Do Schools Challenge Our Students? 
 
 What Student Surveys Tell Us About the State of Education in the United States 
 
 SOURCE: AP/ Stephan Savoia 
 
 Download this report (pdf) 
 
 Download the introduction and summary (pdf) 
 
 Read this report in your browser (Scribd) 
 
 Download selected student survey results for states (pdf) 
 
 Download complete survey data used in report (.xls) 
 
 Interactive Map: How Much Are Students Learning? by Ulrich Boser and Lindsay Rosenthal 
 
 You might think that the nation’s teenagers are drowning in schoolwork. Images of sullen students buried in textbooks often grace the covers of popular parenting magazines, while well-heeled suburban teenagers often complain they have to work the hours of a corporate lawyer in order to finish their school projects and homework assignments. But when we recently examined a federal survey of students in elementary and high schools around the country, we found the opposite: Many students are not being challenged in school. 
 
 Consider, for instance, that 37 percent of fourth-graders say that their math work is too easy. More than a third of high-school seniors report that they hardly ever write about what they read in class. In a competitive global economy where the mastery of science is increasingly crucial, 72 percent of eighth-grade science students say they aren’t being taught engineering and technology, according to our analysis of a federal database. 
 
 These findings come at a key time. Researchers increasingly believe that student surveys can provide important insights into a teacher’s effectiveness. When the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation released findings from their Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project in 2011, they found that student feedback was a far better predictor of a teacher’s performance than more traditional indicators of success such as whether a teacher had a master’s degree or not. The mounting evidence on the importance of student surveys has also been shaping policy at the state and local level, and a variety of groups dedicated to the improvement of teaching—such as the New Teacher Project, a nonprofit that works to advance policies and practices to ensure effective teaching in every classroom—have been incorporating student surveys into their teacher evaluation and certification process. 
 
 Given the significance of this growing body of research on student surveys, we examined one of the richest sources of national student survey data and conducted an analysis of the background surveys of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Known as the Nation’s Report Card, these assessments are administered every two years by the National Center for Education Statistics. We looked specifically at the student questionnaire, which collects student-reported information on demographics and classroom experiences. 
 
 In reviewing the data, we examined a number of issues that track current debates over education policy and research. Given the recent debates over academic standards, for instance, we looked closely at issues of rigor and student expectations. Do students think that they are being challenged enough? Do teachers engage students in deep learning opportunities? We were also interested in issues of access since students provide an important, classroom-eye view of the resources that are available to them. Are all students being given access to the types of learning opportunities that they need to be prepared for college and the modern workplace? Are those resources distributed fairly among different types of students and schools? 
 
 Among our findings: 
 
 Many schools are not challenging students and large percentages of students report that their school work is “too easy.” If students are going to succeed in the competitive global economy, they need to be exposed to a rigorous curriculum. But many students believe their class work is too easy. Twenty-nine percent of eighth-grade math students nationwide, for instance, report that their math work is often or always too easy. In some states like Virginia, nearly a third of middle-school students reported their work was often or always too easy. 
 
 
 
 This finding was consistent across grades and subject matter. We found that 51 percent of eighth-grade civics students and 57 percent of eighth-grade history students report that their work is often or always too easy. Elementary school students also revealed that they aren’t being challenged by their math work—37 percent of fourth-grade students reported that their math work is often or always too easy. Among high school students, 21 percent of 12th-graders said their math work was often or always too easy, while 56 percent and 55 percent respectively found their civics and history work often or always too easy. 
 
 Many students are not engaged in rigorous learning activities. Almost a third of eighth-grade students report reading fewer than five pages a day either in school or for homework. That’s below what many experts recommend for students in middle school. Eighth-grade students across the country also report that they rarely write lengthy answers to reading questions on tests: approximately one-third of students write long answers on reading tests twice per year or less. 
 
 The issues are similar at the high school-level. Thirty-nine percent of 12th-grade students, for example, say that they hardly ever or only once or twice a month write about what they read in class. Nearly one-third said they write long answers on reading tests two times a year or less. Moreover, almost one-third of 12th-grade reading students say they rarely identify main themes of a passage when reading, and almost 20 percent said they never or hardly ever summarize a passage. 
 
