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Detroit's Numbers Are Bad; Pontiac's Are Worse
Only 6 percent of Pontiac Public Schools juniors met state testing standards in math this past March, according to Michigan Merit Examination (MME) test results released today by the Department of Education (MDE).
In fact, 83.1 percent of test takers in this Pontiac junior class fell into the lowest-scoring category possible.
While Detroit Public School's (DPS) scores, which averaged 14 percent proficiency in math, are nothing to cheer about, they are nowhere near as shocking as Pontiac's, leaving many wondering what is to be done with the depressing state of Michigan's inner city schools.
Pontiac City School District officials did not return a call to explain the disconnect between Pontiac and the state's other inner-city school district.
Pontiac scored lower in all six tested subjects than the same junior classes in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint and Lansing, with social studies the only subject in which more than one-third of the students met testing standards.
Overall, Detroit's scores were the second-lowest of the five schools, although Detroit students scored moderately higher than Flint students in English and writing, 26 to 25 percent and 17 to 15 percent respectively.
Flint, Lansing and Grand Rapids fared better than Pontiac and Detroit, with Lansing scoring the highest in all six subjects and Grand Rapids close on its heels. However, the overall scores for all five school districts were still markedly behind the state's, averaging between 16 to 46 percent below the published state averages.
Easily the state's largest school district, the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) system has made national headlines recently after having posted a nearly $400 million budget deficit and a less than 25 percent district-wide graduation rate. This news prompted Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mike BISHOP (R-Rochester) to write a letter to State Superintendent Michael FLANAGAN, asking him investigate the district's financial problems and other issues of mismanagement (See "Bishop To Flanagan: 'More DPS Details Needed,'" 7/24/08).
A report released last month by the Schott Foundation found that Detroit has the second-lowest graduation rate for big-city school districts, with only 20 percent of black males and 17 percent of white males graduating.
Detroit's MME scores were dismally below average, with only one subject, social studies, having more than 50 percent of tested students falling in the met/exceeded testing standards. While 55 percent of Detroit students met/exceeded testing expectations on the social studies section, this proportion is down eight points from last year's 63 percent.
The average success rates for student performance in math and writing was 14 and 17 percent, respectively.
Doug ROSS, President of New Urban Learning, an education group that runs two Detroit charter schools, University Preparatory Academy and University Preparatory Science and Math, attributed much of Detroit Public School's (DPS) lack of success to its mass-production, factory-like school system.
This "obsolete high school model [characterized by] big impersonal, factory schools" works for suburban high schools, but not school districts with vulnerable student populations, which need more individual attention to keep them engaged in the schools, Ross said.
According to Ross, motivating racial minorities in urban schools is a multi-step process. Often times the fruits of a school system's labor are not directly seen in test scores.
First, he said, school must work on engaging the student and encouraging them to keep attending, boosting the graduation rates in the district. Without encouraging the students to set respectable academic goals and ensuring them that college is an attainable option, there will be no change in the test scores because test scores aren't as important as keeping students in the schools.
Inner-city schools can begin upping the rigor of the curriculum after they have succeeded in keeping students in school until graduation, Ross continued, but DPS' problem is that they're "still struggling at the first stage."
Overall, statewide test schools boasted modest improvements from 2007, with more than 50 percent of students meeting expectations in four of the six subjects. Math and writing remain the only two subjects in which less than half of students met or exceeded test standards. In 2008, 41 and 46 percent of students met test standards in writing and math, respectively.
However, on a statewide basis, scores for English, reading, writing and science increased slightly, with the math scores remaining at the 2007 level.
State Board of Education President Kathleen STRAUS attributed the increase the state saw to "a renewed emphasis on high school achievement."
The social studies achievement rate was the only subject to decrease, dropping from 83 percent in 2007 to 80 percent this year.
Of the six subjects tested, reading had the highest increase success rate, boasting a 62 percent achievement rating, up from 60 percent just a year ago, while social studies remained the "most successful" subject, though down three percentage points statewide.
While the state has seen no change in math proficiency scores, MDE officials warn that Michigan's stagnant math scores do not reflect the implementation of the much-debated Algebra II graduation requirement, which will be evident in the 2010 test scores.
One of the more troubling aspects of the statistics was the startling demarcation between white and African-American test scores, with the proportion of black students meeting the test standards ranking significantly lower than white students across the board. For example, in the statewide math ranking, black students met standards only 13 percent of the time, compared to 53 percent of white students.
Science and writing were two other clearly distinguished instances of a racial divide in test achievement. Black students only met testing standards 22 and 14 percent of the time, respectively, whereas their white counterparts met testing standards 64 and 47 percent of the time.
This divide amongst the races can be seen in the scores Detroit published, even though only 76 white juniors took the test and only 61 had their scores reported.
For example, when comparing Detroit students in their English success, black students posted a 26 percent success rate, compared to white students posting 40 percent. When comparing black students to white students in the categories of math, writing, and science the divide is 14 to 36 percent, 17 to 30 percent, and 23 to 38 percent, respectively.
On the whole, social studies was the only subject in which more than 50 percent of Detroit students posted achievement scores and this percentage was down eight points from last year, 63 to 55 percent. Reading was the only other subject to post a greater than 30 percent success rating, with the math and writing success rates falling into the teens.
Ross said he didn't believe that the racial difference seen in Detroit's schools was particularly significant, attributing the divide to an underlying class divide, thus explaining why the few white students tested actually scored significantly better than the black Detroiters.
On average, Asian and Pacific Islander students scored significantly higher across the board than their counterparts across the state. In all six subjects tested, Asian students comprised the greatest proportion of students scoring in the highest proficiency level, as well as boasting the highest overall percentage of students meeting testing standards.
They scored particularly well in the math category, with 31.8 percent of all Asian students tested scoring in Level 1, the highest proficiency level, and 35.6 percent scoring in Level 2.