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Posted on 03/23/2006 5:46:59 PM PST by ncountylee
DALLAS -- Young Hurricane Katrina refugees living in Texas scored considerably worse on a statewide standardized exam than Texas children, and thousands of them could be held back.
Teachers and state officials blame the low scores on New Orleans' poor school system, the trauma of being abruptly uprooted from their homes, and the possibility that some of them were put in the wrong grade after arriving in Texas with no records.
The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, a test of reading and math ability, was given in February to third- and fifth-graders, who must pass in order to move up to the next grade. About 38,000 Katrina evacuees are enrolled in Texas schools.
Only 58 percent of evacuees in third grade passed the reading portion, compared with 89 percent of all students. In fifth grade, 46 percent of evacuees passed the reading portion, versus 80 percent among all students.
"We've got kids who are coming into our secondary system and cannot read," Houston school board member Larry Marshall said. "Now that is a tragedy."
Between the two grades, about 2,000 refugees failed. Students who failed will have two more opportunities to pass the test this spring, but some worry the learning gap is too wide to close.
"Unfortunately a lot of the children came to us two and three years behind. It's going to be a struggle for a lot of them to catch up," said Texas Education Agency spokeswoman Debbie Graves Ratcliffe.
Educators and administrators warn that holding students back a grade increases the financial burden for the state, which has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on housing, health care and other services for the half-million refugees who came to Texas after Katrina swamped the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29.
The TEA estimates the state will spend up to $350 million educating refugees this school year.
To help ease the burden on schools, the TEA announced Thursday that all federal aid sent to Texas for educating hurricane refugees will be given to affected districts.
"Our schools have acted in good faith by taking in" the evacuees, Texas Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley said. "They shouldn't be penalized financially for this act of kindness."
Were the buses in NO even used to get children to school?
refugees?
OMG OMG OMG OMG SKY IS FALLING OMFG!!!!!
This is what 3 generations of government dependency will do to people. They are helpless and they have zero ambition. Their government checks will follow them where ever they go. Why study?
Democrats, here is your victory.
Pitiful.
One of the interesting things about Katrina's displacement of so many people from NO is that the liberals and the MSM lost the ability to shield the rest of the country from just how terrible pure liberalism has made of the lives of those unfortunate (maybe now fortunate) people. Be it their totally inept and corrupt leadership, their inability to put felons in jail, and now their inability to provide anything approaching an education. While we may be tempted to take some comfort in blaming the victims for who they elect, I'd much rather keep the blame centered on the liberals, the MSM, and the Federal Government (for dumping money into this rat-hole).
No, the thanks for low performing students from New Orleans goes to Governor Kathleen "Useless" Blanco, Ray "Moron" Nagin, the entire Congressional Socialist Black Caucus, Mary "Incompetent" Landrieu and the entire Democrat "Traitor/Treason/Failure" Party. However, it must be noted that the citizens of Louisiana and New Orleans have opted to keep this band of no accounts around, so they'll get no sympathy or monetary support from me. An idiot is an idiot, both Black, White or otherwise. What fools!!!! They just don't get it!!!!
?????????
That's it, they have them right where they want them. Fat, dumb, and happy when the checks come rolling in. The seductive lure of socialism makes a slave out of everyone.
No--an entire city stuck on stupid.
They were truly the city that forgot to care.
posts 6 and 8 right there.
pfft... big shocker.
"We've got kids who are coming into our secondary system and cannot read,"
Heck, there are kids GRADUATING FROM HIGH SCHOOL WHO CANNOT READ!
The question is, how did they ever get past first grade? What were the teachers thinking?
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A few decades of Dimocrat rule will do that to a city.
Texas had BETTER be getting a chunk of federal change for this.
I went to Holy Cross from Fifth through Twelfth. New Orleans private schools >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> New Orleans public schools.
You said it all in one sentence.
The only people who act surprised are liberals looking for a 20 second sound bite.
Probably kant ivin spel "Muggerflugger."
What were the teachers thinking?
They do not think, the NEA does that for them.
I think they're better off being out of New Orleans. What did the City do, besides miseducate them?
The N.O. schools are bad, but there are some that are almost as bad. About 15 years ago we had friends who lived in Chicago and their kids went to the Chicago Public Schools. The daughter was in advanced math and science classed there. When the family moved to Houston, the girl was put back a year because she was not up to the Texas standards. And yes, the democrats run the Chicago school system also.
I'm beginning to think Katrina was a blessing in disguise. A lot of homes were destroyed, but a lot of lives are going to be saved. All these children will now have the opportunity to get a decent education. They would have been shoved through the system and then tossed aside to spend their lives barely scratching out a living.
At the expense of us Houston tax payers. We'd rather see this FILTH leave our city as soon as possible!
