26 Sept., 2015

A split-brain report from Boston

Don't you like those hopeful first two paragraphs below?  How wonderful that one of America's biggest problems is on its way to a solution!  PROBLEM:  The rest of the article goes into the details and they show no systematic movement in educational attainment at all. There are both losses and gains. It was just a random walk.  The first two paragraphs are just wishful thinking, to put it politely.

Looking at the detail behind headlines and conclusions generally is a dreadful habit that I have had for decades.  It sure was enlightening in reading the guff below.  I have often found that Leftists conclude what they want to conclude, regardless of what their data show. The article below is just another example of that. It's almost like their brains were split into two halves that don't communicate with one-another

And note that we are looking at a dumbed-down test here. See the last two paragraphs below. Even on dumbed-down criteria blacks are still way behind


Black and Hispanic students made some progress this year in closing a troubling gap with white students in academic achievement, state officials said Monday as they released statewide results from MCAS tests taken in the spring.

The racial divide narrowed in many grades in both English and math scores for black students and in math for Hispanics in most grades this year, state data show. For students of all races, MCAS scores showed gains in 11 of 17 tests administered this spring, compared with 2014.

In English, black students’ scores drew closer to scores of white students this year in most grades, but the gap between black and white students remained the same in third grade and grew by 2 percentage points in seventh grade.

Hispanic students gained ground in English scores for grades 4, 8, and 10, but saw the gap grow in grades 5 through 7 and remain the same in Grade 3. In most grades, math scores improved for Hispanic students.

Looking back further, the MCAS results showed that the greatest change for minority students was in 10th-grade English, where the gap between scores for black students and their white peers has narrowed 19 percentage points since 2007, when MCAS became required for all students in grades 3 to 8.

For Hispanic students, the gap in English scores is now 18 points smaller since 2007.

In math scores, Hispanic students in the third grade jumped 11 percentage points closer to their white peers.

The most dramatic gain in math scores among black students occurred in fourth grade, where the gap in performance narrowed by 8 percentage points since 2007.

About 88 percent of 10th-grade students met the minimum MCAS requirements to earn a high school diploma, the same percentage that met that threshold for the past two years.

When the requirement took effect 11 years ago, just 68 percent of students were successful on their first try.

SOURCE





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