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Front Porch Charlotte

Advocacy resources for educating our children

Student performance update: Good news, bad news

Dec. 8, 2014

A Nov. 19 report to the school board on testing results from last school year was touted as indicating promise. Performance was up. Gaps had narrowed.

141208Chart1

CMS Assessment Results and School Performance Framework Overview, Nov. 19, 2014, p. 6.

Near the top of the PowerPoint stack was the chart above, showing graduation rates by four groups of students, from 2010 through 2014. The black-white gap of 23.3 points had narrowed to 10.4 points. The Hispanic-white gap of 30.3 points had narrowed to 18.7 points.

Yay!

141208Chart2

CMS Assessment Results and School Performance Framework Overview, Nov. 19, 2014, p. 20.

A bit deeper in the report is this chart, above. The chart combines reading results for grades 3-8 for seven subgroups of students. Within each subgroup, there are three bars: a 2013 base year for students testing proficient (levels 3 and 4);  the comparable 2014 result; and the 2014 results for “college and career ready,” levels 4 and 5.

Here, results are more sobering. In the foundational skill of reading in 2014, the black-white proficiency gap was 38.5 points, down from 41.5 points in 2013. The Hispanic-white gap was 39.4 points, down from  41 points in 2013.

Closing gaps are worth applauding. But 38- and 39-point gaps between groups of students? The gap between children in poverty and children not in poverty may be even higher: The reported 2014 proficient rate among economically disadvantaged students at 40.9. CMS used to include a rate for children not economically disadvantaged; it was usually in the 90s.

It’s hard to know that public education is making any substantive progress in educating students. Clearly most of the issues are nearly intractable, as the upcoming task force talking about how to pull families out of poverty will find.

One thing’s sure: Unless there is far more attention paid to the substance of what school board members listened to Nov. 19, there will be no public consensus on how to move forward.

Filed Under: Test scores

Growing up, I learned life lessons on the front porch. Today’s front porch has moved to the Internet. I want this site to focus on children, public education and efforts to ensure that every child becomes a well-educated, mature, motivated adult.

– Arthur Griffin

The 3AM Blog

Observations that may or may not bear up under the light of day, as posted at any time of the day by those involved in this site.

Past, present, or…

1/30/17: Children represent 23% of the present U.S. population and 100% of our collective future.

How will we respond?

1-29-17: “We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact we haven’t so far.”

– Ronald Edmonds (May 24, 1935- July 15, 1983)

Opportunities abound

12-28-16: At its Oct. 25 meeting the CMS Board of Education approved a bunch of construction contracts, mostly for heating and air conditioning work. They are listed here in descending order of percentage participation by minority, women and small business enterprises.

  • 34.74% Providence High HVAC Controls
  • 1.5% Harding High chiller
  • 0% Cornelius Elementary chiller
  • 0% J.T. Williams HVAC controls
  • 0% Myers Park High chiller
  • 0% Pawtucket Elementary roof

Is there anything wrong with this picture?

Break the cycle

8-21-15: Who gets the leg up from pre-K programs? In 2013 about half of the children of adults with graduate or professional degrees were enrolled. But only about a quarter of the children of adults with less than a high school education were enrolled. Let’s break the cycle right there! Data from The Condition of Education 2015.

Thoughts?

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