More like this, please.Most egregiously the Obama administration, Commisioner Cerf, Mayor Booker, and others ignore NJ public schools’ plethora of successes. Among them, NJ is the only state to narrow the achievement gap while raising the achievement of non-minority students; Darling-Hammond, the President's former adviser noted, that on one nationwide test, NJ's African Americans and Latino's performance equaled to California's entire average. Additionally in Ed Week's 2010 Diplomas count, NJ has the highest graduation rates in the country.
Conversely, recently reported in a Western Michigan University study, KIPP charters schools have the highest dropout/attrition rates of African American males. It is abominable to push this sort of initiative in Newark, when Newark was commended by the Schott foundation this year for already having the highest rate of graduation nationally, among African American males.
Of course more work needs to be done. But, contrary to the rhetoric, pushing reforms that have proven not to work and lack evidence is not about improving student achievement; rather it’s about control - Namely, giving politicians and outside private enterprise more at the expense of the local community and their students.
Word Jazz served (mostly) daily. Education, politics, music, the arts, New Jersey, and whatever else strikes me. "A widely read teacher blogger" - Jane Roh, Courier Post. "One of my favorite bloggers" - Diane Ravitch
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Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Another New NJ Edublogger
Good stuff here:
The cited study on KIPP attrition is bogus; it doesn't even have student-level data, and it just looks at enrollment patterns at KIPP schools vs. public school DISTRICTS, which is a completely invalid comparison.
ReplyDeleteFor the real facts on KIPP, look at this recent Mathematica study that looked at individual students (something Miron wasn’t able to do). KIPP attrition is no different from surrounding public schools. http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/pdfs/education/KIPP_middle_schools_wp.pdf
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Sorry, I misstated that: when Mathematica did an actual study that looked at actual kids, they found that KIPP has LOWER attrition for black males than other public schools do.
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