Posted on 05/18/2012 3:43:25 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
“Virginia eighth-graders show improved science ability,” according to a recent article in the Virginian-Pilot. “Virginia students outperform their peers nationwide in science.” Sounds good.
But the article then says, “Only 40% show a solid grasp of the subject.” So 60% are not learning much science. Indeed, only 2% score at an advanced level.
Note the pattern here, the mix of good news and bad news so that no clear message comes through. The story basically claims: students have improved but most don’t know much. How are we supposed to react to that?
And what is “a solid grasp of the subject”? There are lots of statistical factoids (“Among white students, 51 percent scored at proficient level, compared with 55 percent of those identifying themselves as Asian”) but not much in the way of specifics. Can these eighth-graders explain the law of gravity or the structure of the heart? Do they know what a moon is?
Virginians saw the same pattern in November, 2011, when math and reading scores were announced: “New test scores show the nation's fourth- and eighth-graders are doing better than ever in math, and eighth-graders are making progress in reading, but schools still have a long way to go....A little more than one-third of students scored proficient or higher in reading. In math, 40 percent of fourth-graders and 35 percent of eighth-graders had reached that level.”
This report is actually very grim news. Only one-third of American kids are good readers. The majority are less than literate, often much less. This is a national disgrace, but reported in such a jumbled way that readers feel almost nothing. The newspaper itself doesn’t seem to care. There is no indignation, no call to arms.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
Its been dumbed down to the point where you don’t need to understand anything to pass.
Using IQ as a rough index, one half of whites are below 100(average); 80 some percent of blacks and Mexicans are below that number. What do people expect? A claim of poor environment can only clarry an argument so far.
Does anyone really know exactly how gravity works, and why?
So What, they can all put condoms on in multiple languages. And that’s all that really matters.
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