[Ohiogift] Fordham Institute on the NAEP findings

[Margaret DeLacy]

Friends:

Below is a link to and excerpt from the blog of the Fordham Institute entitled "America's Report Card: We're still ignoring low income high achievers"

Margaret


http://edexcellence.net/articles/americas-report-card-were-still-ignoring-low-income-high-achievers?utm_source=Fordham+Updates&utm_campaign=80b0ffb2c1-20160501_LateLateBell4_29_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d9e8246adf-80b0ffb2c1-71517261&mc_cid=80b0ffb2c1&mc_eid=3e3a665b43

"We are particularly concerned with what’s happening at the high end. There we find not only far too few students reading (or doing math) at the top level, but also a reprehensible shortage of poor and minority youngsters within the ranks of those who do. A mere 2 percent of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch reached the Advanced level in twelfth-grade reading last year, versus 8 percent who aren’t eligible (i.e., who are not so poor); in twelfth-grade math, it’s 1 percent versus 4 percent. Likewise, twelfth-grade black and Hispanic students reach NAEP’s highest reading ranks at rates of 1 and 2 percent, respectively (versus 9 percent of white kids and 10 percent of Asian kids). In twelfth-grade math, only 1 percent of Hispanic youngsters do so, and the percentage for black students rounds to zero (it’s 3 and 9 percent for white and Asian students respectively). The picture is much the same in the fourth and eighth grades.

The “excellence gap,” then, is really two gaps. First, it means not enough high-achievers to assure the nation’s long-term economic competitiveness, security, and cultural vitality. Second, it means not nearly enough disadvantaged kids reaching that level, suggesting not even a modicum of equal opportunity. And so poor kids are denied a shot at upward mobility, which many of them are perfectly capable of pulling off—if only the education system would teach them what they’re ready and able to learn.

Yet the excellence gap—both excellence gaps—are widely ignored by policy makers, education leaders, and pundits. Even NAEP itself paid almost no attention last week to what its data showed about achievement (and demographics) at the high end. The National Assessment Governing Board’s otherwise excellent infographic on the new twelfth-grade data focused exclusively on what it showed about performance at the low end. You need to dig deep into the data yourself to find the other story."