Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Racial achievement gap widens as school discipline declines -- such a "puzzle"

That blacks might be more in need of discipline to get them to learn is of course unthinkable. All men are equal, aren't they? As far as I know only God and Leftists think so

A generation ago, Bloomfield [Connecticut] was heralded as the all-American community. Blacks and whites lived side by side, chasing the American dream of middle-class stability without regard to skin color. There were trimmed lawns and good schools. Now, Bloomfield operates one of the most racially segregated school systems in the state. Minority students, mainly black children, account for 95 percent of public school enrollment. And when results were released recently on the state's annual 10th-grade achievement test, this quiet, middle-class suburb found itself confronting a question more often associated with the nation's poorest urban school systems: Why do black and Hispanic students lag so far behind their white counterparts?

Bloomfield's 10th-graders posted some of the worst results in the state on the annual test of reading, writing, mathematics and science. In a district that had made modest gains in recent years, students this year missed state goals in startling numbers. The results sparked one question after another: Is it a one-time anomaly? Is it the exodus of top students to private schools? Is it a growing number of poor children in the public schools? Or - in a school system that consists almost entirely of minority students - is it somehow rooted in more profound racial and cultural differences?

Most educators agree that poverty is a powerful underlying cause of the achievement gap. But as experts look at places like Bloomfield, some say that race and culture - apart from income - appear to influence achievement in ways that are not always easily understood. "The gap is as large among children of the highly educated as it is among the children of the poor," said Harvard University Professor Ronald F. Ferguson, who has conducted extensive studies on the achievement gap.

Poverty is without argument a key factor in academic problems plaguing black and Hispanic children in tough urban centers such as Hartford and Bridgeport. But the achievement gap also occurs among minority students in middle-class and wealthy suburbs. On a 2005 nationwide reading test, the gap between black and white high school seniors whose parents were college graduates actually was larger than the gap between blacks and whites whose parents had not finished high school.

Why? It is one of the most confounding questions confronting America's schools, and Bloomfield is hardly alone. Sometimes the problem is obscured. At upscale Hall High School in nearby West Hartford, for example, overall test results appeared good this year, but a closer look shows that only 16 percent of black sophomores met the state math goal, compared with 74 percent of white sophomores.

Some experts believe the problem is largely one of expectations - that schools demand less from minority students and channel them into less rigorous courses.

More here






Australian Labor party to keep private schools funding

Careful hewing to the (conservative) status quo again

KEVIN Rudd will retain the Howard Government's controversial private schools funding system until 2012 if elected, in a major pre-election pitch to parents. Abandoning plans to introduce a "needs-based" funding model that takes into account private school fees and income in his first term, the Opposition Leader will guarantee parents the existing framework will remain for five years. The policy shift, which was welcomed by private schools, delivers a blow to the Coalition's attempts to run a fear campaign over Labor's education policy.

Although Mr Rudd has previously promised to abandon the "schools hit list" policy promoted by former Labor leader Mark Latham, the ALP has until now retained the needs-based formula that underpinned the hit list. The change follows years of Labor criticism that the socio-economic-status model was "dysfunctional and unsustainable" and did not take into account the individual wealth of private schools. It follows similar reversals over the Medicare Safety Net, which Mr Rudd recently announced would be retained if he is elected. The major shift in ALP schools policy also ensures Catholic schools will not lose funding.

The strategy, designed to shift attention to the ALP's plans to boost funding to primary schools, was hailed by private schools last night as a breakthrough. Independent Schools Council executive director Bill Daniels said: "It's a huge shift from the past and a clear acknowledgement that the policy they took to the last election was a mistake. We would support that because it provides stability and certainty."

The ALP's move angered unions, prompting Australian Education Union deputy president Angelo Gavrielatos to describe the policy shift as "indefensible". "It is indefensible in this nation that we continue to deliver such large increases to the wealthiest schools," Mr Gavrielatos said. "To maintain that indefensible model until 2012 makes a mockery of everything the ALP has said about introducing a needs-based funding model. "It ensures private schools will maintain a position of privilege."

The federal Government's funding model - known as the socio-economic-status model - does not take private school fees and income into account when determining funding. Instead, it links enrolment details of where students live with census data on average income and education levels. Under current SES arrangements, 60per cent of Catholic schools are guaranteed more funding than they would be allocated if the SES model were strictly applied.

The ALP's decision follows lengthy negotiations with the Catholic sector. At Labor's national conference in April, references to the Howard Government's funding arrangements as "unfair and divisive" were removed from the party's new education platform. Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith also sought to dump a reference that criticised the SES formula as having "delivered the largest increases in commonwealth funding to some of the best resourced schools in Australia". However, at the time he did not indicate any plans to retain the SES funding model, instead maintaining that a Rudd government would pursue a needs-based funding model. Labor's new policy platform pledges that public funding should be subject to non-government schools meeting quality standards for curriculum and teaching.

Currently, the basic entitlement to commonwealth assistance under the SES model ranges from a minimum of just $989 a student to $5052. For secondary students attending a private school, it ranges from a minimum taxpayer grant of $1277 a student to $6524.

Source

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