Tuesday, December 04, 2007

The Myth of the Middle-Class School

As middle-class suburban homeowners cling precariously to their dwellings in the midst of the current housing slump, many comfort themselves, as they write out their high mortgage payment checks, that at least their children can attend good neighborhood public schools. Unfortunately for these parents, all too often these supposedly “good” public schools have bad records when it comes to student achievement.

In California, for example, there are hundreds of regular public schools in middle-class and more affluent neighborhoods where less than half of the students in at least one grade level fail to perform at the proficient level in English or math on state tests. These schools are located throughout the state, on the expensive coastline, in suburbs and exurbs, and in conservative inland “red” counties. Here are a few examples.

Just east of Sacramento is Placer County, the most Republican county in the state. Republicans dominate Placer’s congressional and state legislative delegations. Embattled Republican congressman John Doolittle, fighting accusations of improper campaign contributions stemming from the Abramoff fiasco, represents the area. The GOP also controls local bodies such as city councils and school boards. Big new tract homes and big box stores fill the landscape. Yet, for all this seeming suburban coziness, the performance of students at one of the supposedly top local high schools leaves a lot to be desired.

At Oakmont High School, which sits in a zip code where the median home price earlier this year was in $450,000 range, less than half of tenth graders and only four in 10 eleventh graders scored at the proficient level on the state English exam in 2007. In mathematics, the scores were even worse. Only about a quarter of students taking either the state algebra I or algebra II exams scored proficient, while less than one in five taking the geometry test scored at that level.

The city of San Mateo, just south of San Francisco, has produced such notables as entertainment legend Merv Griffin and two-time Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady. Like other towns along peninsula from San Francisco to San Jose, San Mateo has astronomical home prices. Hillsdale High School in San Mateo is in a zip code with a median home price of more than $800,000. Yet, in 2007, less than half of eleventh graders scored at or above the proficient level on the state English exam.

Another bad sign for many California high schools in middle-class and affluent areas is the low proportion of 11th graders who test at the college-ready level on the California State University’s Early Assessment Program (EAP) exam, which is supposed to spot students who may need remedial instruction in English or math as freshmen. Take, for instance, Newport Harbor High School in posh Newport Beach in conservative Orange County.

Newport Harbor High is now best known as the site of MTV’s reality show Newport Harbor: The Real Orange County. While the television show focuses on the usual teen rivalries and love triangles, little is said about the achievement of students at the high school. That may be just as well, at least for school officials, since in 2006 less than one in four Newport Harbor’s eleventh graders taking the EAP English exam tested at the college-ready level.

The beach community of Torrance near Los Angeles is another example. It is home to some the most famous high schools in America. Torrance High was the setting of Beverly Hills 90210 and South High, the location of the 1999 film American Beauty. But when only slightly more than half of those high-school students score proficient in English, and less than a third test college-ready, the fancy facades aren’t much consolation to parents paying mortgages on $700,000 homes.

Parents in such upscale areas as Santa Barbara, the Silicon Valley, the Northern California wine country, and San Diego enclaves like La Jolla all had similar low college-ready rates among their students. California, however, is not alone. Nationwide, an average of six out of 10 4th and 8th grade students who are not poor score below grade-level proficiency in math and reading on the Nation’s Report Card.

It is time for the broad middle class in America to realize that their “free” suburban schools are, in many cases, not as good as they have been led to believe. Once they understand that they are not getting the bang for their mortgage and tax buck, they can then wield their large political clout to demand the freedom to choose their children’s schools regardless of where they live. Strapped “house poor” middle-class parents can benefit from a school-choice voucher just as much as parents in low-income areas. Only with such choice options will middle-class homebuyers finally get what they paid for.

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Poor professor Matory

J. Lorand Matory is a professor at Harvard, in anthropology and African and African-American studies, and he is feeling mighty oppressed today because some people on campus disagree with him. Scott Johnson of Powerline writes today on the professor's expressed plight, and excerpts enough of his writing to demonstrate the point that the professor is sadly lacking in the logical argument department.
[W]hy does the U.S. rightly defend Jewish people's claims on European bank accounts, property, and compensation for labor expropriated during the 1930s and 1940s, while quashing the rights of millions of Palestinians refugees to lands, houses, and goods stolen as a condition of Israel's founding in the late 1940s?

