The fact that none of these are over 50% should be more shocking.
What were the stats for being on grade level or above? How many were "special-ed students" or how many were counted as 0% due to something? Just wondering. 12% is about what I expected for DC, maybe even a little higher than I expected.
The Democrat take on this...
Oviously, we're not putting enough $ into education in D.C.
The Republican take on this...
We doubled the education budget and it's paying off!
My take on this.
Our leaders have serious perception problems, and we seem to stuck with them.
D.C.'s public elementary and secondary schools spent a total of $16,334 per student in the 2002-2003 school year, according to a Department of Education study. That compares to the $10,520 tuition at St. John's College High School, a District Catholic school that sends almost all its graduates to four-year colleges.
Apples to oranges.
--your federal tax dollar at work--
This proves only one thing.....that there is an enormous need to reintroduce discipline in schools. Instead of worrying about their "self-esteem," we need to get after these little bastards to work harder and be more responsible.
Thanks for the article.
And Hillary went positively berserk yesterday, when she was asked about school vouchers. Can't have these uppity blacks getting any real education. I doubt that one dollar in three ever makes it past the criminal entity of the democrat party to get to children in D.C.
I agree that educational labor unions should be disallowed, that we spend far too much for education, and that our public schools are teaching the wrong subjects and inculcating the wrong values.
Except for the glaring differential in spending per student and results, the use of these "proficiency" statistics is quite misleading. If you go to the web site for this study, the latest student scores have been steady since 1970. It's not like they are going into the bucket over the last few years.
Here's a link to the web site:
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/
Click on Long Term Trend, then click on Results of 2004, then click on Trends in Reading, then click on Average Scale Scores. (You can't get their with a direct link)
I may be wrong as I glanced over it quickly but I think this test's definition of "Proficiency" is the level achieved by an advanced or an A+ student in the grade 12.
It's appalling that DC school districts spent $16,000 per year for a student to achieve only 1/2 of the results of a student in Arkansas -- yet Arkansas only spent $6,700 per student per year.
There could not be a clearer case that increased money for school systems does not result increased school performance. We need more competition -- most likely through a system of vouchers.
You can lead a student to a book, but you can't make him read.
I wonder what the levels are in alternate choice schools.
Interesting article, but it doesn't really tell me much. Where is the money going? For instance, Alaska tops the list, but is all that spending in the same areas as DC? I would imagine that Alaska has much higher transporation costs thank DC does.
Money spent per student isn't a persuasive argument, anyway. What are we getting for the money? I'd wager that taxpayers in Alaska get a lot more bang for their educational buck than DC residents do.
Then again, look at Mississippi. They rank 48th on this list, and they spend the least as well. Is that a case of "you get what you pay for"? What does Massachusetts know that nobody else has figured out yet? Their spending is among the highest (42nd), and their scores are #1. And the Massholes getting their money's worth in education?
Don't get me wrong; the District of Columbia is a disgrace. But I'm more interested in what the problem is. All this study tells me is that the problem isn't (spending). You can't look at the table you posted and draw any conclusion about the relationship between per-pupil spending and learning.
So, 44% and 43% for reading and math, respectively, are the highest. That's what's shocking. Early versions of Windows NT were more reliable than that. What, exactly, is wrong with vouchers? Looks to me like we could use a little competition.
That's only $136,200 per competent reader. ($16,334/.12=$136,200) The teacher's union is doing just fine.
Massachusetts is number one in both categories? I call "Shenanigans!"
But I'll bet they've got thier Perpetual Victim, Marxist Indoctrination, and Stalinist Geography classes down pat!!!!
It appears that some of the DC teachers have been too busy doing other things to care:
http://www.dcpswatch.com/wtu/
In terms of the scores, it would be interesting to see if there is any correlation on the basis of race and single parent households. It is interesting to note that most of the South is at the bottom in terms of proficiency scores. Massachusetts is number one.