 Note, however, that these data do not measure the quality of the work that students are performing in class—and the quality of the work can make a big difference in how much students learn. Students might be reading just a few, very rigorous pages every day, for instance. But given overall low reading scores—and the degree to which more reading promotes more learning—we believe these results should be cause for alarm. 
 
 Students don’t have access to key science and technology learning opportunities. For today’s students, being prepared for college and the modern workforce means having access to high-quality curriculum materials in critical subject areas like math and science. But our analysis found that most teenagers say their schools don’t provide important learning opportunities in science and technology. For instance, 72 percent of eighth-grade science students say they are not taught about engineering and technology. 
 
 
 
 For today’s students, being prepared for college and the modern workforce means having access to high-quality curriculum materials in critical subject areas like math and science. But our analysis found that most teenagers say their schools don’t provide important learning opportunities in science and technology. For instance, 72 percent of eighth-grade science students say they are not taught about engineering and technology. Too many students don’t understand their teacher’s questions and report that they are not learning during class. Nationwide, less than two-thirds of middle school math students report that they feel like they are always or almost always learning in math class. Similarly, just under 50 percent of 12th-grade math students said they feel like they are always or almost always learning in their math class. 
 
 
 
 Students also often report difficulty understanding their teacher’s questions. Twenty-five percent of middle school math students report that they sometimes or hardly ever understand what their teacher asks. Thirty-six percent of12th-graders report they sometimes or hardly ever clearly understand what their math teacher asks. 
 
 Students from disadvantaged background are less likely to have access to more rigorous learning opportunities. All students, regardless of their family background, should have access to a high-quality education. But our analysis of student feedback found that students from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to have the same access to robust learning opportunities. Consider, for instance, that 74 percent of higher- income fourth-grade students report that they often or always understand what their science teacher is saying, compared with just 56 percent of lower-income fourth-grade students. Among middle school students, 80 percent of higher-income middle-school students report often or always understanding what teachers ask in math class. In contrast, just 70 percent of low-income students report often or always understanding their math teacher. Meanwhile, 66 percent of higher-income 12th-graders reported they often or always understand what their math teacher is saying, compared with 60 percent of low-income students. 
 
 
 
 There are also racial gaps in some areas. For instance, in the fourth-grade 73 percent of white students and 72 percent of Asian and Pacific Islander students said that they clearly understand what their science teacher talks about. In contrast, only 56 percent of black; 54 percent of Hispanic; and 58 percent of Native American and Alaska Native students say they do. In middle school, 83 percent of Asian and Pacific Islander students and 79 percent of white eighth-grade students report that they clearly understand what their math teacher is saying. But only 67 percent of black students; 70 percent of Hispanic students; 69 percent of Native American and Alaska Native students report understanding their teacher. 
 
 
 
 To be clear, there were not opportunity gaps in every area that we looked at. We examined disaggregated data for all of the relevant background questions and we reported the results only for questions in which there were significant gaps. 
 
 Our analysis leads us to the following recommendations: 
 
 Policymakers must continue to push for higher, more challenging standards. To ensure that all students are ready for the global economy, we need to expect more of our students and schools they attend. The Common Core standards are one way to help states and districts make progress on this issue, but far more needs to be done. 
 
 To ensure that all students are ready for the global economy, we need to expect more of our students and schools they attend. The Common Core standards are one way to help states and districts make progress on this issue, but far more needs to be done. Students need more rigorous learning opportunities, and our nation needs to figure out ways to provide all students with the education that they deserve. Too many students report not being engaged in class. They don’t understand what their teachers are teaching them and they feel like they are not learning. Our nation can—and should—do more. 
 
 Too many students report not being engaged in class. They don’t understand what their teachers are teaching them and they feel like they are not learning. Our nation can—and should—do more. Researchers and educators should continue to develop student surveys. We hope this report launches additional research into the use of student surveys. Researchers such as Ronald Ferguson, senior lecturer in education and public policy and director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University, have made significant advances which we describe below. But we need to know much more about these tools, and what they reveal about the student experience. 
 
 Over the past few years, many states have engaged in promising reforms that address the issues we raise in this report. But our findings suggest we need to do far more to improve the learning experience for all students. We hope that the interactive state-by-state maps available on our website—together with the findings and recommendations in the following pages—will inspire engagement with students’ perspectives in the search to find new and better ways to provide students with the knowledge and skills that they need to succeed. 
 