"This is the predictable result of admitting 38,000 students from a corrupt Third World country. No one should be surprised."
I feel for the kids who are forced to go to school with the refugees. I've heard some bad things...
Homicide rate jumped 25% in 4th qtr. of 2005.
This means that nearly all of the non-evacuees passed the test. The writer of the article doesn't want to state that number since it is comparatively so high.
A guy who played football for 4 years at a prominent 1A college was interviewed by a reporter. He couldn't read. Shown a list of words and asked what they meant, he pointed to one of them and said "I thnk that word is 'football' - he didn't know any of the others.
Things are worse that I thought....
Earth to McGavin999: First of all the Houston Independent School District was pathetic before the Katrina evacuees arrived and sucks even worse now. Don't think for one minute that the HISD is capable of being the nanny city by raising thousands of children who are Louisana refugees and tapping into their undiscovered (until now) brain power.
Anytime the government has to be relied upon to move forward, its a guaranteed three steps backwards. Count on it.
IIRC the mag was "Inside Sports."
Good find by you.
I never would have dreamed that a fourth-year college student wouldn't be able to read.
But why am I surprised as some high-school students can't read either.
USC, btw.
Oh, Lord, a premiere college yet.
What is this world coming to?
Graduation exam still blocking diploma -
Former top student fails test sixth time
Six months after most of her peers at Alcee Fortier Senior High School donned caps and gowns to celebrate the completion of their high school careers, Bridget Green, once the school’s top-ranked student, has yet to graduate.
Despite spending six weeks in summer school, Green failed the state graduation exam for a sixth time in July and is still not eligible for a high school diploma. She took the test again in October, and hopes to start attending Delgado Community College in January, according to tutors and other activists who have tried to help her.
Green and her family have declined to be interviewed by The Times-Picayune since a story about her situation appeared in the newspaper in August. Fortier Principal Harvey Cyrus also has declined interview requests.
But in an interview on WWL-TV Monday night, Green blamed her difficulties on the school system, saying it "failed me."
Green was once in line to be valedictorian at Fortier, but that title was stripped away when school officials realized that she had not passed Louisiana’s Graduation Exit Exam. The high-stakes test is given annually to sophomores and juniors who must pass it to earn their diplomas. High school students who fail the test on their first try can retake it each summer and spring until they earn a passing grade.
Of 220 students who began the 2002-2003 school year as seniors at Fortier, 125 graduated in May, according to school officials. Like Green, at least 30 members of Fortier’s class of 2003 who did not graduate had earned passing classroom grades but were denied diplomas because they could not pass the graduation exam.
Systemwide, about 28 percent of seniors did not graduate last year, the vast majority because they failed the graduation exam, records show.
When she first took the test in March 2001, Green passed the English section but failed math. She took the test five more times in the following two years, but failed the math section each time.
She took the test for a sixth time this summer, hoping to earn a score high enough to earn her diploma. Green told WWL that said she failed to make the grade again.
"In my heart and soul, I’m still No. 1," Green said in the interview.
Students who complete high school without passing the exam can continue to retake the test until they pass, state education officials said. In August, before she knew she had not passed the latest retest, Green vowed she would try again if she failed.
Green told her story at a meeting of the Orleans Parish School Board this summer in an effort to draw attention to the plight of hundreds of seniors who could not participate in graduation ceremonies because they did not pass the test.
not really sure what Democratic rule gets you
http://www.myscschools.com/reports/sat00/state.htm
This, of course, makes me want to rip out my hair in any event.
We've got journalists who don't understand the difference between evacuees and refugees.
These people failed to evacuate 7 months ago. They were rescued and given shelter by the good citizens of Texas. They're refugees.
Five of their pre-schoolers spent the day today outside screaming and yelling for hours and hours, with no apparent adult supervision.
I walked down the street to mail a letter and one of the littlest ones was out there dressed in just a T-shirt, in 60-degree weather with 20-mph winds - I was very cold with a sweater on.
Then mama came home about 4pm and turned on the stereo so loud it was vibrating the ground like the cars do - it's ear-shattering and stomach-upsetting. I've called cops once before and they say there's nothing they can do. The next thing was another night of loud arguing between the mama and some man who appeared out of nowhere and does the stomach-boomer radio thing in his car, too.
kinda scary that highest participation is all blue states and lowest is all red states. and scores are kind of similar but not completely down the line. that worries me.
The excuse sounds like the NEA.
Achievement tests at that level are all about the same. There are just so many ways to ask a child to add some numbers or read a sentence. Vocabulary is standardized too.
I meant to add, in the 5th grade the particular test may be more of a factor. In the 3rd grade, less so.
I meant to add, in the 5th grade the particular test may be more of a factor. In the 3rd grade, less so.
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