Posted on 04/17/2006 12:56:47 PM PDT by ConservativeStatement
States are helping public schools escape potential penalties by skirting the No Child Left Behind law's requirement that students of all races must show annual academic progress.
With the federal government's permission, schools aren't counting the test scores of nearly 2 million students when they report progress by racial groups, an Associated Press computer analysis found.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattlepi.nwsource.com ...
Yup. The single greatest predictor of academic success is parental involvement. You can spend more per pupil, cart fancy computers into schools by the truckload, and cut the number of children per class to your heart's content, but unless mom and dad are committed to their children's education and demonstrate that commitment on a regular basis, it's just so much wasted tax dollars.
Jesse Jackson thinks?
Why do they group scores by race?Because no one cares more about racial group identity and classifications than the liberals do. Nobody in history. (With the possible exception of the German National Socialist Party of 1925 - 1945.)
Liberals eat, think and breath race. Race. Race. Race.
They are obsessed with the subject.
They group the scores by race so they can be sure that not only no child, but no group of children, gets left behind.
The scores get left out when the group is so small that either students of that ethnic group are under a certain percentage of the total school population (results might not be statistically significant), or the number of students in that group is so small you might be able to tell who the individual students are.
And this surprises who????
Becky
In some school districts a child's race actually hurts them. The Office of Civil Rights has decreed that SC has too many black children in Special Education, so now regardless if the child could benefit from Special Ed services, they aren't getting them because of their race. I have a serious problem with the government keeping a child from getting help because of the color of their skin.
Amen to that. The best way to sum this up was said by a school principal in Columbia, SC. He (can't remember what his name was or the school he was over) said "no matter how hard schools try, we can't undo what's done or not done at home." He was not pushing for more government control of children and families, he wanted the parents of his students to be held accountable for what they were supposed to do as parents.
Would that be pronounced Shuntay?
It's worse. Schools get dinged if they have a big difference between black and white scores. It's hard to improve black scores. Schools are already trying hard at this.
But it's fairly easy to cripple white scores
Let's hide minorities school test scores as well as their criminal statistics. Wouldn't want to show the real picture now would we?
...schools aren't counting the test scores of nearly 2 million students.
Call in Algore, he loves to count things.
Sorry, I regret to say that 'Ebonics as a second lanquage' was not offered in the dark days when I was educated.
June Cleaver could probably help you!
It's Chicago, they have to learn how to cheat early to keep up the city's reputation such as with voting.
So long as they're not excluded from the overall stats and if the cut off on the minimum number of students in a grade (or school) isn't too high (50 seems too high) then there's not much lost. I think so long as it's not probable an individual can be identified, the group should be broken out because, as Bush indicates, if they're not than it's easier to hide failure.
This story is "interesting" in an inside look at the machinations of the process but otherwise it's not of much use and certainly doesn't reveal any great conspiracy to leave minority children behind. The only worth while point is noting the standard cut-off on breaking out reporting are not uniform across the states. 5 in one and 50 in another? That's outrageous.
I agree that there's not a conspiracy (although that's how the headlines portray it) and that cut-off points should be comparable. I'd suggest as a percentage rather than an absolute number, however, because the sizes of schools vary widely.
The more interesting factor in NCLB, in my opinion, is that the states get to determine which test determines competency, and standards vary widely from state to state, as has been demonstrated by the number of students who achieve mastery on state tests versus those who are deemed to be competent on the NAEP.
...government period,our tax system,social security,illegal immigration,national security,welfare,...like I've been harping on for the last few weeks...lack of enforcement of existing laws and the willingness of both parties to do NOTHING....has ALL LEAD TO what we all face today!!!..each and every subject above, politics aside
Students who have legitimate learning disabilities should not have their scores included in those of their school. It only serves to unfairly punish the school for something that is beyond their control.
All the laws we need are already on the books.
Listening to Rush last week a woman restauranteur called re:illegal immigration and she said she reported some illegals and the feds didn't even come by. She surmised that laws don't matter anymore. Past observations (Clintons' administration, Sandy Berger slap on the wrist, etc) all came rushing to the fore. Her statement rang true and it made me swallow HARD.
Do you remember back in '95 after Newt and the gang just took over the House, they had a thing where they would take a law OFF the books...one a day or something like that. It was nice while it lasted.
There are some good Conservatives in congress: Colburn, Pence, Sessions, Flake, Allen and others. We just have to keep pluggin'.
That's "Zchoon-tah" to you.
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