Standardized test math scores are latest indictment of Detroit public schools

Back in January and March, a sample of Detroit Public Schools 4th and 8th graders performed very poorly on a standardized math test. Yesterday, as the results were released, a press conference held by the school district’s emergency financial manager Robert Bobb featured sweeping condemnations of the entire district — and expressions of outrage.

Many, of course, agree wholeheartedly with the condemnations and the outrage, and this latest bit of data offers plenty of support. But a little perspective is in order too.

Among the 18 large urban school districts tested, Detroit’s sample test-takers came in dead last on the National Assessment of Educational Progress math test. At the same time, quite a number of the other cities’ results featured roughly half of their samples performing below the basic level. (For example, nine of the other cities’ samples of 8th graders came in with half or more test-takers scoring below basic proficiency.)

Predictably, the standardized test scores for Detroit are now being used as proof that the entire public school district — presumably all of its teachers and support staff — are complete failures.

A Detroit-based ABC News correspondent posted this piece shortly after the results were released: What Is the Worst School System in America? The answer to the headline’s question, of course, was implied.

At yesterday’s press conference, Bobb, who has won plaudits from many quarters for the tough decisions he’s already made to improve the district’s beleaguered finances, gave a very narrow explanation for the poor math scores. “The real fault lies squarely with leadership,” Bobb said.

From the same newspaper account:

[W]hile Bobb indicated the scores were an indication of a systemwide failure, it was clear he placed much of the responsibility at the feet of the Detroit School Board.

Michael Casserly, executive director of the Washington-based Council of the Great City Schools, attended the same press conference — and amplified Bobb’s sentiment:

Only a complete overhaul of this school system and how students are taught should be permitted at this point, because the results … signal a complete failure of the grown-ups who have been in charge of the schools in the past.

While there’s no doubt that Detroit’s public school district has enormous room for improvement, isn’t it also the case that the broader range of well-known social and economic ills battering the city — record joblessness, crime rates, the incarceration of parents, and family breakdown among them — also play a role? If so, why aren’t these educational leaders saying so rather than only point the finger at “leadership”?

Maybe, just maybe, the solution to Detroit’s public schools lies in both dramatic improvement at what happens in the schools and dramatic improvement in what happens at the places students go before and after the school day as well.

Teachers and principals must be held accountable — and as today’s editorial in the Detroit News argues, these latest standardized math scores should help galvanize action — but shouldn’t everyone concerned also be honest about the true scope of the problem?

I’m just asking.