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Looking at the history this doesn’t seem abnormal, and it hovers around 49%. This implies to me median is determined to be grade level (essentially) and it hasn

Looking at the history this doesn’t seem abnormal, and it hovers around 49%. This implies to me median is determined to be grade level (essentially) and it hasn’t moved materially beyond this point since the data was compiled and the entirely arbitrary definition of “grade level” was declared. Would be interesting to see other states but it wasn’t immediately obvious if a similar dataset exists for anywhere else. Given all this it seems entirely unclear if this should be viewed in some subjective sense as “good” or “bad.” It just seems to reflect things are “normal.”

bmitc 4y ago
If it's "normal", isn't the conclusion then that the normal is not good? The threshold is extremely low already, and that only 50% of students are hitting that threshold is concerning to me. It isn't that they aren't capable. It's that the social support structures are not there.
- singlow 4y ago
  If nearly 50% of people perform below average is that bad?
  - darig 4y ago
    [dead]
  - bmitc 4y ago
    I edited my comment probably as you were responding, but it wasn't my impression that that is what's being measured. Some level is set and the students are measured against that level. I would assume that the target percentage is of course close to 100% to be meeting that level. If not, then it should be. It is also my assumption that the level is already very low.
    - fnordpiglet 4y ago
      No, if you read the thread you’ll see it was picked to be greater than the median at the time the metric was established. So in the first year it was less than 50%, but close. The phrase “grade level” implies a 100% goal, but the math of the metric says you’ll do great to do anything better than 50%.
  - troupe 4y ago
    If the average is what should allow you to succeed in the next grade, then the problem is that they are being allowed to go on to the next grade where they won't be prepared and will take resources from the kids that were prepared.
    - singlow 4y ago
      Most of the time 50% of the population is below average. If you want to fail everyone who is below average you will likely fail 50% of the population. Sure, it is possible that there are very low outliers pulling the average down so that the median is well above average, but I doubt that is generally the case. The description of a grade level standard is basically an average performance estimate. It may have been codified in the past when the average was different, and they may have chosen to set the grade-level standard lower than the mathematical average for various reasons. So it's not necessarily the case that 50% being below grade level is just normal. But without knowing how it is calculated and what the grade-level means, the headline is not useful. The general idea that there is a expectation being met by slightly less than 50% of the population seems totally expected from a mathematical standpoint and does not indicate any deficiency on its own. Lets say it were worded like this: "Less than 50% of students are not meeting minimum grade-level proficiency standards in math." That would tell me something much more concerning. Because Minimum standards should be something that a vast majority of students can achieve. But it will always be the case that if we have and estimate of the "normal" mathematics ability for a particular grade, about 50% will likely exceed it and about 50% will likely fall short. So does on-grade-level mean minimum expectations, or an estimate of normal grade-level abilities? I don't know. Reading through the website I see that when their standard is that the student shows competency that is consistent with progress toward being ready to take college level courses after finishing 12th grade. So it seems that they have set milestones for certain skills and placed them along a track for each grade. However those tracks are still likely influenced by the average abilities of most students. I would still expect that any given student is likely to have productive periods and less productive periods throughout their schooling and might fall-behind for a while and might catch up later when some focus is returned. As a result I would still expect that at any time a large portion of students are going to be in falling-behind mode, then catching up later. Only a small percentage will just spend their entire time being ahead of the curve in math ability. The ones who don't have a particular interest will do what it takes to meet minimum often enough, when pressured by parents or teachers or counselors. If the standards are set so low that 70% of students stay ahead of them most of the time, the standards are probably too low and we are not ambitious enough in our expections. Likely we would not sufficiently motivate the schools to achieve maximally. If they are so high that 70% of students at any time are falling behind, then they are probably too high and would only be discouraging. ~50% seems ideal to me. If we had 55% of students meeting expectations at any time, I'd want to raise the expectations.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  Why? Because they used the phrase “grade level” to describe their threshold? This metric appears to be defined as “greater than the median scoring when the metric was first established.” This years results are a little less than before the pandemic but greater than when the metric was established. It appears you can’t compare this to any other state or region, so by what measure is it “not good?” The term grade level was picked to induce a sense of “not good,” because presumably the goal is 100%. But it was picked to be in the first sample less than 50%. We will never shift a metric on a presumably normal distribution that far to the right. So it’ll always look “not good.” The fact that it’s relatively stable over time means “it’s better than it was 8 years ago” and that’s about all you can really say. Given it’s seen improvement over time, albeit with slippage after the pandemic, that seems pretty excellent.
  - RHSeeger 4y ago
    I think your point is fairly solid. If you rephrase this to "just less than half the students in CA read or do math at the average level for their grade, in their state", the response should be "well, duh?".
    - red-iron-pine 4y ago
      This just in: half of a population are below average.
  - troupe 4y ago
    I think you are bringing up a key point. Probably the most important thing is whether we are getting better or worse. If kids 20 years ago were better able to do math in 8th grade than kids this year, it may indicate a very real problem. If we are are basically saying that not every kid is in the top 20% of what we want them to achieve, that will probably always be true. Not everyone is going to always make an A.
- cm2012 4y ago
  There's not much the education system can do here. When you look into educational research its grim - its really really hard to move the needle even a few % on outcomes in a school system, even with large grants and volunteers and special projects. Kids on the bottom half of the bell curve, especially without parental support, are always going to struggle at school.
  - theGnuMe 4y ago
    It is not like we don't do research into effective teaching methods. It is not also like some schools have 90% of kids above grade level.
