Wendy Lecker: Blame poverty for achievement gap -- no joke - StamfordAdvocate: "It is well documented that Massachusetts and New Jersey improved their fourth-grade scores because, as a result of successful school funding lawsuits, they invested heavily in early education and elementary school. Both states also improved graduation rates by investing extra resources to provide additional supports to high school students. During the full implementation of New Jersey's school funding decision, New Jersey led the nation in closing the graduation gap between white and African-American males.
By contrast, Connecticut has been cited for its failure to direct more resources to all its high-poverty districts."
'via Blog this'
Only Massachusetts has adopted a system that includes test scores as part of a teacher evaluation, but that will not take effect until 2014. Unless the mere act of passing a law transforms students, they should wait until the law is implemented before they sing Hosannahs. Massachusetts is the only state of the two that employs tiered intervention and it is only in its first year of implementation. New Jersey is the only one of the two with a history of state takeovers. It is remarkable they would try to attribute gains to that "reform," which has such a barren record.
ReplyDeleteRead more: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Wendy-Lecker-Blame-poverty-for-achievement-gap-3464619.php#ixzz1rM7T89dM