The Daily Howler - 10/10/05

TELL US A STORY! Ezra Klein types a Disneyfied version of what Gene Robinson said: // link // print // previous // next //

MONDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2005

SLOWLY WE TURN: As we shift the focus of TDH, we’re working on last week’s two-hour PBS special, Making Schools Work, about public schools which have success while serving low-income minority kids. According to moderator Hedrick Smith, one such school is Charlotte’s Spaugh Middle School. But uh-oh! This past spring, only 57.7 percent of Spaugh’s black eighth graders passed North Carolina’s end-of-grade reading test; statewide, 80.5 percent of black eighth graders passed! Nor were things better on the seventh grade level. At Spaugh, 58.2 percent of black seventh graders passed, compared to 76.2 percent of black kids statewide. Statewide, 92.3 of white seventh graders passed (94.3 percent of white eighth graders). Needless to say, these facts weren’t mentioned in Making Schools Work. To check data using the official North Carolina state report, you know what to do—just click here.

Without criticizing the staff at Spaugh, why would a school with these results be singled out as a “school that works?” With a whole nation of schools to choose from, why on earth were we asked to ponder the great reforms which Spaugh hath wrought? We’re not sure, but the press has played schoolboy games for decades when it ponders the schools of minority kids. Smith’s report made viewers feel good—and that often seemed to be its chief purpose.