Comment by blatherard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blatherard | Hacker News Reader

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This article paints the worst possible picture. I took a look at the actual data on the NAEP website for the questions about Brown vs. Board of Education, which the article claims only 2% of students understand. In fact, a majority of students were able to answer basic questions about the case.

You can see the detailed question results at http://www.scribd.com/doc/58246319/Brown

The summary is:

82% of test-takers correctly answered the "easy" multiple-choice question (identify the case from a quote) about Brown. 51% correctly answered the "medium" multiple-choice question (identify the case that Brown overturned).

The "hard" question was an essay question that asked "describe the conditions that this 1954 decision was designed to correct." The results broke out as:

47% Inappropriate 26% Partial 2% Complete 23% Omitted 3% Off task

That 2% Complete is the number the article quotes. Which I would describe as "2% of students had enough time, writing ability, and understanding of Brown v. Board of Education to complete a short-answer essay question under time constraints and to the full satisfaction of the scorer."

Thank you very much for taking the time to track that down. The facts are incontrovertible in this case, the article about the report is a bald faced lie. This is disappointing on many levels. It's not clear whether Brian Bolduc the article author or David McCullough the historian being discussed in the article is the perpetrator of this specific fraud, but it's egregious enough as to need to disregard all the conclusions of the article, just as we routinely disregard all the testimony of perjured witnesses. A pity since maybe there is something to what is being said. We can't use this article as a source for it though, it is tainted.

One good thing that came out of it is drawing attention to the actual study, http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/main2010/2011468.a..., which shows that knowledge of history is getting better across the board.

In contrast to many federal web sites (census bureau being a notable example), that one is a pretty usable site. It has things like sample tests you can take and ways of examining national results on each test, even including sample written responses to essay questions indicating different levels of acceptability. I went through the 12th grade questions and a fair number of them are pretty hard. The "proficient" level is not easy and that only 1/4 of students are there is not so bad.

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