2/3 Of Wisconsin 8'th Graders Don't Read proficiently

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http://cnsnews.com/news/article/two-thirds-wisconsin-public-school-8th-g

Quote:

Two-Thirds of Wisconsin Public-School 8th Graders Can’t Read Proficiently—Despite Highest Per Pupil Spending in Midwest
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
By Terence P. Jeffrey

In the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests administered by the U.S. Department of Education in 2009—the latest year available—only 32 percent of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders earned a “proficient” rating while another 2 percent earned an “advanced” rating. The other 66 percent of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders earned ratings below “proficient,” including 44 percent who earned a rating of “basic” and 22 percent who earned a rating of “below basic.”

The test also showed that the reading abilities of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders had not improved at all between 1998 and 2009 despite a significant inflation-adjusted increase in the amount of money Wisconsin public schools spent per pupil each year.
In 1998, according to the U.S. Department of Education, Wisconsin public school eighth graders scored an average of 266 out of 500 on the NAEP reading test. In 2009, Wisconsin public school eighth graders once again scored an average of 266 out of 500 on the NAEP reading test. Meanwhile, Wisconsin public schools increased their per pupil expenditures from $4,956 per pupil in 1998 to 10,791 per pupil in 2008. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator the $4,956 Wisconsin spent per pupil in 1998 dollars equaled $6,546 in 2008 dollars. That means that from 1998 to 2008, Wisconsin public schools increased their per pupil spending by $4,245 in real terms yet did not add a single point to the reading scores of their eighth graders and still could lift only one-third of their eighth graders to at least a “proficient” level in reading.
The $10,791 that Wisconsin spent per pupil in its public elementary and secondary schools in fiscal year 2008 was more than any other state in the Midwest.....

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And?

1 Reply

@littlek,

It seems that the state disagrees with the cns stats.

http://data.dpi.state.wi.us/data/StateTestsPerformance.aspx?OrgLevel=st&GraphFile=BlankPageUrl&S4orALL=1&SRegion=1&SCounty=47&SAthleticConf=45&SCESA=05&Qquad=performance.aspx

2 Replies

@littlek,

Thanks for the fact-check.

0 Replies

@littlek,

Those graphs all show something like 90% of the kids in proficient and advanced with nearly half of 7'th and 9'th grade in advanced. Can't you tell bullshit when you see it?

3 Replies

@gungasnake,

sure you don't mean snakeshit

0 Replies

@gungasnake,

Each state is accountable to the federal government for their standardized tests and results.

0 Replies

@gungasnake,

Yes I can see BS - your link is BS.

1 Reply

@littlek,

In other words, you actually believe those charts showing half the kids reading at advanced levels, sort of like Garrison Keillor talking about all the kids being above average out there in slow-is-cool land or where-ever that show of his originates??

1 Reply

@gungasnake,

I am not saying I believe anything. I'm just pointing out that your source has different conclusions. I would tend to trust the state source more at the moment. Why would you trust your website more? Have you reviewed the tests? Have you looked at the grading rubric?

1 Reply

@littlek,

because it supports his beliefs which i'm guessing is, teachers are over paid and under performing (not that i agree with him)

1 Reply

@djjd62,

Why did he write 8'th with an apostrophe? Was he educated in Wisconsin too?

0 Replies

@gungasnake,

This just shows that Wisconsin kids are a bunch of dumbasses. Is that it?

0 Replies

@gungasnake,

Such stupidity.

The statistic Gungasnake is cherry picking is from page 33 of the link he posted. Wisconsin with a 34% 8th grade reading score is better than the national average and better than most states.

For comparison, lets look at the statistics for the states that currently ban collective bargaining for teachers.

Wisconsin (collective bargaining) - 34%
South Carolina (no collective bargaining) - 25%
North Carolina (no collective bargaining) - 29%
Virginia (no collective bargaining) - 32%
Georgia (no collective bargaining) - 27%
Texas (no collective bargaining) - 27%

Is the goal to turn Wisconsin into South Carolina?

The clear disadvantage in ACT/SAT scores in states with no collective bargaining is more striking.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Max,
That report you quote is bogus...meaningless statistics contorted to fit a biased viewpoint...

This analysis here pretty well destroys that claim floating on lefty blogs....

Quote:

First, it’s from an analysis conducted in 1999, apparently by a University of Missouri law professor named Douglas O. Linder. Linder doesn’t say specifically what year the SAT/ACT numbers come from, but they’re obviously more than a decade old.

Second, the ranking methodology is really weird, and completely unreliable. What the author did was take each state’s ranking on the SAT, add it to each state’s ranking on the ACT, add those two numbers together, and then put them in order. In other words, Wisconsin scored 5th in the country on the SATs and 4th in the country on the ACTs, giving it a total of 9, and only Iowa had a lower total, so Wisconsin was 2nd in the country overall.

This is just silly. As I noted above, almost nobody in Wisconsin takes the SATs — the state has only a 4% participation rate on that test, with the only students taking it being those who are applying to competitive out-of-state colleges that don’t accept the ACTs. When you compare Wisconsin’s SAT average to Georgia’s, you’re comparing the performance of a tiny elite in one state with that of 74% of the graduating class of the other. And on top of that, this chart gives Wisconsin’s SAT score equal weight with its ACT score in determining which state is “better.”

It’s nonsense. It’s meaningless.

1 Reply

@slkshock7,

Quote:

Max,
That report you quote is bogus...meaningless statistics contorted to fit a biased viewpoint...

That's funny.

I purposely used the exact report that was the basis of the CNS article that Gungasnake posted. I didn't use the SAT/ACT numbers, I used the NAEP reading scores as referenced in the original article.

If you are saying that the CNS article is bogus, then we agree.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

The CNS numbers come from the US Dept of Ed...

What seems to be the case as I noted and as slkshock7's article notes is that the test scores are largely indicating the percentages of people taking the different tests in different states and are pretty meaningless, particularly when you're talking about spending more than 10,000 per kid per year for a system which produces a state in which only about 30% of anybody reads decently.

Walker made no secrets of what he intended to do if elected, and the people of Wisconsin voted to allow him to do it. At some point, you either have democracy or you don't.

2 Replies

@gungasnake,

but a democracy allows for dissent, so people are dissenting

0 Replies

@gungasnake,

Let me spell it out for you Gungasnake,

The CNS numbers show that Wisconsin is performing better (or significantly better) than all of the states that don't have collective bargaining.

You are disagreeing with your own original post.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

What it sounds like is that I and the original article are talking about 70% of the people in Wisconsin and you're talking about the other 30%, if that.

2 Replies

2/3 Of Wisconsin 8'th Graders Don't Read proficiently

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