    - thebooktocome 4y ago
      Correct that figure for confounding factors, including but not limited to socioeconomic status, availability of prenatal care, nutrition. . .
    - cm2012 4y ago
      Some schools being above grade level has nothing to do with teaching methodology, and everything to do with student composition. Smart people who raise their kids to do well in school move to neighborhoods with better schools, which raises the grade levels. Ex: I went to Bronx Science, a specialized high school in NYC where 98% of the students are above grade level and go to college. The principal at the time was known to be an obvious subject of nepotism and generally made poor decisions often. The guidance department was a joke. Teachers were above average because schools full of smart kids attract smart teachers, but not so amazing that they'd make up for kids who started below grade level if there were any. My wife actually went to the same high school and got depression, she dropped out of BX Science and went to a much lesser rated school. The teachers there were actually better in many ways (more organized, better processes, really useful classes work skills and stuff were available due to grants) but the students were still generally below grade level and less than 1/3 went to college according to the stats. She was effortlessly at the top of her class even though she was severely depressed and missed days all the time.
- bcrosby95 4y ago
  Are they extremely low? I have kids in elementary school and so far, I would say "grade level" expectations are a bit higher than what mine were 35 years ago. But maybe things change as they get older.
- Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
  > that only 50% of students are hitting that threshold is concerning to me. Why? I gave it a quick look so perhaps I missed some stuff, but the worst performance was Grade 11 math, where about 55% of students did not meet standards. But as someone who was great a math, and went to do it in Uni etc, I do not think its concerning that 60% of people do not know how to do matrices, calculus, or logic formalism or any of the other topics we touched in AP Math. Valuing education is important, and I think we are behind the curve in how we teach our kids, tools like Google make tons of memorization so silly to prioritise. But kids not being up to speed with 17-18 year old metaphor understanding in English in a state with tons of immigrants, or kids not mastering calculus at 17 and not needing integrals later in life is part of specialisation, we cannot all do everything.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    I didn't think AP classes were considered "grade level". More like college level.
  - Scubabear68 4y ago
    These tests are not looking (much) at advanced courses like Calculus. This is more “what percentage 9th graders can read at a basic 9th grade level”, “what percentage of 3rd graders can multiply and do basic 3rd grade math”. These numbers should be in the 80-90% range. But they are not. And note: the majority who are performing well below grade level are not failing. They are probably getting C’s and getting promoted to the next grade. Meaning every year they fall farther and farther behind.
    - Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
      But most of the 3rd grades seem to be doing ok when you look at the grade breakdown. The lowest performance is Math on grade 11, and its the lowest by a mile. Also historically the results seem to track, this is not some crash compared to previous years. All of this combined makes me think this is a headline that scares people, but not one that we should be worried about. Smaller classes, better teacher pay, and shorter school days and those numbers would skyrocket I am sure, but it is easier to blame the kids than to learn from countries that outperform us.
- TheRealPomax 4y ago
  What are you basing "not good" on, though? Not good for what?
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Something like 90% in primary education should in my mind be a goal. But when we get to policies that don't allow repeating classes if needed, there really isn't any clear solution to keep kids on their level.
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    If the metric “grade level” were defined as the median when the measurement started, do you think 90% is reasonably achievable?
- johnea 4y ago
  Just reenforces my perseption, after living in California for 40 years, and being a parent of a child going through public education, that education here sucks, and most Californian's are dumb as rocks...
- gibsonf1 4y ago
  Perhaps a graph of this metric over time will help in understanding where things are headed. The moment choice is added, in that parents can choose where to send their kids, the schools will have no choice but to improve or fail.
xienze 4y ago
> Looking at the history this doesn’t seem abnormal, and it hovers around 49%. Notice that the "historical data" goes all the way back to... 2014-2015. I'd put money on this percentage being significantly higher 20, 30+ years ago. > This implies to me median is determined to be grade level (essentially) and it hasn’t moved materially beyond this point since the data was compiled and the entirely arbitrary definition of “grade level” was declared. You may be both overthinking this and not understanding. The phrases "can read at grade level" or "can perform math at grade level" mean that a student can read/grasp mathematical concepts at the level expected of a normal person at the age equivalent to their grade (e.g., "can read at a 5th grade level" means "can read to the extent that is considered competent for a ten year old by educational standards"). The goal is for _100%_ of kids in a given grade level to be able to read/comprehend what is taught to them.
latchkey 4y ago
> Looking at the history this doesn’t seem abnormal, and it hovers around 49%. Ties in with this data too: https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy ~50% of the entire US is at a 6th-grade reading level. Update: Sorry, I didn't put the hyphen that is in the text of the article. "sixth-grade level"
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  Ok so grade level is another word for “median.” So saying 50% of students are above or below the median doesn’t really elicit the same reaction as saying “grade level” - presumably they knew this and picked the name and the metric to induce hand wringing.
  - latchkey 4y ago
    Technically, it is "6th-grade level". Was able to update my comment.
lr4444lr 4y ago
Grade level education standards are criterion-based, not norm-referenced. That's why kids (used to) get held back to repeat a grade when they failed them.
- troupe 4y ago
  Right. And if we don't hold them back, it means that 50% of the students in the next grade are going to be holding back the the teachers ability to full help students who were in the top 50%.
johnea 4y ago
Just reenforces my perseption, after living in California for 40 years, and being a parent of a child going through public education, that education here sucks, and most Californian's are dumb as rocks...
- vore 4y ago
  Did you mean to prove your own point like that with your spelling? Sorry, I couldn't resist the dig. In any case, your own personal feelings without anything to back them up doesn't really help anyone.
ROTMetro 4y ago
Now map this to spending per student.

