Today's Date: March 29, 2024
Chosgo K23: One of the Best Bluetooth Hearing Aids for Seniors   •   Seniors Helping Seniors® In-Home Care Services Expands to North Houston   •   Midea Group releases its first-ever ESG brand story with an unexpected VIP visit highlighting its commitment to sustainability.   •   Coachella Concerned That People Have Sex, Says AHF   •   World Class Dyslexia, Literacy, and Neuroscience Experts Gather with Educators for Two-Day Professional Learning Event   •   Walmart Connect Announced as Presenting Sponsor of the 2024 WIN Summit   •   Charity Navigator Launches Women's Advocacy List for Women's History Month   •   Navigating Spring Break Sexual Health: Advice from Dr. Deb Laino Sex and Relationship Therapist and Powerful Life Coach   •   AMIGOS FOR KIDS LAUNCHES "THE MISSING REVIEW"   •   Navigating Birth Control: Expert Advice from Dr. Bana Kashani, OB-GYN   •   National University Receives 2024 Military Friendly® Gold Designation   •   Syngenta Group reports $32.2 billion sales and $4.6 billion EBITDA in 2023   •   Committee for Children Now Offers a PreK-12 Full-Suite Solution with the Highly Anticipated Launch of Second Step® High Scho   •   Anaergia Announces Escrow Closing of Second Tranche of the Strategic Investment   •   Unique online yoga platform offers lifeline for menopausal women   •   Re:wild and Colossal Biosciences team up to leverage revolutionary technology to save critically endangered species on the brink   •   Naropa University Launches Pioneering Psychedelic Minor     •   e.l.f. Cosmetics Debuts TikTok Shop Super Brand Day   •   101 Mobility® Eden Prairie: Leading the Way in Mobility and Accessibility Solutions   •   Anaergia Announces Delay in the Filing of Its Audited Financial Statements and Related Disclosures
Bookmark and Share

CA Minority Student Reading Levels Dropping

SAN FRANCISCO - Florida’s low-income, Hispanic, and black fourth graders now outperform all California fourth graders on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessment according to a policy brief released today by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a California-based think tank.Demography Is Still Not Destiny attributes this striking gap to Florida’s comprehensive education reform efforts combining accountability, transparency, and parental choice. Authors Vicki E. Murray, Ph.D., PRI associate director of Education Studies, and Matthew Ladner, Ph.D., vice president of research at the Goldwater Institute, recommend enacting similar reforms in California.

“In 1998, the year before the Florida reforms began, California and Florida both ranked near the bottom for NAEP scores,” said Dr. Ladner. “After a decade of comprehensive reform, Florida fourth graders rank among the country’s highest performers. Meanwhile, the reading performance of California fourth graders remains stuck near the bottom.”
“Like California, Florida has one of the largest and fastest growing Hispanic populations, and almost half of all students are low-income,” added Dr. Murray. “Turning conventional wisdom on its head, the very students usually blamed for poor statewide public-school performance are actually fueling Florida’s meteoric rise in reading performance.”
Demography is Still Not Destiny outlines Florida’s broad efforts to improve student performance by instituting a variety of curricular and incentive-based reforms, placing pressure both from the top down and the bottom up on schools to improve. Areas that deserve attention include:

Parental choice
Social promotion
Alternative teacher certification
Curriculum reform
Letter grades for schools
Standards weighting
Literacy reforms
Performance bonuses for teachers and schools

“California cannot achieve global competiveness through minor tweaks of a largely underperforming system. Moreover, faced with staggering deficits and state debt, Californians can no longer afford a status quo that fails millions of students,” concluded Dr. Murray. “Fortune favors the bold, and a brighter future waits California students if California adults will take stronger action.”

Demography Is Still Not Destiny
Demography Is Still Not Destiny is the third installment of Making the Pieces Fit, a series of policy briefs recommending reforms for California’s education system. The brief also serves as a follow up to Demography Is Not Destiny, a study released by PRI in 2008. 
For 31 years, the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) has championed freedom, opportunity, and individual responsibility through free-market policy solutions. PRI is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. For more information, please visit our web site at www.pacificresearch.org. 


STORY TAGS: BLACK, AFRICAN AMERICAN, MINORITY, CIVIL RIGHTS, DISCRIMINATION, RACISM, , RACIAL EQUALITY, BIAS, EQUALITY, culture

Video

White House Live Stream
LIVE VIDEO EVERY SATURDAY
alsharpton Rev. Al Sharpton
9 to 11 am EST
jjackson Rev. Jesse Jackson
10 to noon CST


Video

LIVE BROADCASTS
Sounds Make the News ®
WAOK-Urban
Atlanta - WAOK-Urban
KPFA-Progressive
Berkley / San Francisco - KPFA-Progressive
WVON-Urban
Chicago - WVON-Urban
KJLH - Urban
Los Angeles - KJLH - Urban
WKDM-Mandarin Chinese
New York - WKDM-Mandarin Chinese
WADO-Spanish
New York - WADO-Spanish
WBAI - Progressive
New York - WBAI - Progressive
WOL-Urban
Washington - WOL-Urban

Listen to United Natiosns News