 Ulrich Boser is a Senior Fellow and Lindsay Rosenthal is the Special Assistant for Domestic Policy at the Center for American Progress. 
 
 Download this report (pdf) 
 
 Download the introduction and summary (pdf) 
 
 Read this report in your browser (Scribd) 
 
 Download selected student survey results for states (pdf) 
 
 Download complete survey data used in report (.xls) 
 
 Interactive Map: How Much Are Students Learning? by Ulrich Boser and Lindsay Rosenthal ||||| WASHINGTON -- Students, parents and teachers have long lamented the hours that kids spend taking standardized tests, especially since the introduction of the Common Core academic standards. But just how much time each year is it? 
 
 A. Between 10-15 hours. 
 
 B. Between 20-25 hours. 
 
 C. Between 30-35 hours. 
 
 The correct answer is "B," according to a comprehensive study of 66 of the nation's big-city school districts by the Council of the Great City Schools. It said testing amounts to about 2.3 percent of classroom time for the average eighth-grader in public school. Between pre-K and 12th grade, students took about 112 mandatory standardized exams. 
 
 The study analyzed the time spent actually taking the tests, but it did not include the hours devoted to preparation ahead of the testing required by the federal government, states or local districts. It also did not include regular day-to-day classroom quizzes and tests in reading, math, science, foreign languages and more. 
 
 In connection with the study's release Saturday, President Barack Obama called for capping standardized testing at 2 percent of classroom time. Even while acknowledging that the government shares some responsibility for an over-emphasis on testing, the president said federal officials would work with states, schools and teachers to "make sure that we're not obsessing about testing." 
 
 The Obama administration still supports annual standardized tests as a necessary assessment tool, and both House and Senate versions of an update to the No Child Left Behind law would continue annual testing. But the rewrite legislation would let states decide how to use test results to determine what to do with struggling schools. Differences between the two bills still need to be worked out. 
 
 "Learning is about so much more than just filling in the right bubble," Obama said in a video released on Facebook. "So we're going to work with states, school districts, teachers, and parents to make sure that we're not obsessing about testing." 
 
 To drive the point home, Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan scheduled an Oval Office meeting Monday with teachers and school officials working to reduce testing time. Dr. John King, slated to take over the Education Department after Duncan's departure, will also attend. 
 
 "How much constitutes too much time is really difficult to answer," said Michael Casserly, the council's executive director. He said the study found plenty of redundancy in required testing - supporting concerns from teachers and other critics about the tests consuming too much teaching and learning time. 
 
 For example, Casserly said that researchers found some states and school districts were mandating not only end-of-year tests, but end-of-course tests in the same subjects, in the same grade. 
 
 "Having states and school districts jointly reviewing redundancy and overlap in their testing requirements will be an important step in reducing unnecessary assessments," he said. 
 
 The council reviewed testing for more than 7 million students in about three dozen states during the 2014-2015 school year. 
 
 A "testing action plan" released by the Education Department over the weekend said too many schools have unnecessary testing. 
 
 The department pledged to work with states and schools on ways to reduce time spent on testing, with federal guidance to the states expected in January. The plan also said the agency has adjusted its policies to provide more flexibility to states on how much significance to place on student test results in evaluating teachers. 
 
 Aiming to close achievement gaps and assess learning, the No Child Left Behind Act signed by President George W. Bush in 2002 mandated annual testing in reading and math for students in grades three through eight and again in high school. States and local school districts decide which standardized assessments to use to gauge student learning and progress in those two subjects and others. 
 
 This past spring saw the rollout of new tests based on the Common Core college-ready academic standards in reading and math. About 12 million students in 29 states and the District of Columbia took the tests developed by two groups - the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). 
 
 Other findings in the council's report: 
 
 -The most tests were required in 8th and 10th grade; the fewest were in pre-K, kindergarten and first grade. 
 
 -Four in 10 districts report having to wait between two months and four months before getting state test results. The lack of timely results means teachers begin a new school year not knowing where a student needs to improve. ||||| Maryn Butki, 11, bottom center, helps Paige Berry, 10, bottom left, and Sydney Sabol, 10, find salt within their budget for their pumpkin pancakes recipe as other students stand nearby at a Kroger grocery store in Lake Orion, Mich. (Joshua Lott/For The Washington Post) 
 
 — Jennifer Craig stared at her daughter’s fifth-grade math homework. It was a three-digit multiplication problem, and it seemed simple enough. But her 10-year-old was supposed to solve it by drawing a chart, breaking apart numbers, multiplying, adding and maybe more. 
 
