I will tell you this, it does not help children of any race or color when they are lumped in with children who can read at grade level when they can't...it discourages them. I entered elementary school in 1952...in third grade they began breaking us down into different reading levels, and we changed classes to go to reading. I know I was more comfortable being with kids who read at my level and it caused me to read more...I was moved up to the top level by the beginning of 4th grade. Sometimes I think the real problem with American education is this idea that one size fits all.

why? Everyone should be at an equal grade level after instruction. what's this divisive race stipulation. And is it saying something that blacks are last again with the lowest percentile expected? This is all very confusing, but it stinks of racism. Can't quite put my finger on it, but if it stinks, it stinks.

But they aren't.

Then the question is, what do you do with them?

That there's a racial correlation is beside the point.

country, race is the point. Always has been always will be in the US OF A. 19th century mentality with most of these stinking racist will never be purged. If race is in it, racist get busy...

Teachers therefore will have lower expectations for black students.

I don't like it.

it's bad. VERY bad.

“Once we put students in groups, we give them very different opportunities to learn — with strong patterns of inequality across teachers, experience, and competence,” said one critic.

Oh brother, I don't get it. Why not just go and see what socio-economic background each student comes from, their nutritional needs .. the environment at home etc.. if your father and mother are both professional people, say doctors or lawyers, chances are the kids are going to be reading quite well.

"Separate but equal" will again be the law of the land.

Not all Republicans are racist, but most racists are Republican. At least in my observation.

Wouldn't grouping students by their achievement level make more sense? This is just fucking racist.

Instead of addressing why the difference in performance by race exists, we will just seperate them out and hold them to a different standard, as if it is skin color or birth location that is the issue?

I don't like it one bit.

It is self sustaining as well. Once you start holding one racial group to a lower standard, you will expect less of them, they will expect less of themselves, and in the future they will expect less of their children.

It is like twisting around cause and effect so much that the effect becomes the cause.

Go and address why the difference exists. Look for the root causes. Except when you find them, you'll find that addressing all the roots causes does nothing to help the kids that are most of the way through the pipeline. Ignoring the current state of affairs punishes the kids and the teachers.

You need to do both. By and large, education researchers already know the answers they're trying to reach. They've reached the same answers for the last 50 years. The problem is, there's research showing that their answers rely on some bad assumptions. To question those assumptions is taken to show bad faith. When there's group think critical thinking is a fiction.

I like it but wish it weren't so. But it's unfair to expect a teacher to score "average" by raising one group of kids' on-level rate by 7% and the average of another group of kids by 18%. Not gonna happen and all you wind up doing is flogging the innocent and sparing the guilty.

You can't easily figure out race with Cubans they're so mixed. In one family you'll have blonde and blue and black. What would matter more then is socio-economic but how do they judge that? The good education received in primary grades in Cuba or the bad one in Hialeah?

Someone must have read "The Bell Curve". They did miss several stereotypes. Females should have lower mastery scores on Math. Fundamentalist Christians lower scores on Science. Eliminate critical thinking skills for children from Republican homes. My last two stereotypes only in America in the deep South. Last broad brushed sarcastic stereotype: Why didn't the come up with this in Texas?

so it`s aptly named the same for florida

To think that Rushton finally went and died last week too, but it looks like it'll take awhile yet for his and Hernstein's ideas to finally go away. Argh.

Because,i'm reasonably sure that i read this right.
There is something like .003% genetic spread between You,Me and anybody.(correct me if i'm wrong)
For all intents and purposes,we might as well be identical.
The real differences between People comes from the social environment where the individual lives.
This just smacks,to me of preparation for a caste state,possibly leading back to a slave based economic system.
The solution it seems to me is to cultivate a society where creativity,acquisition of skills and knowledge,and understanding are valued instead of the might makes right,gladiatorial attitude furthered by the sports/military/entertainment industries.
I guess,i'm asking too much here from the self-regulated,rational self-interest crowd.

Charter school are doing more poorly than public schools, but are left out of any accountability.

there are different levels in each grade for certain subjects like math, science and English. Students are divided according to competence and not race, with input from individual parents and students, and the results are very, very good. Why not this system rather than judging kids by race?

If you are part white, part latino, part native American, part Eastern, part black, etc...do the nut cases in Tallahassee interpolate the difference? What a crock!

Typical of the racism here....

Less than 500 years to go and I would say we are well on schedule. Ford bless us.

they've got to make this a race issue. Only in Florida!

because they can't be expected to perform as well as Asians. LOL