Comments on: States Omit Minorities’ School Scores

By: Conservative Outpost

Conservative Outpost — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 21:59:01 +0000

Educrats skirting testing requirements...

This shouldn't surprise anyone:Laquanya Agnew and Victoria Duncan share a desk, a love of reading and a passion for learning. But because of a loophole in the No Child Left Behind Act, one second-grader's score in Tennessee counts more than......

By: Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator

Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 02:55:29 +0000

Loophole lets scores be ignored by schools VIDEO...

States are helping public schools escape potential penalties by skirting the No Child Left Behind la...

By: just me

just me — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 01:28:15 +0000

I live in a state that is about 99% white. You could easily go a whole day and not see a single minority in most situations.

We just got my kids' scores back from their state testing (and yes the scores for the district were terrible, although my kids did fine). The important thing to note is 1-the minority children are not being exempted from the testing, the test scores of the minority children come back to the school and they see and monitor that child's proggress and 2 if the sample size is too small, then any results are statistically insignificant.

By: legion

legion — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 15:17:54 +0000

It's not that "small" groups of minorities are going unreported - it's that the school systems themselves, with help from state ed. departments, are the ones defining what "small" means. Hell, if I was given the authority to define what a "charitable donation" on my tax form is, I'm gonna define it to include everything I pay to support my family, 'cause they're my biggest charity, right? That's why I don't get to define "charity", and why the schools being measured shouldn't get to define "statistically insignificant".

By: Gawaine

Gawaine — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 15:00:01 +0000

The next headline:

No understanding of sample size: women, minorities hardest hit

By: McGehee

McGehee — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 14:34:37 +0000

I only took one course in statistics and even I understand why these exclusions are being made.

If this is any indication, the two or three journalism courses I took ought to make me a better news reporter than 83%* of the profession.

*Ironically, this figure is exactly the same as the percentage of rhetorical statistics that are made up on the spot.

By: Ted

Ted — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 13:23:20 +0000

If minorities are 7 times more likely to be excluded than whites, then 1 in 8 of those excluded are white, not 1 in 7.