BLACKS LEARN LEAST IN TOP SCHOOLS

All very puzzling to the commentators but just what those who acknowledge the importance of IQ would expect. Blacks CAN usually be properly educated but, as Thomas Sowell and the Thernstroms have often pointed out, blacks as a group learn well only in high-discipline schools. Treating them as "equal" makes it too hard for them. It's the degree of discipline that will determine whether blacks learn well or not. They have to be MADE to learn, sadly. And in schools predominantly populated by high socioeconomic-status white students who learn easily and well, discipline will be low -- just what is bad for black students.

Black students in Fairfax County are consistently scoring lower on state standardized tests than African American children in Richmond, Norfolk and other comparatively poor Virginia districts, surprising Fairfax educators and forcing one of the nation's wealthiest school systems to acknowledge shortcomings that have been masked by its overall success. Even within Fairfax schools, black elementary school students are outperformed on reading and math tests by whites and some other students, including Hispanics, poor children and immigrants learning English.

The statewide disparity occurs among all age groups except the middle-school grades, but it is most pronounced at the elementary level, according to Virginia Department of Education data analyzed by The Washington Post. Black third-graders in Fairfax ranked 91st among more than 125 Virginia districts in reading and 69th in math in tests taken last year. Fifth-graders ranked 40th in reading and 71st in math. "Something is broken with the way we teach a segment of the population," said John Johnson, education chairman for the Fairfax County NAACP and the father of two students in county schools. "Despite all the things we have at our disposal, our children are being outperformed by people like us -- or people with fewer resources."

The Fairfax County schools are among the most respected in the country, and their quality has long been a draw for families. Nearly 90 percent of public school graduates go on to college or other schools. The district's SAT scores were the best in the county's history last year and 8.4 percent above the national average.

In a district so accustomed to being on top, Fairfax leaders hadn't noticed that many black students were not making the grade. "We had a perception that our performance is higher than the data would indicate, in part because of the accolades our schools get," said Superintendent Jack D. Dale. "Until you peel back the onion a little bit, you may not see areas where you are not as successful."

The standardized tests taken by Virginia students are used to measure performance under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which requires school systems to present overall performance data as well as the scores of racial groups, poor children and disabled students. In Fairfax, 59 percent of black third-graders passed last year's state reading test. By comparison, 74 percent of black third-graders in Richmond passed the test and about 71 percent in Norfolk. Statewide, the passing rate for black children was 67 percent. About 79 percent of all Fairfax students passed.

Fairfax's black third-graders did better in math, with a 75 percent pass rate. But 86 percent of their peers in Richmond and 80 percent in Norfolk passed. Fairfax did not do well against other Northern Virginia districts, either. In Prince William and Loudoun counties, 84 percent of black students passed and in Arlington, 81 percent.

A look at Maryland test scores required under the federal law reveals no similar pattern of African Americans in well-heeled suburbs lagging behind peers in lower-income urban districts. Black students in Montgomery County, a district that in many ways mirrors Fairfax, are well ahead of black students in urban Baltimore in standardized reading and math tests.

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IF YOUR "EQUALITY" IDEOLOGY PREVENTS YOU FROM EDUCATING BLACKS EFFECTIVELY, WHAT DO YOU DO?

In good Stalinist fashion, you hide the failures

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 deliberately aren't counting the test scores of nearly 2 million students when they report progress by racial groups, an Associated Press computer analysis found. Minorities - who historically haven't fared as well as whites in testing - make up the vast majority of students whose scores are being excluded, AP found. And the numbers have been rising. "I can't believe that my child is going through testing just like the person sitting next to him or her and she's not being counted," said Angela Smith, a single mother. Her daughter, Shunta' Winston, was among two dozen black students whose test scores weren't counted to judge her suburban Kansas City, Mo., high school's performance by race.

Under the law championed by President Bush, all public school students must be proficient in reading and math by 2014, although only children above second grade are required to be tested. Schools receiving federal poverty aid also must demonstrate annually that students in all racial categories are progressing or risk penalties that include extending the school year, changing curriculum or firing administrators and teachers. The U.S. Education Department said it didn't know the breadth of schools' undercounting until seeing AP's findings. "Is it too many? You bet," Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said in an interview. "Are there things we need to do to look at that, batten down the hatches, make sure those kids are part of the system? You bet."

