The original Lake Wobegon finding
1987–88 reports showed essentially all states reporting above the national average on commercial tests—a statistical impossibility driven by outdated norms, reused items, and weak security.
Federal advocacy · April 2025
What the letter to the Secretary argues
Browse letter sources Policy solutions Supporting PDF (optional)
Core line: parents deserve honest information about what their children know and when they know it. Commercial and state-reported scores that look reassuring while secure independent measures such as NAEP tell a harder truth are not “good news”—they are a measurement failure.
Themes inside the letter
Honesty gaps that never closed
Examples cited include large state-proficiency vs. NAEP gaps (e.g., West Virginia and Mississippi illustrations) and California STAR gains that faded when items were secured.
Why school choice needs honest data
Without trustworthy scores, parents cannot compare schools. Markets and accountability both fail when the instrument is wrong.
International contrast
Secure, centrally administered systems (e.g., Singapore, Germany, Japan, South Korea) and low-stress high-performing models (Finland) show alternatives to U.S. commercial fragmentation.
Four reforms proposed to the Secretary
- Put NAEP under independent scientific oversight (NIST model). Keep a secure national benchmark out of political and producer capture.
- Third-party administration and scoring. Educators should not control the exams used to evaluate them—standard practice in professional and many international assessments.
- Fresh, secure items each year. End mass reuse of live questions that invites teaching to the exact item pool.
- Stop incentivizing shallow drill over learning. Align stakes and reporting so curricula deepen understanding rather than chase inflatable percentiles.
These align with HEA’s broader policy agenda: expand honest national measurement and remove educator control of high-stakes instruments. See Solutions.
Evidence backbone (not the letter text)
The letter’s force is its source base. Priority materials also live on this site or at primary publishers:
- Primary Cannell / Friends for Education reports
- NAEP as the honest benchmark
- “Texas Miracle” and related analyses
- Historic media that broke the story nationally
- Score-boosting and security research
Full curated source library from the letter appendix →
Related HEA research
- Thirty-Seven Years of Educational Fraud (2026 white paper)
- Testing Resistance Across Administrations
- Plain-language problem overview
- Accountability history (public record) — 1980s fraud complaints, Atlanta example; no claim of an active civil RICO docket
- Follow HEA on X (@HonestEdAllianc)