Editorial: A rather dismal first

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Editorial:

Scores on a national test amounted to a punch in the stomach for Wisconsin. Black fourth- and eighth-graders did worse in Wisconsin in reading than in any other state in the nation. What's more, nowhere else was the gap in scores between those two groups as wide as it was here.

Such bleak results are not new, and efforts to close the gap here have been intense. Yet they have yielded the same dismal outcome.

Wisconsin's future hinges on the extent to which today's kids become contributing members of society. The reading scores must serve as a rallying cry to step up the efforts - and change methods, if necessary - to improve the children's reading abilities.

But government, business, non-profit groups, churches and the black community itself must do a better job of alleviating the poverty at the root of this problem.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at October 1, 2007 12:10 AM
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