This by way of Susan Ohanian from Jim Horn's School's Matter Tuesday September 6:
As California legislators ring their hands about how to avoid a lawsuit from disablility groups regarding the inherent discrimination of the proposed high school exit exam, perhaps they will consider these questions: Is Poverty a Disability? Does Poverty lead to large numbers of failures on these tests? Are these tests not a most useful tool to continue the racist oppression of failure and disenfranchisement that is packaged and sold as the way to bring about equality?
Consider these stats:
Of the 10 states with the highest percentage of blacks, 9 have high school exit exams. Five (*) of these ten make up half of the states that use a test to make promotion decisions in elementary grades.
Mississippi (1989)
Louisiana* (1991)
South Carolina* (1990)
Georgia* (1994)
Maryland (1982)
Alabama (1985)
North Carolina* (1982)
Virginia (1986)
Delaware* (No HS Test)
Tennessee (1986)
Of the 10 states with the highest percentage of hispanics, 8 have high school exit exams. Five (*) of these ten make up the other half of the 10 states that use a test to make promotion decisions in elementary grades.
New Mexico* (1990)
California* (2006)
Texas* (1987)
Arizona (2006)
Nevada (1981)
Colorado (no test)
Florida* (1979)
New York* (1980)
New Jersey (1985)
Illinois (no test)
Of the 10 states with the highest percentage of whites, only one (Minnesota) has a high school exit exam. None uses a test to determine grade promotion in elementary grades.
Maine (no HS test)
Vermont (no HS test)
New Hampshire (no HS test)
W. Virginia (no HS test)
Iowa (no HS test)
North Dakota (no HS test)
Montana (no HS test)
Kentucky (no HS test)
Wyoming (no HS test
Minnesota (2000)
The 10 states with the lowest graduation rates (Greene, 2002)--you guessed it. All of them have high school exit exams, and 9 of them have had exit exams for more than 10 years:
Georgia (1994)
Nevada (1981)
Florida (1979)
Arizona (2006)
Tennessee (1986)
S. Carolina (1990)
Mississippi (1989)
Alabama (1985)
North Carolina (1982)
New Mexico (1990)
Food for thought, don't you think?
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
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2 comments:
A thought -- have you looked at the way the Europeans educate all children vs the way the US does it? For whatever reason, if our top students rank 23rd or out 26 or 29 when compared to the rest of the world, our schools are not teaching whatever it is they are suppose to teach to have our students excel. To me this is the bigger issue.
Look outside of the US and see what we can learn from the rest of the world. Just a thought. We need good, scientifically based solutions.
THanks --
Elizabeth
What countries are you talking about exactly? Countries like Finland? Where there is virtually no poverty and everyone is of the same culture? And I am confused by what you mean by "scientifically based solutions." That seems to be a catch all phrase these days for doing things differently that we are currently.
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