban Institute adjusted NAEP scores based on each state’s demographics, Mississippi’s fourth-grade reading scores came out on top.”

“Some people have even tried to cast doubt on Mississippi’s NAEP gains by arguing they’re merely a function of testing older kids. But this has been debunked: Mississippi does hold back more kids than other states, but it always has, and the average age of Mississippi’s NAEP test-takers has barely budged over time.”

The Urban Institute and every other report that shows reading scores surging in Mississippi are based on 4th grade NAEP scores. It is remarkable how well Mississippi fourth graders have performed on NAEP reading tests since 2013. In 2024, they moved all the way up to 10th in comparison to the 49 other states, the District of Columbia, Department of Defense schools and Puerto Rico.

The first link in the second paragraph quoted above is a post by Diane Ravitch. She did not say anything about student ages but did state, “The surest path to success in fourth-grade reading on NAEP is to hold back third-graders who did not pass the third-grade reading test.” She also linked to a post from the right-wing Fordham Institute which posits, “A partial explanation for its NAEP improvement is that it holds students back.”

The second link in the paragraph is from a Fordham Institute article refuting Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times. Fordham asserts, “His claims about Mississippi’s NAEP scores and retention policy are based on a debunked theory and are demonstrably wrong in ways that he should have known.” This latest link is to a Magnolia Times article by Carey Wright, who as secretary of education in Mississippi instituted its reading program including third grade retention. Ms. Wright has too much skin in the game to be a powerful source that “demonstrably” sets the LA opinion writer straight.

If Mississippi’s reading program is really working not just 4th graders but 8th graders should also be showing gains. They do not. NCES publishes comparison lists of state results.

Using the 2024 data, we see that indeed Mississippi’s 4th graders were number ten in the country but why are their 8th graders still number 43? The Mississippi reading program has been in effect since 2013 which means the 8th graders have been subjected to it their entire school life.

Another way to look at this is by plotting Mississippi reading scores against national averages.

This data shows us there is something fishy about the Mississippi’s 4th grade reading scores. They are hardly miracles but seem more like subterfuges.

It does not conclusively prove anything but science of reading, which is employed by Mississippi, started to be widely implemented in 2013 at the same time national reading scores started getting worse.

Carey Wright and the Right-wing

Carey Wright began her education career in 1972 as a teacher in Maryland.

In 2010, Michelle Rhee hired her to be chief academic officer for Washington DC public schools. Wright was an administrator in the DC schools during the height of their cheating scandals. Besides working with some of the most callus and harmful education leaders in American history, she is a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change and a graduate of the late Eli Broad’s superintendent training academy. Both organizations are or were widely seen as enemies of public education.

In a 2023 Magnolia Times article, Wright claimed:

“Students who are retained in third grade because of reading deficiencies are provided with intensive interventions and support throughout the school year so they will be successful in later grades. 

“A recent report from Boston University’s Wheelock Educational Policy Center found this strategy is working. The report reviewed English Language Arts scores and later academic outcomes from the first cohort of third graders promoted and retained under Mississippi’s Literacy-Based Promotion Act of 2013.”

Upon opening the link Wright provided, we discover that the cited report was commissioned by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, which is Jeb Bush’s non-profit. He is chairman of the board and his girl Friday, Patricia Levesque, is the CEO. Their organization is known for working to privatize public schools and promoting Edtech.

Evidently ExcelinEd’s researchers discovered that the 6th grade results do not look as bad as the 8th grade results. The reports first key finding states, “For students who were in the third grade in 2014-15, being retained under Mississippi’s policy led to substantially higher ELA scores in the sixth grade.” This appears to be an example of looking for data to sell your ideology.

After spending four years in the classroom, Wright transitioned to various administrative roles. When leading special education services in Montgomery County during the early 2000s, she was serving in the middle of a corporate education reform triumvirate. John Deasy was promoting charter schools and teacher “pay for performance” in Prince George County. Baltimore had Andres Alonzo firing teachers and closing schools. Just a few miles away, Michelle Rhee was promising to “fix” Washington DC’s schools by firing teachers and principals.

Unfortunately, Carey Wright was drawn into this kind of billionaire school reform. She was probably a talented administrator, but many of her decisions were tainted by her friends in education.

The data does suggest that there has been some education progress in Mississippi. That improvement is most likely due to the dedication of poorly compensated public school educators.

Tags: , , , , ,

Reselling NCLB … No Kidding!

1 May

By Thomas Ultican 5/1/2024

Neoliberals joined with libertarians to “reform” public education. Their tools were big money and propaganda distributed by media outlets like The 74, support by The Walton family (EIN 13-3441466) and Bill Gates (EIN 56-2618866). This year, regular columnist for The 74, Chad Aldeman, is trying to claim that lifting No Child Left Behind (NCLB) school accountability sanctions is responsible for the public school testing “data decline”.

Aldeman came east from the University of Iowa, with his BA in Public Policy, to gain a Masters in Public Policy from William and Mary University. His first job in 2008 was with the neoliberal Education Sector which states, “Since our founding in 2005, Education Sector has established our expertise in key issue areas—including educational choice, human capital, K–12 accountability, and higher education—and gained credibility as an independent leader in the field.” (emphases added)

After three years, Aldeman joined Arne Duncan’s Department of Education as a Confidential Assistant and left the Department in 2012 for neoliberal oriented Bell Weather Education Partners as a Principal, working there until 2020.