 “I’m lost,” said Craig, a 31-year-old stay at home mother of three. 
 
 And that’s how she found herself in her daughter’s classroom Monday night, sitting alongside other parents in child-size chairs and listening as teacher Alyshia Thomas explained new math strategies. 
 
 Most U.S. public school students are learning math very differently than their parents did, due to Common Core State Standards, national K-12 math and reading benchmarks that have been adopted by 43 states and the District of Columbia. 
 
 The changes have confused many parents — particularly at the elementary level — leaving them flustered by a basic parental duty: Helping with homework. 
 
 Nicole Barksdale, 5, left, walks by as Maryn Butki, 11, right, a student at Scripps Middle School in Lake Orion, Mich., helps Paige Berry, 10, and Sydney Sabol, 10, both of Pine Tree Elementary, figure out the cost of ingredients for pumpkin pancakes at math night at a grocery store. (Joshua Lott/For The Washington Post) 
 
 “Almost every parent comes in and says, ‘This is not how I learned math,’ ” said Melissa Palermo, an energetic fourth-grade teacher who coaches other teachers in math at the Nathaniel Hawthorne school here. 
 
 Palermo is a believer in the Common Core, a wholesale and controversial change in American public education, because she says her students are reaping the benefits of the new standards. They are showing a more sophisticated understanding of math and are able to perform operations they otherwise wouldn’t have learned until they were older, she said. 
 
 But parents are another matter. 
 
 “The toughest part is the homework part because parents, it’s so hard for them,” Palermo said. “A lot of parents, they doubt themselves because there are all these models and things they’ve never seen before.” 
 
 Rochester is one of many school districts across the country teaching parents the new Common Core math in addition to their children. From New York to California, school districts are holding special math sessions for parents and caregivers, sending home “cheat sheets” and offering homework hotlines answered by math teachers, all in an effort to explain and demystify the new approach. 
 
 “The kids who come to us are a clean slate,” said Jennifer Patanella, an instructional coach with the Rochester public schools. “It’s the adults who have to be retrained.” 
 
 In Las Vegas, Bill Hanlon is teaching a five-month course in new math strategies to a group of approximately 50 parents. 
 
 “They’re a little frustrated because they can’t help their kids,” said Hanlon, who directs professional development for math teachers in five Nevada school districts. “One of the messages I give to teachers is that if you’re going to send home stuff that parents have not seen before, send a note explaining, this is what we’re doing and why and a couple of examples. Otherwise, you’re going to get a lot of complaining.” 
 
 Diane Dunaskiss, principal of the Pine Tree Elementary School in Lake Orion, Mich., about 40 miles from Detroit, has been looking for ways to make Common Core math relevant to her students and their parents. 
 
 Two weeks ago, her school hosted a Common Core math night for families the local Kroger’s supermarket. Children and adults were given everyday challenges requiring math operations, such as figuring out how many boxes of pasta to buy for a dinner for six if each box contains four servings. 
 
 “The new math standards are encouraging students to think deeper,” Dunaskiss said. “Part of that deeper understanding is to take what you’ve learned and apply it to what you’re doing in real life.” 
 
 A bipartisan group of governors and state education chiefs created the Common Core State Standards in math and reading in 2010 as a way to inject consistency into K-12 academic standards, which have varied wildly from state to state. The standards spell out the skills and knowledge students should possess by the end of each grade. They are not curriculum — states and school districts decide how to teach to the standards and what materials to use. 
 
 In the past, math was learned as a series of memorized facts, formulas and shortcuts or tricks. The result, experts say, is that U.S. students struggle with math. Nearly two out of every three U.S. fourth-graders and eighth-graders were not proficient on recent national math tests. The Common Core standards differ from that previous approach in that they emphasize the concepts behind mathematical operations and stress that there are multiple ways to arrive at the same answer. 
 
 In primary grades, math instruction begins with “manipulatives,” such as blocks or beads, and progresses to drawings, number lines or graphical groupings. The idea is to teach children to think about a number as more than just a symbol. The Common Core standards expect students to not just calculate the answer but to explain how they arrived at the solution. Word problems are heavily used, and that has raised concerns by some that Common Core math is particularly hard for English language learners and students with learning disabilities. 
 
