top spending public school districts are also some of the worst-performing
Reply With QuoteSome have denounced "meritocracy" as racist while others, including New York congressman, have recently attacked standardized tests as racist.
At the same time, officials are driving top-performing students from their systems in Boston, New York and other cities where advanced programs are being shut down or suspended.
The problem with objective and standardized testing is precisely that it is objective and standardized on performance.
The top spending public school districts are also some of the worst-performing school districts.
New York topped the per capita spending at $24,040 per kid. Washington, D.C. is close at $22,759. Baltimore is often ranked in the top three per capita spending districts.
According to a 2019 study, over half of the New York City public school kids cannot handle basic math or English.
On tests, Asian kids show a 74.4 percent proficiency in math with a 66.6 proficiency for whites, a 33.2 percent proficiency for Hispanics, and a 28.2 percent proficiency for African Americans.
Thus, more than two-thirds of African American kids were not able to handle basic math in a school system with one of the highest per capita expenditures for students in the country.
In Washington, with the highest per capita spending on students, education officials "celebrated" a small improvement of scores in 2019. However, the scores would make most people cringe. Only 21.1 percent of Black students were proficient in math (as opposed to 78.8 percent for white students).
In Wisconsin, the 2019 scores (for students in grades 3 to 8 and grade 11) showed only 39.3% of students tested proficient or better in English/language and only 40.1% demonstrated a proficient or better understanding of math. Both showed drops. However, the racial disparity was particularly shocking. In the eighth grade, only 12.1 percent of Black students were proficient or advanced in English. There was still a 30 point gap for Black students.
The pandemic served a purpose for those opposing standardized tests. Due to the school closures, there have been delays, reductions, or outright cancellations of standardized testing in many districts.
So now students will not be going full-time to school and also not be tested on their proficiency in subjects in some districts.
It is as if they did not exist, which is precisely the problem. Politically, they do not seem to register in terms of importance or influence. They are useful objects for politicians who use them for campaigns for more money or power.
In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio, for example, has proclaimed that public schools are a means to redistribute wealth as students continue to fail on every level in the system.
The problem is not standardized testing. It is the lack of education where a student with below a 1.0 GPA could qualify for cum laude recognition in Baltimore.
Decades and billions of dollars have been exhausted without significant improvement. However, the real cost of our failure is borne by these students who find little solace in knowing that their per capita expenditures continue to rise as their scores continue to fall or remain stagnant.
De Blasio may be successful in using public education for the redistribution of wealth but he, and other politicians, have done little in the equal distribution of education and opportunity.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/fail...onathan-turley
Originally Posted by dukkha
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