The state is redoing its reading tests for grades 3 – 8. The old tests were absurdly easy, with nearly 90 percent of students in the state fund to be “proficient” in reading. DPI has said that number will drop to about 55 percent after the change. Peter Gorman weighs in on the change in today’s Observer:
“We are going to see a precipitous drop in CMS and the state,” he said. “I think you’re also going to see the achievement gap widen in reading.”
Interesting education babble. The achievement gap is what the achievement gap is — students read as well as they do, it’s just that the state is changing its measure of what constitutes “proficient.” If there’s a bigger disparity between white and minority pass rates on the revised exam, that just means the tests are simply acknowledging a gap that was there previously.
Then there’s this nugget:
At Wilson Middle in west Charlotte, where the new tests show 72 percent of students read below grade level, the biggest problem is comprehension, said Principal Eric Ward, who took that job in January.
Only a few low performers can’t decipher the words. Most can, but get little meaning from the text – often because they’re not interested, Ward said.
“The text is about dead people and places that are not Charlotte, and some of them have not been out of Charlotte,” Ward said.
Wonderful.
