Nice to know that we are doing better than Armenia, Ghana and Syria, but it is very hard to take much comfort in that

I share those thoughts, but I didn’t write them. They actually come from an October 25, 2013 Education Week Blogs piece from Marc Tucker.

Tucker actually says of the recent study that attempted to match scores for the states on the National Assessment of Educational Progress to scores from an entirely different international test:

“Nice, I suppose, to know that we are doing better than Armenia, Ghana and Syria, but it is very hard for this observer to take much comfort in that.”

To be sure, there was lots of hoopla last week about Kentucky supposedly scoring above the international average on education testing in math and science. The Kentucky Department of Education lost no time telling us that, “Kentucky beat international averages in science and mathematics.”

But, as Tucker points out in his Education Week piece, the comparisons drawn from that dubious NAEP to TIMMS study are, well, dubious.

By the way, as I recently wrote, a lot of Kentucky educators think Tucker is really sharp.

However, this is the second time this month that Tucker has taken positions more or less opposed to what our Kentucky educators are saying (Tucker previously pointed out that the idea that Common Core State Standards are somehow isolated from what happens to teachers, curriculum and the classroom is wrong).

I wonder if he will remain a darling of our educators for much longer.