bmitc 4y ago

If it's "normal", isn't the conclusion then that the normal is not good? The threshold is extremely low already, and that only 50% of students are hitting that threshold is concerning to me. It isn't that they aren't capable. It's that the social support structures are not there.

singlow 4y ago
If nearly 50% of people perform below average is that bad?
- darig 4y ago
  [dead]
- bmitc 4y ago
  I edited my comment probably as you were responding, but it wasn't my impression that that is what's being measured. Some level is set and the students are measured against that level. I would assume that the target percentage is of course close to 100% to be meeting that level. If not, then it should be. It is also my assumption that the level is already very low.
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    No, if you read the thread you’ll see it was picked to be greater than the median at the time the metric was established. So in the first year it was less than 50%, but close. The phrase “grade level” implies a 100% goal, but the math of the metric says you’ll do great to do anything better than 50%.
- troupe 4y ago
  If the average is what should allow you to succeed in the next grade, then the problem is that they are being allowed to go on to the next grade where they won't be prepared and will take resources from the kids that were prepared.
  - singlow 4y ago
    Most of the time 50% of the population is below average. If you want to fail everyone who is below average you will likely fail 50% of the population. Sure, it is possible that there are very low outliers pulling the average down so that the median is well above average, but I doubt that is generally the case. The description of a grade level standard is basically an average performance estimate. It may have been codified in the past when the average was different, and they may have chosen to set the grade-level standard lower than the mathematical average for various reasons. So it's not necessarily the case that 50% being below grade level is just normal. But without knowing how it is calculated and what the grade-level means, the headline is not useful. The general idea that there is a expectation being met by slightly less than 50% of the population seems totally expected from a mathematical standpoint and does not indicate any deficiency on its own. Lets say it were worded like this: "Less than 50% of students are not meeting minimum grade-level proficiency standards in math." That would tell me something much more concerning. Because Minimum standards should be something that a vast majority of students can achieve. But it will always be the case that if we have and estimate of the "normal" mathematics ability for a particular grade, about 50% will likely exceed it and about 50% will likely fall short. So does on-grade-level mean minimum expectations, or an estimate of normal grade-level abilities? I don't know. Reading through the website I see that when their standard is that the student shows competency that is consistent with progress toward being ready to take college level courses after finishing 12th grade. So it seems that they have set milestones for certain skills and placed them along a track for each grade. However those tracks are still likely influenced by the average abilities of most students. I would still expect that any given student is likely to have productive periods and less productive periods throughout their schooling and might fall-behind for a while and might catch up later when some focus is returned. As a result I would still expect that at any time a large portion of students are going to be in falling-behind mode, then catching up later. Only a small percentage will just spend their entire time being ahead of the curve in math ability. The ones who don't have a particular interest will do what it takes to meet minimum often enough, when pressured by parents or teachers or counselors. If the standards are set so low that 70% of students stay ahead of them most of the time, the standards are probably too low and we are not ambitious enough in our expections. Likely we would not sufficiently motivate the schools to achieve maximally. If they are so high that 70% of students at any time are falling behind, then they are probably too high and would only be discouraging. ~50% seems ideal to me. If we had 55% of students meeting expectations at any time, I'd want to raise the expectations.
fnordpiglet 4y ago
Why? Because they used the phrase “grade level” to describe their threshold? This metric appears to be defined as “greater than the median scoring when the metric was first established.” This years results are a little less than before the pandemic but greater than when the metric was established. It appears you can’t compare this to any other state or region, so by what measure is it “not good?” The term grade level was picked to induce a sense of “not good,” because presumably the goal is 100%. But it was picked to be in the first sample less than 50%. We will never shift a metric on a presumably normal distribution that far to the right. So it’ll always look “not good.” The fact that it’s relatively stable over time means “it’s better than it was 8 years ago” and that’s about all you can really say. Given it’s seen improvement over time, albeit with slippage after the pandemic, that seems pretty excellent.
- RHSeeger 4y ago
  I think your point is fairly solid. If you rephrase this to "just less than half the students in CA read or do math at the average level for their grade, in their state", the response should be "well, duh?".
  - red-iron-pine 4y ago
    This just in: half of a population are below average.
- troupe 4y ago
