U.S. Department of Education: 79% of Chicago 8th Graders Not Proficient in Reading

CNSNews ^

[Sub-Driver]

U.S. Department of Education: 79% of Chicago 8th Graders Not Proficient in Reading By Terence P. Jeffrey September 10, 2012

(CNSNews.com) - Seventy-nine percent of the 8th graders in the Chicago Public Schools are not grade-level proficient in reading, according to the U.S. Department of Education, and 80 percent are not grade-level proficient in math.

Chicago public school teachers went on strike on Monday and one of the major issues behind the strike is a new system Chicago plans to use for evaluating public school teachers in which student improvement on standardized tests will count for 40 percent of a teacher’s evaluation. Until now, the evaluations of Chicago public school teachers have been based on what a Chicago Sun Times editorial called a “meaningless checklist.”

In 2011, the U.S. Department of Education administered National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests in reading and math to students around the country, including in the Chicago Public Schools. The tests were scored on a scale of 0 to 500, with 500 being the best possible score. Based on their scores, the U.S. Department of Education rated students’ skills in reading and math as either “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” or “advanced.”

Nationally, public school 8th graders scored an average of 264 on the NAEP reading test. Statewide in Illinois, the 8th graders did a little better, scoring an average of 266. But in the Chicago Public Schools, 8th graders scored an average of only 253 in reading. That was lower even than the nationwide average of 255 among 8th graders in “large city” public schools.

With these NAEP test results, only 19 percent of Chicago public school 8th graders rated proficient in reading while another 2 percent rated advanced—for a total of 21 percent who rated proficient or better.

[mdmathis6]

“I bet if a kids grades were somehow linked to public assistance, a good many students would start doing better. If a child were to forget their homework or fail a test, the family gets $100 less in subsistance that week? At least the parents might visit the school a time or two.”

Sounds like a premise for a “MOVIE NEVER FILMED”(TM)

THE SCHOLASTIC HUNGER GAMES

Watch as kids struggle with their school work to feed their families !

Who will score the A+!

{Not making fun of you, though! I think your idea has some merit!}

[tacticalogic]

Then he will tell you that my argument does not preclude the possibility of good students graduating from poor schools; that would be analogous to quantum tunneling, which he would also understand.

He'll also tell me that the probability of you actually having the data to back up that statement is virtually nil.

[PapaBear3625]

One quick fix: immediately have the teachers themselves take the tests that their students are expected to take. Any teacher who does not score high-school-proficient in reading, writing, math, and science should be immediately terminated.

Of course, you may lose half the Chicago teaching staff, and most of the school administrators, but you might then have a fighting chance of having the school system do better.

[bert]

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink

You can send a Chicago kid to school, but you can’t make him think.

[aruanan]

Here's how their scam goes:

The schools are in crisis. Crisis. Crisis. Crisis. Johnny can't read. The teachers need more money. They get more money. More money. More money. More money.

The schools are in crisis. Now it's Juanito who can't read. The teachers need more money. Money. Money. Money.

Almost 80% of Chicago 8th graders are "not proficient" in "reading" (this doesn't mean they have a tough time reading a novel. This means they can barely stumble, if that, through any text at all). Almost half of Chicago high school students don't graduate.

This shows the schools are in crisis and that the homeowners haven't done enough in forking over enough property tax money. And the other reason is that all the good, smart kids have been put into private schools or have moved to the suburbs or are in charter schools, leaving the stupid, bad kids in the city's public schools. So teachers are faced with a serious problem that, of course, requires more and more money.

Also, the fact that folks start private schools in really bad areas and use a fraction of the money on kids who went to public schools to produce literate kids doesn't mean the public school is doing something wrong, it just means that the parents of the stupid, bad kids aren't providing a "supportive environment" for learning and making everything the public school teachers do collapse into dust and ruin. Which, of course, requires more money to "address" the "fundamental causes" of the problem, something along the line of a 30% pay increase. Yeah, that's it.

And those who oppose this are against the children and their poor working parents (who are also the stupid kids and slacker parents when another excuse is needed).

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

-— One quick fix -—

Shut them down.

That’s not hyperbole. Literally, nothing is preferable to the $12k/kid/year union make-work program.

We built this country without schools. And the 100+ year, progressive-led, American decline, roughly corresponds with the completion of the total-schooling program in the late nineteenth century. A captive audience is catnip to utopians and authoritarians.

See Gatto’s, “The Underground History of American Education.”