Faces of the achievement gap in Madison: The stories behind the statistics

Pat Dillon:  

In 2010, just five black and 13 Hispanic graduating seniors in the Madison Metropolitan School District were ready for college, according to data from the district and Urban League of Greater Madison. These statistics should make your heart race. If they don't, and you're white, you may be suffering from what anti-racism educator Tim Wise calls "the pathology of white privilege." If you do get it and don't take action, that is almost worse.

The issue affects all of us and fell a little harder into my lap than it does in most white middle-class families when my daughter told me last summer that I was going to have a biracial grandson. My response? "Not in this school district."

The dismal academic record of minorities has long been apparent to me, through my own experiences and the stories of others. But many people only hear about the statistics. To help humanize these numbers I asked students and parents who are most affected to share their stories so I could tell them along with mine. The experiences are anecdotal, but the facts speak for themselves.

 Related:

• Student test scores show Madison lags state in cutting achievement gap
• Wisconsin, Mississippi Have "Easy State K-12 Exams" - NY Times
• The Death of WKCE? Task Force to Develop "Comprehensive Assessment System for Wisconsin"
•  Schools should not rely on only WKCE data to gauge progress of individual students or to determine effectiveness of programs or curriculum"
• Superintendent Dan Nerad's achievement gap plan.
• 60% to 42%: Madison School District's Reading Recovery Effectiveness Lags "National Average": Administration seeks to continue its use

In my view, the status quo approach to Madison's long lived reading challenges refutes Mr. Hughes assertion that the District is on the right track.  Matt DeFour's article:

Overall student performance improved in math and dipped slightly in reading across Wisconsin compared with last year, while in Madison scores declined in all tested subjects.

 Perhaps change is indeed coming, from a state level initiative on reading.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at April 2, 2012 4:29 AM
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