The comparison between Chicago, 10 other large urban U.S. school districts and dozens of foreign countries found Chicago ranked close to Slovenia and Armenia and far below economic competitors such as Singapore, Japan and Taiwan.I would like to know how they come up with these measures. How do they determine that CPS students don't know their math just as students in third-world nations don't know their math?
"Our urban district students are performing no differently than many Third World nations,'' said study co-author John Dossey, an emeritus math professor at Illinois State University. "It doesn't bode well.''
Although CPS math scores have improved since 2003, fourth-graders still tested worse than all but Cleveland and Washington, D.C., in the United States. Just 13 percent of CPS eighth-graders were proficient in math, putting them on par with students in countries such as Bulgaria, Cyprus, Jordan and Macedonia.
"It is alarming,'' said Gary Phillips of the American Institutes for Research, which released the report.
Measured alone, I'm not sure that I'd be surprised that CPS students don't know their math. The question is what do we do about it. Do we throw more money at the schools? Do we find more qualified teachers? What can be done?
Via The Capitol Fax morning shorts.
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