Kids just ain’t learnin’
in our public schools like they used to
The good news is the statewide racial achievement gap is narrowing. The bad news is that it is because white students are regressing at a faster rate than black students.
The worse news is regardless of race, kids in Wisconsin’s public schools are more stupid than in past years.
The truly calamitous news is that the majority of ALL 11th-grade students in Madison read and write below basic proficiency. Translated: they are functionally illiterate.
In Madison public schools, 39.7% of all 11th graders scored proficient or better the ACT english/language arts. That’s down from 45.8% three years ago (2015-16 school year). (Note: the stats just cited differ from the WI State Journal’s in today’s editions. They used grades 3-8 and 11. Blaska Policy Werkes is isolating on grade 11, when students are about to graduate [maybe] into the economy.)
Statewide, the WI State Journal reports, white students in fifth grade dropped 4.6 percentage points in reading and writing compared to a 1.6 drop among African-American students. That’s how the statewide racial gap is closing, at least in that statistic. Good news for those obsessed by race, one supposes.
⇒Madison’s racial achievement gap continues to yawn wide after six years of Jennifer Cheatham’s magical thinking. Only 9% of Madison’s African-American high school students tested proficient in English language arts (aka: reading and writing) in the just-completed school year, compared to almost two-thirds of white kids. The flip side is two-thirds of black kids are functionally illiterate (what the educrats like to call “below basic proficiency). And what’s up with better than one in five AA kids not taking the test at all?
Good Madison liberals, progressives and socialists will blame the Orange Man in the White House or Scott Walker. But neither was ever the state’s education chief. That would be a good Democrat name of Tony Evers, now the governor. Ditto Madison’s superintendent of schools, who would be the Guilty White Privileged Woman now stamping out more virtue signalers at Harvard University.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Why are students regressing? Class? Could one reason be the new normal: chaos in the classroom? Not just in Madison but in Sun Prairie, Middleton, and Verona — just to name three local school districts with well publicized disorders.
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
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Statistics consistently show that children who get enough to eat; have a safe, stable environment in which to play and learn; and are provided one-on-one attention, have a better chance at negotiating a difficult world in which many things are outside of their control. All of the children we serve come from disadvantaged homes. Our work provides kids another point of contact in addition to home and school; our aim is to ensure that each child hears that they matter at least once-a-day. As with all ministries at WUCC, this one seeks to meet people where they are and to love them with no other agenda. There is no proselytizing to children or an obligation for families to attend church services. Homework Club is a powerful volunteer opportunity One any given day, you can find retired teachers, local college and university students, nurses, and pastors providing tutoring help. We are always looking for new volunteers for the program, which runs from September through May. And you don’t have to do math if you don’t want to!
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