In the Feb. 19 Leader, Marcia Kelbon presumed to feel “embarrassed on our collective behalf” about math and reading test scores in our state and county’s public schools.

To sustain the false notion that our kids are “doing poorly,” Kelbon cited scads of misconstrued statistics and missed the forest for the trees.

Let’s start with the forest, the big picture: Washington public schools reliably outperform the national average, and Jefferson County public schools generally outperform the state average.

Among the 50 states on last year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), our state’s 8th graders ranked 14th in reading and 18th in math.

In five rounds of state testing since 2019, Chimacum High School students have outperformed the state average three out of five times (SchoolDigger). Watch us do it again in 2025. (Port Townsend has also done well, and Quilcene is improving.) 

Kelbon asserted that fully funding public schools “did not translate to comparative high performance,” but in fact the NAEP’s top 20 is dominated by blue states that invest appropriately in public schools. Conversely, most of the worst performers are red states that starve public schools of funding.

For public school students, parents and staff, these facts should be cause for celebration, not embarrassment. We owe much of our success to the generosity of county voters, including Ms. Kelbon, who continue to vote to pass levies to support local public schools.

As educators, we celebrate these results, but we are not satisfied. Above average is good, but it’s not the best. 

The children, the parents, and the taxpayers of Jefferson County deserve the best, and the Chimacum Education Association remains committed to ensuring our schools offer world-class learning experiences.

That’s why — in partnership with Central Washington University and Everett Community College — Chimacum in 2019 built the Olympic Peninsula’s most comprehensive College in the High School program, superseding Running Start as the best possible preparation for success at university.

Kelbon wrote that educators with whom she had spoken “downplay the significance of test scores.” 

If so, then she should speak to other educators.

Chimacum teachers recognize test scores are important measures of educational quality. We use them to drive improved student learning.

That’s how we so easily recognized Kelbon’s (probably unwitting) abuse of the data.

Kelbon correctly noted that from 2013 to 2024, NAEP proficiency rates fell for Washington 8th graders in both math (from 42% to 29%) and reading (from 42% to 31%).

That sounds bad — because it is. But Kelbon omitted two bits of vital context.

First, Kelbon failed to define proficiency. Most readers probably assume proficiency still means what it meant when we were kids: that you can read and do math at grade level, a standard easily achievable by most students, then and now. 

However, 15 years ago, our country raised the bar, redefining high school proficiency upward to mean a world standard of college readiness–a much higher expectation, still achievable by most students, but requiring much greater effort. 

Second, Kelbon failed to mention that NAEP proficiency rates fell not just in Washington, but in every other state and country. Kelbon correctly ascribed some of the decline to COVID, and correctly noted the decline began before COVID.

When we see universal declines in academic proficiency, what is more likely: That all schools in the US and world mysteriously, secretly, and simultaneously adopted the same bad policies that hurt student learning, or that factors external to schools primarily explain declining proficiency?

Obviously, it’s the latter.

Even before COVID, addictions to vaping, videogames, YouTube, and TikTok eroded many students’ inclination and capacity to read and do academic work, in or out of class. COVID-era school interruptions piled on with crushing social isolation and lower standards for school attendance and academic performance. 

Years later, many students and some parents continue to resist the restoration of pre-COVID academic and attendance standards.

Given that our state has the 9th-highest chronic absenteeism rate in the US, the fact that students in our county continue to outperform the state and national average attests to the transcendent excellence of our kids, families, schools, and community.

Just imagine the academic heights our students could attain if they attended school more regularly — and if community leaders fairly acknowledged our students’ already-considerable personal and intellectual achievements.

Brian MacKenzie teaches history at Chimacum High School and serves as president of the Chimacum Education Association.

Rebuttal is a new column space for locals to weigh in on specific issues covered in the paper.