Dr. Sowell on Education Reform
He goes ahead and fires a shot across the NEA’s bow.
Incidentally, since the good doctor focuses on the markedly-improved performance of young black students, and since lots of perma-nervous conservatives have been distracted lately by the media’s RovePlame nonsense and SCOTUS Trojan Horses, here’s the full executive summary of what a touch of accountability in the public-money education systems can accomplish in real life:
Last year, 9-year-olds earned their highest scores ever . . . since the tests were first given — in 1971 for reading and 1973 for math.
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Most of the[] improvement [for 9-year-olds] came after 1999, the last time this pair of tests was given by the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.
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The[] reading score [for 13-year-olds] in 1971 was 255, rising to 259 in 1999 and staying the same, 259, in 2004. In math their score[s] went up from 255 in 1973 to 276 in 1999, and climbed again to 281 in 2004.
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Black and Hispanic students scored higher in reading than in the 1970’s, with 9-year-olds in both groups posting their best scores yet. They were the only age group to do significantly better than in 1999. Every age group, except for Hispanic 13-year-olds, narrowed the achievement gap with whites since the 1970s.
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