Uh, hate to ruin a good meme just as it is getting started, but there is really no riddle, puzzle, or enigma to recent CMS test score news. The high-ranking national urban school thing that CMS apologists going is totally consistent with the latest state-wide results that show CMS to be still be trailing behind state-wide averages, especially at the high school level.

The reason is the national data set that made CMS look like a national leader among urban districts didn’t just compare apple-to-oranges, it compared apples-to-qumquats. The Daily Howler, which has been all over the spinning of N.C. and CMS test scores for months, points out a crucial difference between CMS and many of the urban districts tested:

How did Charlotte-Mecklenburg do? You must be careful in assessing these data. Remember, Charlotte-Mecklenburg is a sprawling, urban-suburban system. For purposes of this NAEP study, Charlotte-Meck is an “urban district”—but it’s much less “urban” than other districts involved in the study, with a much less impoverished student population. In this year’s grade 4 math assessment, for example, here are the percentages of students who receive free or reduced-price lunch:

Students receiving free or reduced-price lunch, 2005 NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment (grade 4 math)

Charlotte-Mecklenburg: 44 percent
Boston: 84 percent
Chicago: 87 percent
Cleveland: 100 percent
New York: 84 percent
Los Angeles: 86 percent

This info suggests that CMS should do better than these districts in overall test scores. At the same time, CMS higher proportion of low-income students means CMS should be given some slack when being compared to some other N.C. districts. But no amount of slack can overcome the fact that CMS only saw 48% of its low-income students pass end-of-course high schools tests while the state average was 61% and some districts, like Kannapolis, hit the 80% mark.

Right now CMS is in the midst of a massive cram session for the next round of tests. In fact, it is fair to say that the 10 lowest performing high schools are doing nothing but teaching and preparing for those state tests. Those results, not spin, will tell us much more about where CMS is headed.