Still leaving kids behind

One of the new features in Kentucky’s school testing program is a “Gap to Goal” report. This shows the difference between the actual combined proficiency rate in math and reading to a goal of 100 for all major student groups such as African-Americans, learning disabled students, and so forth.

I just looked at the Gap to Goal trend for all our schools from 2010 to 2011 for African-Americans. The results are not exactly encouraging.

After sorting a KDE Excel spreadsheet for “All Districts” (998_2011_GAP_TO_GOAL[1].xls) available on line here, I found that 258 schools improved their average proficiency rate for math and reading for African-Americans, while 32 schools stayed flat.

The really bad news, however, is that African-Americans in 206 schools had a reported decline in their combined math and reading proficiency rate. That isn’t a much different number from the 258 schools that improved a bit for their African-American students.

Bottom line: kids of color are still being left behind. We need to do more for them, like creating charter schools which show good progress at raising scores for African-Americans.