School Outcomes: News Miner 85
Denver schools; CMAS scores for math, language, and science; results by gender and 'race'/ethnicity; gender discrimination at a Mines program.
Denver Schools
Complete Colorado published my column, “Denver Public Schools celebrates lowering achievement bar.” Here’s a selection:
If we dig deeper in the CMAS [Colorado Measures of Academic Success] results for black and Hispanic students in Denver, the story goes from grim to horrifying. You can download the spreadsheet data from the CMAS results page.
Starting with English language, for all Colorado schools grades 3-8, here are the fractions meeting or exceeding expectations: Asian 59%, white 55.6%, black 27.7%, Hispanic 26%. Here are the fractions for Denver: Asian 51.4%, white 72.7%, black 26.7%, Hispanic 24.1%.
Turning to math, for all Colorado schools grades 3-8, here are the fractions meeting or exceeding expectations: Asian 55.9%, white 44%, black 16.8%, Hispanic 16.1%. Here are the fractions for Denver: Asian 42.3%, white 64.1%, black 16.8%, Hispanic 15%.
Results for white and Asian kids are bad enough; results for black and Hispanic kids are absolutely appalling. As I’ve said before, this is a severe crisis, yet, as far as I’ve heard, no school or government official treats it as such. [DPS superintendent Alex] Marrero, to reiterate, is “ecstatic” about Denver’s performance.
I am not saying that schools alone are responsible for the horrible outcomes, especially for black and Hispanic students. Relative poverty contributes enormously. But neither do the public schools seem to be doing right by those kids who suffer the most other disadvantages in life.
Read the entire piece.
CMAS Results
My articles about Denver schools and Colorado student performance draw heavily on results from the Colorado Measures of Academic Success (CMAS) test. If you download the huge spreadsheet files, you can find extensive data for individual districts and schools.
Here I present select statewide data pertaining to gender and “race”/ethnicity. Importantly, in few categories do half or more of students meet or exceed expectations. Generally, boys outperform girls in math and science, while girls outperform boys in language. The huge disparities show up in “race”/ethnicity. Asian and white kids radically outperform Black, Hispanic, and Native kids across the board. As I’ve said repeatedly, the poor performance of many of those minority kids is a serious crisis, but one that hardly anyone seems to take seriously.
Below are six images, two each for math, English language arts, and science.
Gender Discrimination in K–12 Program Associated with School of Mines
I was interested in signing up my son for a DecTech K–12 science program, but then I saw this line on the registration form: “During the school year, DECTech Sessions are only offered for Female or Gender Nonconforming individuals.” I was surprised to see such blatant gender discrimination.
It’s easy to see the motivation here; as of Fall of last year, the School of Mines student population was 68% male.
I’m all for encouraging girls to become interested in science. For example, I love Emily Calandrelli’s work doing science shows and books for children. But “we” can and should encourage girls to become interested in science without discouraging—or in this case flatly excluding—boys.
As is evident from the CMAS data above, the huge disparities are not between boys and girls but between (Asian and white kids) and (Black, Hispanic, and Native kids). One thing the DecTech program is saying, implicitly, is that rich white girls are welcome, but disadvantaged Black, Hispanic, and Native (and white) boys are not welcome. In general, excluding boys is not the right way to include girls.
I asked the media rep with the School of Mines for a comment from the school, and I will update this post if I receive one.
When one's focus is always on "groups," one will - dare I say it, always remain focused on groups! Such "profundity" is one of the hallmarks of our decaying culture. It leads to, among other things, logical contradiction. Contradictions such as the practice of the virtue of discrimination in order to end the evil of discrimination!