Eighth-graders’ understanding of history, geography declines sharply nationwide

If middle-schoolers in Spokane are anything like their peers around the country, it’s a good thing they’re carrying cellphones equipped with GPS.

That’s because most of middle-school students in the U.S. aren’t very good at reading a map, according to a standardized test released last week. And they don’t have a very strong grasp on the past, either.

Except for the very top-performing students, scores in geography and history fell sharply in 2018 among nearly all eighth-grade students in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also called the Nation’s Report Card.

The results, which erased gains dating back at least two decades in both subjects, were described by federal officials as “pervasive” and “disturbing.”

For example, the geography test included a visual problem in which students were asked to identify the location of four major cities – Los Angeles, Tokyo, London and Mumbai – and asked to drag those names to one of eight spots on a world map.

Only 26% of eighth-graders were able to place all four cities in the correct location.

An American history problem posed the open-ended statement: “The South could never have won the Civil War,” and provided statistics to support that argument. Students were asked to apply those to a written response, but only 10% were able to answer satisfactorily.

Only in civics, the third subject tested, did students’ scores remain flat.

The exams were given in early 2018 to a national sample of nearly 43,000 eighth-graders. The scores come after similarly disappointing results a year ago in math and language arts.

However, there is no state-by-state breakdown for the history, geography and civics test, leaving local educators unsure whether their lessons are sinking in.

“Any time you see a decline in scores, that’s concerning,” said Susie Gerard, the secondary social studies curriculum coordinator for Spokane Public Schools.

“But they don’t give you a state or local score, so I would really like to know how our kids did,” Gerard said.

“It’s important that our kids know a lot about civics, history and geography,” Gerard said. “These are things that we really do stress. You have to know the history and geography to make sense of the work – it’s part of that critical thinking piece.”

Like other districts, Spokane follows curriculum guidelines, a 119-page document revised last fall by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

According to OSPI, the revised standards “align with the College, Career, and Civic Readiness (C3) standards developed in partnership with the National Council for the Social Studies.”

“Created by Washington Social Studies teacher leaders, administrators, content experts, civic organizations, and stakeholder groups, these standards reflect the breadth and depth of Social Studies content,” OSPI states on the introductory page.

Nationally, the 2018 tests mark the first time the subjects were assessed using digital devices as well as traditional paper-and-pencil forms. Prior research has shown that switching to a new testing mode can depress scores, so NAEP officials used statistical methods to equate the digital results to prior years’ paper-and-pencil scores.

Regardless, the findings were disappointing, and were consistent across all racial and ethnic categories, too, with the exception of students identifying as Asian or Pacific Islander.

Across the three subjects, a quarter or more of students fell below the “basic” performance category, meaning they didn’t have even the fundamental prerequisite skills to master the content.

Nearly 35% of students fell below the “basic” performance category in history, compared to 29% in 2014. In geography, 29% fell below that mark compared to 25% in 2014.