  I think you are bringing up a key point. Probably the most important thing is whether we are getting better or worse. If kids 20 years ago were better able to do math in 8th grade than kids this year, it may indicate a very real problem. If we are are basically saying that not every kid is in the top 20% of what we want them to achieve, that will probably always be true. Not everyone is going to always make an A.
cm2012 4y ago
There's not much the education system can do here. When you look into educational research its grim - its really really hard to move the needle even a few % on outcomes in a school system, even with large grants and volunteers and special projects. Kids on the bottom half of the bell curve, especially without parental support, are always going to struggle at school.
- theGnuMe 4y ago
  It is not like we don't do research into effective teaching methods. It is not also like some schools have 90% of kids above grade level.
  - thebooktocome 4y ago
    Correct that figure for confounding factors, including but not limited to socioeconomic status, availability of prenatal care, nutrition. . .
  - cm2012 4y ago
    Some schools being above grade level has nothing to do with teaching methodology, and everything to do with student composition. Smart people who raise their kids to do well in school move to neighborhoods with better schools, which raises the grade levels. Ex: I went to Bronx Science, a specialized high school in NYC where 98% of the students are above grade level and go to college. The principal at the time was known to be an obvious subject of nepotism and generally made poor decisions often. The guidance department was a joke. Teachers were above average because schools full of smart kids attract smart teachers, but not so amazing that they'd make up for kids who started below grade level if there were any. My wife actually went to the same high school and got depression, she dropped out of BX Science and went to a much lesser rated school. The teachers there were actually better in many ways (more organized, better processes, really useful classes work skills and stuff were available due to grants) but the students were still generally below grade level and less than 1/3 went to college according to the stats. She was effortlessly at the top of her class even though she was severely depressed and missed days all the time.
bcrosby95 4y ago
Are they extremely low? I have kids in elementary school and so far, I would say "grade level" expectations are a bit higher than what mine were 35 years ago. But maybe things change as they get older.
Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
> that only 50% of students are hitting that threshold is concerning to me. Why? I gave it a quick look so perhaps I missed some stuff, but the worst performance was Grade 11 math, where about 55% of students did not meet standards. But as someone who was great a math, and went to do it in Uni etc, I do not think its concerning that 60% of people do not know how to do matrices, calculus, or logic formalism or any of the other topics we touched in AP Math. Valuing education is important, and I think we are behind the curve in how we teach our kids, tools like Google make tons of memorization so silly to prioritise. But kids not being up to speed with 17-18 year old metaphor understanding in English in a state with tons of immigrants, or kids not mastering calculus at 17 and not needing integrals later in life is part of specialisation, we cannot all do everything.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  I didn't think AP classes were considered "grade level". More like college level.
- Scubabear68 4y ago
  These tests are not looking (much) at advanced courses like Calculus. This is more “what percentage 9th graders can read at a basic 9th grade level”, “what percentage of 3rd graders can multiply and do basic 3rd grade math”. These numbers should be in the 80-90% range. But they are not. And note: the majority who are performing well below grade level are not failing. They are probably getting C’s and getting promoted to the next grade. Meaning every year they fall farther and farther behind.
  - Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
    But most of the 3rd grades seem to be doing ok when you look at the grade breakdown. The lowest performance is Math on grade 11, and its the lowest by a mile. Also historically the results seem to track, this is not some crash compared to previous years. All of this combined makes me think this is a headline that scares people, but not one that we should be worried about. Smaller classes, better teacher pay, and shorter school days and those numbers would skyrocket I am sure, but it is easier to blame the kids than to learn from countries that outperform us.
TheRealPomax 4y ago
What are you basing "not good" on, though? Not good for what?
Ekaros 4y ago
Something like 90% in primary education should in my mind be a goal. But when we get to policies that don't allow repeating classes if needed, there really isn't any clear solution to keep kids on their level.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  If the metric “grade level” were defined as the median when the measurement started, do you think 90% is reasonably achievable?
johnea 4y ago
Just reenforces my perseption, after living in California for 40 years, and being a parent of a child going through public education, that education here sucks, and most Californian's are dumb as rocks...
gibsonf1 4y ago
Perhaps a graph of this metric over time will help in understanding where things are headed. The moment choice is added, in that parents can choose where to send their kids, the schools will have no choice but to improve or fail.

