Please feel free to write about what you want on your blog. And please feel free to continue posting relevant comments, and I will continue publishing them.

If they’re not really out to get you, might one consider that paranoia?

Certainly this excludes the dropouts who were Hispanic. Justthought you would appreciate my attempt to add transparency to your topic.

Let me be generous ,and momentarily stupid, and say grade 4 is nothing but a miracle much in need of great adoration of Jeb, I am left wondering what good was it that I could dance like a ballerina when I was 9 but fell far below average when I was older and could do something with my ability? My brief adventiure into stupidity has ended.

I usually use my name to describe my feelings or intent after seeing you endlessly omit the retention policy factor.
Wasn’t it your own friends who found Hispanics were retained at a higher rate in a year which would have effected one of the stats you like to tout? OOPS!

As always, the existence of Math is not new. When low scores are removed from a sample, the mean rises.

It’s good to know that some things are totally predictable and dependable in these troubled times.

Florida’s 3rd grade retention policy was designed to improve early childhood literacy, and it has succeeded:

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_49.htm

Florida’s 4th grade reading scores increased 8 points before the retention policy. Further, the percentage of children scoring low enough on 3rd grade reading to be retained dropped 40% between 40% between 2003 and 2007.

http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/Demography_as_Destiny.html

If the improvement were simply an artifact of retetion, we would expect to see a huge spike in scores in 2003, and then a large drop off in 2005 and 2007.

What we actually see is steady improvement, and the obvious explanation is that kids are learning to read much better in Florida- confirmed not only by the NAEP scores but also by the dramatic decline in the percentage scoring low enough on FCAT to be eligible for retention.

Retained kids do get into the NAEP sample- sometimes a year late, often only after a summer program, etc. The good news is that they know how to read much better than their predecesors.

These facts have been presented to Hanfmann before, and if she is true to form she will again ignore them and begin a lengthy diatribe on why she believes the A-F grading system of schools in Florida is unfair.

1. Does Florida have a grade 3 retention policy? Yes
2. Would removing low scorers from the grade 4 pool raise the mean score?
3. Does Mr. Ladner compare filtered group to non-filtered groups when he compares Florida’s grade 4 to other states?
4. Does Mr. Ladner compare years when there was no retention policy to years when the retention policy was in effect?
5. Are such compariosns wise? Does Mr. Ladner omit this information?
6. Are you familiar with the work of Walter Haney of Boston University?

2008 FCAT Reading results for Florida’s grade 10 Hispanic students (Level 1 is lowest while level 5 is highest.)
Lev 1 42 %
Lev 2 28 %
Lev 3 16 %
Lev 4 6 %
Lev 5 8 %

I think I have one more for you…Was it true that the percentage proficient in grade 10 reading has increased by one (from 37-38) over the many years? This year’s tenth graders were the first class to be exposed to the accountability system for their school career.

http://jaypgreene.com/2009/06/30/the-rush-to-judgment/