AFT’s Weingarten on NAEP results

WASHINGTON—AFT President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement responding to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress results:

"We don’t need stagnant NAEP scores to show us the headwinds children are facing, regardless of whether they attend public or private school. Rather than waiting for lagging indicators such as NAEP, AFT members are fighting every day for ‘real solutions’ to create safe, welcoming, and joyful schools that engage kids and close the achievement gap between the lowest and highest performers.

“That means teaching real-world, real-life skills through career and technical education and other project-based, hands-on courses that also curb absenteeism. It means encouraging joyful and confident readers by embracing the science of reading and encouraging reading for pleasure, like we have done by distributing millions of books through our Reading Opens the World initiative. It means expanding community schools to provide wraparound services. It means addressing children’s mental health and social media addiction and curbing smartphone use during the school day. It means securing investments for smaller class sizes, good ventilation and the tools and technology for 21st-century learning. It means fighting gun violence, and other trauma.

“If we do even part of this, we will help make every school a place where parents want to send their kids, educators want to work, and kids thrive.”