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Monday, June 5, 2006
Some Georgia CRCT Results To Chew On…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Finding the news in a press release can be a challenge. Here’s the state’s press release on CRCT results, which were released today.
More interesting and telling are the actual scores, which you may find here.
Among the highlights:
The tests that are new this year and reflect the new curriculum seem to be harder as state officials said they would be. Pass rates are lower, though not dramatically so. Are 83 percent of Georgia third-graders really reading well enough to succeed in fourth grade? (I don’t know, I’m asking!)
Middle school science and math scores are most troubling, especially with minorities. Only 47 percent of black sixth-graders passed the new math test, compared with 74 percent of white students. In sixth-grade science, 43 percent of black students passed the new test, compared wtih 77 percent of white students.
Thousands of kids in grades three, five and eight are headed to summer school or are there already. I can’t calculate exact numbers because I don’t know how many kids failed both reading and math as opposed to one or the other. But the number is certainly high. (28,000 eighth-graders failed math.) Are schools prepared for such numbers?
Inexplicably, we don’t have district-level results yet. Grrr…
Thoughts?
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Intel Guy Says: Don’t Bother With State Comparisons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Craig Barrett, Chairman of the Board and former CEO of Intel, was the opening speaker at the Education Writers Association conference I attended in New Orleans last week. His topic: Storm Clouds Over U.S. How Different if the U.S. from its International Competitors? Is the U.S. Falling Behind.
I’ll sum this up fast: There is no reason to spend so much energy comparing Georgia kids to Florida kids or Atlanta kids to Gwinnett kids, Barrett believes. (My favorite recent comparison someone showed me: Atlanta is improving its test scores faster than the state of Georgia. Hmmmmm…..) Compare internationally, Barrett says. When he can’t find the employees he needs locally, he goes to India and China. Those who brag about being the best in the state or the best in the country ignore this larger picture.
A reporter asks Barrett if he also goes to India and China because the labor is cheaper. My notes trail off on this one, but I think he says something about that being a tough issue and notes that he has grandkids in college …
Barrett says American kids need better teachers. They need teachers who know how to teach them the high-level math and science they need to compete. Good teachers also engage and motivate students, he says. A national curriculum will never happen, so why spend time talking about it? Get better teachers. Period.
The next speaker disagreed sharply with Barrett. I’ll tell you who and why tomorrow… (Also, CRCT scores are expected to be released today…stay tuned!)
Until then, any thoughts on how to get better teachers into the classroom, especially in math and science?
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