Let's do a cursory glance at Matory's positions. A larger number of Jewish refugees left Arab lands than Arabs who left Israel. They left penniless, after being stripped of their assets. The Arab refugees left at the prompting of their leaders (in part) who broadcast their plans to wreak devastation on their way through Israel as they promised to push the Jews into the sea.

Let's ponder his equivalency argument over the genocide committed against European Jewry-the destruction of a people-against the displacement of Arab refugees who left of their own volition. These Arab refugees consists not only of those who left in 1948 but ALL OF THEIR DESCENDENTS-accorded this unique status by virtue of the UN which established this UN Agency just for Palestinian refugees: UNRWA-United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

Over the years billions have been sent to these refugees to aid them. UNRWA has also aided them in their terror efforts -- admitting that it has terrorists on its payroll and being forced to admit that its offices have been used as hideouts for terrorists. Its employees are exclusively Palestinians.

The Jewish refugees who were pushed from their homes in Arab lands did not have the benefit of aid flowing from the United Nations. Instead, they had to struggle to make new lives for themselves in Israel and elsewhere. This they accomplished because Israel welcomed them; in contrast, Arab nations kept Palestinian refugees locked up in camps and, with the exception of Jordan, denied them citizenship, rights to engage in various professions, and rights to own property. Arab refugees have been abused-by their own brethren and their own leaders. This does not equate them to victims of genocide.

Maybe it is time for Harvard to take some of its billions of dollars and find some better qualified professors.

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Australia: Maths skills sink to a five-year low

MATHS skills among Year 7 students have fallen to their lowest level in five years. Unpublished figures to be released next month, and obtained by The Weekend Australian, show that more than one in five Year 7 students failed to acquire the necessary maths skills to progress through school. The proportion attaining minimum standards in maths has fallen below 80 per cent for the first time, to 79.7 per cent, and is down from a high of 83.5 per cent in 2002. The report looms as the first major challenge to confront incoming deputy prime minister Julia Gillard, who has been handed the role of implementing Kevin Rudd's education revolution.

In a further indictment of the national education system, an OECD report released this week shows Australia trailing Estonia and New Zealand in science skills. The OECD Program for International Student Assessment conducted last year among 15-year-olds in 57 countries focused on science skills. It ranked Australia eighth on the students' mean scores, behind Finland in first place followed by Hong Kong, Canada, Taiwan, Estonia, Japan and New Zealand. The previous PISA test, carried out in 2003, ranked Australia sixth in science, fourth in reading and 11th in maths.

The Australian Council for Educational Research, which administers PISA in Australia on behalf of the OECD, said that when statistical difference was taken into account, Australia tied in fourth place for science with a number of other countries. ACER chief executive Geoff Masters said Australia had maintained its performance from the previous PISA test, in which it ranked fourth out of 41 countries.

The 2006 years 3, 5 and 7 National Benchmark Results were sent to the state and territory education ministers this week for approval before their scheduled public release by the end of the year. The 2006 results show the general trend among Year 3 students is a stable proportion of students meeting the benchmarks with 91 per cent passing reading, 92.7 per cent passing writing and 92.6 per cent passing numeracy. The results for Year 5 students are more patchy, with an increasing proportion of students failing to meet the benchmarks. In 2006, about 12 per cent of Year 5 students failed to meet the reading benchmark, 6 per cent failed to meet the writing benchmark and 10 per cent failed to meet the numeracy standard. By Year 7, the proportion falling behind had widened further, with about 11 per cent failing the reading benchmark, 8 per cent failing the writing benchmark and about 20 per cent failing to meet the numeracy benchmark.

The report seeks to discredit the huge difference in Year 7 numeracy skills, saying the benchmark appears to be too hard. "This apparent drop in progress can in some way be attributed to a concern that the benchmark standard for Year 7 has been set at a higher level than for the other year levels," it says. The Year 7 numeracy benchmark requires students to deal in whole numbers to seven digits, and use decimals with two place values in familiar situations, such as money and measurements. The national benchmark results also highlight the gap between the indigenous community and the rest of the nation.

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