NEPC Resources on Diversity – Race, Ethnicity, Class, Culture, and/or Gender
The Dark Side of Parent Fundraising
NEPC Review: Fewer Children Left Behind: Lessons From the Dramatic Achievement Gains of the 1990s and 2000s (Thomas B. Fordham Institute, October 2019)
A Fordham report highlights the historic academic progress of Black and Hispanic groups over the past two decades, at the elementary school level, on the NAEP exam. From this, the report offers the major claim, based on its author’s eyeball test, that the academic progress of students of color is attributable “mostly” to poverty reduction. The report, however, also acknowledges that correlation is not causation and calls for systematic statistical analysis to test the author’s proposition. This review responds to that call by examining the validity of the report’s arguments around progress and causes, looking to expanded data sources, including both family income and school expenditures. The review notes uneven patterns of achievement among grade levels and refutes the report’s claim that flat achievement trends among twelfth graders are a result of dropout reductions.
Who “Gets” to Be Bilingual?
Bad and Better News about School Segregation
A Weak Defense of a Useless Report
NEPC Review: The Michigan Context and Performance Report Card: High Schools 2018 (Mackinac Center, January 2019)
A Mackinac Center for Public Policy report, The Michigan Context and Performance Report Card: High Schools 2018, seeks to measure and publicize high school performance by ranking schools according to their test scores. Although this has been done previously in many contexts, this publication touts as its major contribution taking socioeconomic status into account in its school rankings. While the stated goal of the report is laudable, the reality falls far short due to several shortcomings, detailed in this review. Given these shortcomings, the rankings presented in this report should be given no weight in any discussions of policy or practice. In fact, this report does a disservice by introducing questionable information in an easily readable form that is not substantiated by any credible analysis.
Update: Ben DeGrow and Michael Van Beek posted a response to the review in a blog post at: https://www.mackinac.org/critique-of-cap-report-card-fires-blanks.
John T. Yun’s response to the blog is posted immediately below the review. There is a corresponding newsletter at:
https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/newsletter-yun-response-050219.