Diane Ravitch said of Bell Weather in 2016:

“Bellwether, co-founded by Andrew Rotherham, is a leading force in the corporate reform movement. Rotherham has been a columnist for TIME. Currently he is on the board of Campbell Brown’s THE 74.

“Among its clients: TN Achievement School District, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, NewSchools Venture Fund, Rhode Island Department of Education, Stranahan Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, Stand for Children, CEE-Trust, Goodwill Education Initiatives, Harmony Public Schools (Gulen charter schools), TNTP, Rocketship Education (charter chain), KIPP, IDEA charter schools, The Mind Trust, Chiefs for Change, TeachPlus, and the Black Alliance for Education Options.”

 I used this quote, because Bellweather’s list of clients has gotten much larger, extra disgusting but not more illuminating.

Bottom-line: Aldeman is steeped in anti-public school dogma.

Going on the Attack

 Aldeman’s latest piece for The 74 is called “Gaps Widening Between Indiana’s Highest- and Lowest-Performing Students,” claiming that since approximately 2013 education outcomes as measured by test scores were bad. He stated gaps between highest- and lowest-performing students were widening while overall scores declined and this was not just an Indiana problem but a national one.

The following is one of his graphs, Indiana 4th grade reading outcomes.

Chad Aldeman Graph from The 74

In the article he stated from 2003 to 2015, the average gains went up by 7 points and from 2015 to 2022, the average losses were 10 points. What he did not mention was where the test data came from and what its maximum scale was. If this happened to be a testing performance based on a 1,000 point scale, a 10 point change is fairly meaningless even if you believe in standards-based testing.

To check if there was any reality to Aldeman’s graph, I interrogated data from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). Using free lunch as a proxy for low-performing students, both national data and Indiana data for 4th grade reading was graphed. NAEP, known as the nation’s report card, has given the same type of reading exams since 1992. Indiana changed its ELA testing regime in 2018 which makes evaluating data from 2010 when the last testing method was adopted, difficult to impossible. It lacks continuity.

Reading data is scored on a 500 point scale. Scores above 250 and below 190 are meaningless for the 4th grade reading test. Testing score gaps between students eligible for free lunch and those not, in the US, wavered between 26 and 28 points. In Indiana, it varied from 20 to 23 points with one outlier in 2019 at 27 points. The gap between top and bottom has been unchanged within a 3 or 4 point range. Since 1992, 4th grade reading data average for the nation has wiggled up and down within a ten point range. The first test data in 1992 came in at a 217 points average and was also 217 points in 2022.

 From 1970 to 1992, America’s schools showed slow but steady improvement in education-testing outcomes but since the era of standards, testing and accountability, improvement basically stopped. Education, run by billionaires and politicians instead of educators, failed to improve testing outcomes.

What Happened?

Alderman stated in his latest article that it is not just an Indiana problem but that “49 of 50 states, the District of Columbia and 17 out of 20 of the large cities that participated in NAEP … saw a widening of their achievement gap over the last decade.” He did not share which tests showed widened achievement gaps nor which cohorts were compared. NAEP reports on reading scores for 4th and 8th grade do not show a significant change in scoring gaps between Black and White students and comparisons in other ethnic groups also were steady.

After asking what has caused this (non-existent) achievement gap increase, Alderman posited several possible reasons: Common Core state standards (CCSS), per-pupil spending, technology and social media. He said the timing for CCSS fit but did not explain why states where CCSS was never adopted had the same problem. For per-pupil spending, he claimed that more money was getting to classrooms, which defies education-spending reports, making his claim a little shady. For technology and social media, he said other countries with similar problems, did not see testing declines … a declaration made with no evidence cited.

He finally made his real point, “I argue that the weakening of school accountability pressures after the No Child Left Behind Act was passed is responsible for a large portion of the drop.” Those of us, who were in classrooms and witnessed the test-and-punish philosophy damage to public education, disagree. How many great public schools were labeled “failures and closed” because they existed in low income zip codes?

If this decline were real, wouldn’t the privatization of public education be the most likely culprit? Charter schools came first followed by vouchers and more charter schools. Data clearly shows that vouchers harm student-testing performance. Furthermore both charter schools and voucher schools leech money from public education budgets.

Conclusions

The 74 was founded in 2015 by former CNN news anchor, Campbell Brown, along with Michael Bloomberg’s education advisor, Romy Drucker. Its original funding came from the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation,  Walton Family Foundation, Doris and Donald Fisher Fund and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Since then, it has been the vehicle for spreading the billionaire message of privatization and undermining public schools.

Some billionaires see the non-sectarian nature of public education as a threat to their dreams of a Christian theocracy. Others are libertarians that oppose free universal public education, believing everyone should pay one’s own way and not steal people’s private properties using taxation. The Neoliberals are convinced that education should be run like a business and react to market forces.

Responding to the mission of The 74, Chad Aldeman’s series of articles, like those of many of his colleagues, are pure propaganda, shaping data to support his neoliberal ideology instead of honestly reporting facts. Unfortunately this kind of fake “journalism” is flooding email boxes and web pages throughout America every day.

Tags: , , , , ,