The education chapter in WAD notes that: “A huge chunk of education theory is about gaps.”

I didn’t tell the half of it. Here’s another gap: the gap between

(A) State test scores, the tests constructed and supervised by state educrats, with results that will help determine federal funding and/and (if you see what I mean) the future career prospects of said educrats

and

(B) National test scores from NAEP, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, conducted by the federal Department of Education.

Yesterday we got the latest math results from NAEP for 4th and 8th graders. Bottom line: no change for 4th graders nationwide, teeny gains (2 points out of 500) for 8th graders.

Which is peculiar, because these NAEP results seem to apply to students in New York State, too. Yet New York State’s own testing shows great gains across the (two-year) period! There is an elegant graph here (imbedded in a very good rant by sociologist Aaron Pallas) illustrating the gap.

What on earth can account for such discrepancies? Such a puzzle!

[I leave it to readers in other states to look up the corresponding data elsewhere. If your state has a gap too, well, that just adds to the mystery.]