 Despite the fast and widespread adoption of the Common Core standards, opposition has been growing from critics across the political spectrum. Some of that outcry has been fueled by classroom materials that are poorly designed and confusing. 
 
 In St. Tammany Parish, La., the school board voted on Oct. 9 to ditch Eureka Math by next school year after parents complained that it is overly complex. Board members, many of whom generally oppose the Common Core standards, made the move over the objections of some teachers who argued that the curriculum was worth keeping. U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), also voiced concern, asking the state education department to stop recommending that districts use Eureka Math. 
 
 Lynne Munson, executive director of Common Core Inc., the nonprofit organization that created Eureka Math, said there have been “extraordinary stories of success” in Louisiana and elsewhere. 
 
 It would be a “terrible disservice” if school districts stopped using Eureka Math, Munson said. About 15,000 people have downloaded a free version of Eureka Math from Common Core Inc.’s Web site, and the organization has trained about 7,000 teachers to teach the curriculum, she said. 
 
 Because the rollout of the Common Core has been fast — the standards were written just four years ago and publishers have been rushing to develop classroom materials — many say the quality teaching materials, worksheets and homework is uneven. 
 
 In April, comedian Stephen Colbert ripped into an example of a math problem that had lit up the Web after it was posted on Facebook by a frustrated North Carolina father. The homework problem showed a horizontal number line with a series of half domes scribbled on top and said “Jack used a number line below to solve 427-316. Find his error. Then write a letter to Jack explaining what he did right and what he should do to fix his mistake.” 
 
 “That’s a great question. It teaches two important workplace skills: math and passive- ­aggressive note-writing,” Colbert quipped. “That word problem couldn’t be easier to solve. All you have to do is check the semi-circles on the two-sided arrow, put the numbers up in it and bing, bang, math. It’s the same thing I do when I get a check in a restaurant. Draw a bunch of shapes and tell the waitress to find my error.” 
 
 The parent who posted the math problem, Jeff Severt, wrote the note required by the problem: “Dear Jack, Don’t feel bad. I have a bachelor of science degree in engineering which included extensive study in differential equations and other higher math applications. Even I cannot explain the Common Core mathematics approach, nor get the correct answer. In the real world, simplification is favored over complication.” 
 
 Then, he solved the problem using simple subtraction, which he said took less than five seconds, to come up with the answer: 111. 
 
 In Rochester, more than 200 parents, guardians and students showed up for the recent “Family Do the Math Night,” one of seven the district is holding this school year. The school district, where 84 percent of the 30,000 students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, offered free dinner and door prizes as an incentive. 
 
 “I’m not prepared for this. I’ve been out of school since ’77,” said Vivian Gambill, the mother of an eighth-grader. She said the event was helpful, but she remained baffled by some of the material. “I’m still having some struggling moments. But now I have some Web sites I can go to.” 
 
 Willie Howard, 65, sat in the cafeteria with his two granddaughters and followed the teacher’s directions to subtract 23 from 46 by drawing a series of circles. He understood the method but wasn’t entirely sold. 
 
 “I don’t know about this,” he said, considering all the circles he’d drawn. “There’s a whole lot more process to this. And kids, they get distracted easy. They say it’s better. But I don’t know.”
– If your kid's favorite pastime seems to be whining to you about the rigors of school, it might be time to call his bluff. A study of questionnaires completed as part of America's largest regular student assessment finds that a huge segment of our nation's kids say school is far too simple. Some stats backing up the "too easy" refrain, per the Center for American Progress: 37% of 4th-graders find their math work too easy 29% of 8th-graders find that subject too easy as well, as do 51% of civics students and 57% of history students And the trend doesn't stop at middle school. In terms of civics and history, 56% and 55% of 12th-graders said the same thing, respectively; 21% said ditto about math And some of the intel gathered on the amount of work kids do seems to back this up: Nearly a third of 8th-graders say they read less than five pages a day ... in school or as homework. A third also say they write lengthy answers on reading tests two times a year—or less. USA Today notes that a fellow at the center says that the results chip away at the "school-as-pressure-cooker" portrait of our kids presented in movies like Race to Nowhere. Click for one take on why we have too many teachers.