There is a lot of discussion of late about Lucy Caulkins’ Teachers College Reading and Writing Project (TCRWP)to teach reading. It got me thinking.
Back in 2003, then New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein really pushed TCRWP as THE program to be used to teach reading in the Big Apple.
Rather conveniently, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) started doing what is called its Trial Urban District Assessments (TUDA) around the same time. Basically, the same NAEP used to create state reporting would also be used in some of the nation’s largest school districts. New York City has been in the TUDA for several decades.
TCRWP is on the way out in New York City, but a Chalkbeat study indicated about 48% (maybe more) of the city’s schools were still using TCRWP as of 2019 (https://tinyurl.com/3tesmv48).
With the above information in hand, I decided to look at how the city did on NAEP between 2003 and 2019. The table below has the results (note: years are listed in reverse order with 2019 at the top).
If you look at the percentages of each race testing “below Basic” over time, there doesn’t seem to be much change in the entire time period covered. The same unremarkable lack of change is apparent when you look at the percentages testing “at or above Proficient.”
Equally concerning are some of the reported percentages. Roughly half of the Black and Hispanic students in the city consistently scored in the “below Basic” achievement level. NAEP documentation indicates that means these students didn’t even have a partial mastery of reading.
Except for 2011, fewer than half of the White students scored “at or above Proficient” throughout the time period, as well.
NAEP certainly doesn’t provide very comforting information about reading in New York City during the TCRWP era. Apparently, New Yorkers, the current school chancellor included, have figured this out, too.
