TUDA: The Utterly Depressing Assessment

by Robert Pondiscio
December 9th, 2009

TUDA stands for “The Utterly Depressing Assessment.”  Coverage of yesterday’s math scores for urban school districts has edupundits bending over backwards to say “my scores are worse than your scores.”   Football analogies abound.   Cleveland’s scores “might be the only thing in that city more depressing than the Browns,” says Flypaper.  At Class Struggle, Uncle Jay compares looking at Washington, DC math scores to rooting for the 3-9 Redskins:  “We are heading in the right direction, but have a long way to go.”  EducationNews Colorado says just like the Broncos “outshine both the Lions and the Browns,” Denver students probably have stronger math skills than kids in Detroit and Cleveland.  But they’d like to see Denver join the 18 other cities that take part in TUDA just to make sure.

The woes keep piling up for Detroit.  The Lions were winless last year and ABC News says TUDA makes it official:  Detroit is “the worst school system in America.”

TUDA Mathematics Results Out Today

by Robert Pondiscio
December 8th, 2009

New NAEP numbers, the Trial Urban District Assessment or “TUDA” for math, are out this morning, looking at 4th and 8th grade samples from 18 urban school  districts.  From the IES news release: 

  • In comparison to 2007, scores improved in two districts at each grade in 2009.  Scores did not change for the remaining nine districts that participated in 2007.
  • Five districts at both grade 4 and grade 8 had higher scores than large cities nationally in 2009. Ten districts had scores lower than large cities at both grades.
  • When compared to 2003, the 2009 average mathematics scores at grade 4 were higher in eight out of ten participating districts, and in nine out of ten participating districts at grade 8.
  • Average mathematics scores in 2009 were higher for Hispanic fourth-graders in seven out of ten participating districts, when compared to 2003. Over the same period, White and Black fourth-graders achieved higher scores in five districts each.

The full report is available at http://nationsreportcard.gov