Can your 8th grader read the NY Times?: A Measure of Transparency
As a college student, I learned that 8th graders should be able to understand texts typically assigned to high school students, such as those found in the New York Times. I remember wondering, “Who are these eighth-graders that can read the NY Times, and why am I having trouble with it?”
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), in 2022, less than 31% of 8th grade students were proficient in reading at the high school level.
Over 70% of students who are reading below grade level, come from disadvantaged backgrounds, including poor school systems, certain locations, and lower socio-economic status.
After reflecting on my experiences in both lower and higher-quality educational environments, it is clear to me that we have a problem with TRANSPARENCY.
Positive change can only come through transparency- simple and straightforward Transparency.
What is the problem of transparency?
Teachers regularly evaluate students' progress by comparing their performance to that of their classmates or other students at the school. This approach can be effective in well-resourced communities where most students perform at or above national standards. However, in poorer communities, it can lead to a lack of transparency in understanding how students are truly performing at a national level.
Imagine a family who frequently hears that their child is doing well in school, and is an honor roll student even if that information does not reflect how their child would perform to students outside their school district. Without this context, it can be challenging for families to understand their child’s true academic standing and progress. This lack of transparency becomes apparent later on when the child enters college, and the deficiencies in their education hinder their advancement.
Thus, using peers as the benchmark for success can provide misleading and inaccurate information, which is another obstacle that prevents low-performing communities from making progress. At a minimum, every student should have access to information about their own progress and how it compares to their peers across the country.
Two Distinct Educational Experiences
I have experienced both ends of the educational spectrum. My parents were immigrants and we came from a low socioeconomic background, so I naturally attended grade school in that same neighborhood. My parents were thrilled to hear that I was considered one of the brightest in my class. While this was true among my immediate peers, it did not accurately represent my abilities in the larger educational landscape. This led to the misconception that I was ahead of the curve.
On the flip side, in my current experience as a parent raising children in a highly competitive school district in NYC, there is a mentality of keeping up with the Joneses, where the focus is not on acquiring material possessions but on advancing one’s child’s academic abilities. To achieve this, it is common for students to attend tutoring programs to maintain an above-average performance.
In competitive environments, when students struggle, teachers repeatedly remind them of their shortcomings, not just through a one-time standardized test report but through constant reminders that they’re falling behind.
How to fix the problem of transparency?
I remember when the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) was introduced in 2010 and the controversy resulting in its overall abandonment. The CCSS was developed by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers and adopted by states and school districts across the country in an effort to create a consistent, clear understanding of what students should know and be able to do in reading and math at each grade level. However, the implementation and reception of the CCSS was controversial and led to various criticisms and debates. Some opponents argued that the standards were too prescriptive and did not consider the needs of individual students or those from diverse backgrounds, among other issues.
While I liked that the CCSS brought transparency to education by providing a clear understanding of what students were expected to learn to better prepare them for college and the workforce, I am not advocating for the CCSS, but rather What I want is very simple: TRANSPARENCY.
Transparency involves that all players in the education ecosystem, including schools, publishing companies, teachers, researchers, and more work towards promoting accurate formative and summative assessments that provide families with information on their children’s status and that schools do not promote a message of triumph unless it reflects a student’s standing in the larger society.
What Next?
The article begins by using The NY Times as a benchmark for 8th grade level comprehension, but it should be noted that the inability to read it does not mean that a child is struggling. The goal of the article is to convey that there are 8th graders who can read it, and recognizing this is an important step in facilitating transparency.
References:
NAEP report card: Reading. The Nation’s Report Card. (2022). Retrieved from https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading/nation/achievement/?grade=8
National Center for Education Statistics. (2015). The nation’s report card: Reading 2015 (NCES 2016–471). Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading/
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common Core State Standards. Retrieved from https://www.corestandards.org/
At last, I end with this Disclaimer:
The articles I publish on Medium are my own personal perspectives and are not meant to imply causality. My goal is to assist parents in discovering different ways they can assist and support their children. Although I endeavor to share information associated with success, in no way am I suggesting that there are causal links. Rather these are my own observations to which I’m providing a lens into the assumptions and ideas I drove from my own experiences and from those of people I’ve connected with.