xienze 4y ago

> Looking at the history this doesn’t seem abnormal, and it hovers around 49%. Notice that the "historical data" goes all the way back to... 2014-2015. I'd put money on this percentage being significantly higher 20, 30+ years ago. > This implies to me median is determined to be grade level (essentially) and it hasn’t moved materially beyond this point since the data was compiled and the entirely arbitrary definition of “grade level” was declared. You may be both overthinking this and not understanding. The phrases "can read at grade level" or "can perform math at grade level" mean that a student can read/grasp mathematical concepts at the level expected of a normal person at the age equivalent to their grade (e.g., "can read at a 5th grade level" means "can read to the extent that is considered competent for a ten year old by educational standards"). The goal is for _100%_ of kids in a given grade level to be able to read/comprehend what is taught to them.

latchkey 4y ago

> Looking at the history this doesn’t seem abnormal, and it hovers around 49%. Ties in with this data too: https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy ~50% of the entire US is at a 6th-grade reading level. Update: Sorry, I didn't put the hyphen that is in the text of the article. "sixth-grade level"

fnordpiglet 4y ago
Ok so grade level is another word for “median.” So saying 50% of students are above or below the median doesn’t really elicit the same reaction as saying “grade level” - presumably they knew this and picked the name and the metric to induce hand wringing.
- latchkey 4y ago
  Technically, it is "6th-grade level". Was able to update my comment.

lr4444lr 4y ago

Grade level education standards are criterion-based, not norm-referenced. That's why kids (used to) get held back to repeat a grade when they failed them.

troupe 4y ago
Right. And if we don't hold them back, it means that 50% of the students in the next grade are going to be holding back the the teachers ability to full help students who were in the top 50%.

johnea 4y ago

Just reenforces my perseption, after living in California for 40 years, and being a parent of a child going through public education, that education here sucks, and most Californian's are dumb as rocks...

vore 4y ago
Did you mean to prove your own point like that with your spelling? Sorry, I couldn't resist the dig. In any case, your own personal feelings without anything to back them up doesn't really help anyone.

ROTMetro 4y ago

Now map this to spending per student.