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Wednesday, March 21, 2007
That Pesky ‘Achievement Gap’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Results from recent state End of Course Tests, which were given to public high school students at the end of the fall semester, show huge gaps between the performance of white students and black and Hispanic kids.
This disparity struck me because these exams are given at or near the end of the course. (Hence, their name.) Supposedly, students are being tested on material in biology, physical science, American literature — and a handful of other select courses in which the assessments are given — that they’ve been taught all semester.
Kids also have an incentive to do well: State rules require that the scores count as 15 percent of final course grades. But, with few exceptions, students are doing poorly. According to passing percentages presented to the State Board of Education earlier this month, black and Hispanic students, in particular, are floundering.
Take biology, where only 34 percent of blacks and 39 percent of Hispanics passed the exam compared to 70 percent of whites.
With results like that, I really gotta wonder: What is going on?