Students whose tests aren't being counted in required categories include Hispanics in California who don't speak English well, blacks in the Chicago suburbs, American Indians in the Northwest and special education students in Virginia, AP found. Bush's home state of Texas - once cited as a model for the federal law - excludes scores for two entire groups. No test scores from Texas' 65,000 Asian students or from several thousand American Indian students are broken out by race. The same is true in Arkansas. One consequence is that educators are creating a false picture of academic progress. "The states aren't hiding the fact that they're gaming the system," said Dianne Piche, executive director of the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights, a group that supports No Child Left Behind. "When you do the math ... you see that far from this law being too burdensome and too onerous, there are all sorts of loopholes."

The law signed by Bush in 2002 requires public schools to test more than 25 million students periodically in reading and math. No scores can be excluded from the overall measure. But the schools also must report scores by categories, such as race, poverty, migrant status, English proficiency and special education. Failure in any category means the whole school fails. States are helping schools get around that second requirement by using a loophole in the law that allows them to ignore scores of racial groups that are too small to be statistically significant. Suppose, for example, that a school has 2,000 white students and nine Hispanics. In nearly every state, the Hispanic scores wouldn't be counted because there aren't enough to provide meaningful information and because officials want to protect students' privacy.

State educators decide when a group is too small to count. And they've been asking the government for exemptions to exclude larger numbers of students in racial categories. Nearly two dozen states have successfully petitioned the government for such changes in the past two years. As a result, schools can now ignore racial breakdowns even when they have 30, 40 or even 50 students of a given race in the testing population......

Toia Jones, a black teacher whose daughters attend school in a mostly white Chicago suburb, said the loophole is enabling states and schools to avoid taking concrete measures to eliminate an "achievement gap" between white and minority students. "With this loophole, it's almost like giving someone a trick bag to get out of a hole," she said. "Now people, instead of figuring out how do we really solve it, some districts, in order to save face or in order to not be faced with the sanctions, they're doing what they can to manipulate the data."....

Some students feel left behind, too. "It's terrible," said Michael Oshinaya, a senior at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in New York City who was among a group of black students whose scores weren't broken out as a racial category. "We're part of America. We make up America, too. We should be counted as part of America."

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NKU Does the Right Thing on pro-abortionist vandalism

Statement by NKU President James C. Votruba below. Good to see that there remains SOME committment to free speech on an American university campus

I am writing to comment on the recent destruction of an approved campus display created by the Northern Kentucky Right to Life student organization.

One of the important roles that a university must play is to be a forum for debate and analysis concerning the important issues of the day. Often these issues are surrounded by strident rhetoric and strong emotions which makes it even more incumbent on the university to create and nurture an intellectual environment in which reason and evidence prevail and where all points of view can be heard.

Northern Kentucky University has a distinguished record of addressing important public issues in a balanced way. We are proud that, as a campus, we are not the captive of one ideology or point of view. At their best, universities are not places of comfortable conformity. They are places where ideas collide as students and faculty search for deeper understandings and perspectives.

While the University supports the right to free speech and vigorous debate on public issues, we cannot condone infringement of the rights of others to express themselves in an orderly manner. By leading her students in the destruction of an approved student organization display, Professor Sally Jacobsen's actions were inconsistent with Northern Kentucky University's commitment to free and open debate and the opportunity for all sides to be heard without threat of censorship or reprisal.

It has been heartening that student and faculty groups that do not necessarily support the position of Northern Kentucky Right to Life have come out strongly in support of the organization's right to be heard through their display. This reflects a commitment to the importance of free speech and inquiry as a hallmark of our University.

Professor Jacobsen has been removed from her remaining classes and placed on leave from the University. She will retire from the University at the end of this semester. The Faculty Senate, representing more than 1,000 NKU faculty members, has taken strong action today that affirms the importance of free expression as a defining quality of the University. Our campus has spoken with a strong and unified voice. Further action may occur once a full investigation has been completed.

The action taken by the University should be considered in the context of Professor Jacobsen's entire 27 year career at NKU. Nevertheless, her recent lapse of judgment was severe and, for a period of time, has caused some in our community and beyond to question whether Northern Kentucky University upholds freedom of expression. My answer to this question is an unequivocal yes. NKU lives its commitment to free expression and responds when that commitment has been compromised.

America is, today, debating a variety of polarizing issues around which people feel great passion. It is not surprising that these strong sentiments find their way onto college campuses. However, our role is to add light to these debates, not more heat. If we don't serve this role, who will?

Source. Another article discussing the issues involved can be found here.

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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