What's happened to Chicago schools since Arne Duncan got Judge Kocoras to lift the deseg consent decree

Students wait for the bus in front of Bouchet Elementary Math & Science Academy in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood. More than 74% of students whose neighborhood school is majority black schools are bussed to majority-black schools. (Manuel Martinez/WBEZ)

I'm reading Sarah Karp's WBEZ story about Chicago's experiment with school desegregation and recalling how Arne Duncan helped get a federal judge to quash the city's deseg consent decree.

Karp writes:

Most of the city’s 78 magnet and test-in schools — including classical, gifted and selective enrollment — were created under the decree as a way to lure in a diverse group of students. But even after the court order was lifted, school district officials said they believed integration was important, and they started integrating by the socioeconomic status of children.

In 2009, U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras lifted the consent decree ending three decades of efforts to integrate Chicago schools. The decree’s bilingual education provisions, according to Kocoras, duplicated protections in state law. The ruling came despite evidence presented by DOJ lawyers in court that the district repeatedly failed to enroll English learners in bilingual education fast enough or provide them with required services.

Since then, writes Karp, CPS has continued busing and spending extra funding on magnet and test-in schools and also added 13 new ones plus more charter schools that have been shown to contribute to segregation. This year, the school district plans to spend $50 million for bussing and extra positions at these schools, which serve 62,000 students.

But, says Karp, the WBEZ analysis finds only about 20% of magnet and test-in schools meet the racial makeup goal set out in the court order, compared to 35% a decade ago. Under that definition, the goal was for white students to make up between 15% and 35% of the student body and black, Latino and Asian students to make up between 65% and 85%.

Six schools of the 65 in existence 10 years ago went from being considered integrated to not, while only one of the new schools has that mix of students. Among the schools no longer meeting this definition of integrated are Skinner North Elementary School, which opened in the last decade, and Walter Payton College Prep High School — two schools often named as the best in the city and the state. They have both seen significant increases in white students. 

Magnet schools and busing programs that were created and funded for the purpose of encouraging racial desegregation have since been turned into their opposites. Now magnets have increasingly become privileged selective-enrollment schools, anchors for neighborhood gentrification with expensive busing programs taking children miles away from their neighborhood schools and into segregated ones.

Niketa Brar on Hitting Left

Niketa Brar, executive director of Chicago United for Equity, and a frequent guest on Hitting Left, says magnet and selective schools have been used as a way to allow families to avoid the problems of the public school system. This is especially true in gentrifying neighborhoods, she said, where parents put their children on buses to be driven away from their local schools.

Brar tells Karp:

“They become little havens of white people feeling like they are participating in the public school system while actually keeping their children segregated from the impacts of a local neighborhood school that have the same resources that every other child in their neighborhoods gets.”

It's worth recalling that it was Pres. Obama's Secretary of Education and former CPS school chief, Arne Duncan, along with Mayor Daley and Duncan's successor Ron Huberman, who pleaded with Judge Kocoras to scrap the decree a decade ago. They claimed that the city had done all it could do to desegregate its schools and that the deseg struggle was "futile and a drain on district funds".

This,  even though research has shown that the period in which school deseg was in full play was when the district had made the greatest gains in measurable student learning and closing the so-called achievement gap.

Duncan maintained that if the consent decree was lifted, CPS could save $300 million, mostly in eliminating bus service to magnet and selective enrollment schools. It was all a lie. Busing service and selective enrollment programs and charter schools have been expanded. Only their purposes have changed.

Under Rahm Emanuel, Chicago's selective-enrollment schools became even more exclusive.

During the period of 1981 to 2015, the total population of African-American students in CPS plummeted from close to 240,000, 60% of all CPS students, to 156,000 or 39% of CPS. The loss of so many poor and black children and an increase in wealthier white students have since been ignored as an explanation for claimed rising test scores and graduation rates.

I'd argue that they, along with school resegregation, have lots to do with it.

We'll see if and how things change over the next four years with a new mayor and city council. 

Timuel Black's endorsement of Lori Lightfoot

Press Release – Professor Timuel D. Black, Jr., noted Chicago civil rights activist and historian, endorses Lori Lightfoot for mayor

Mar 21, 2019

Civil rights leader and scholar Timuel D. Black today announced his support for Lori Lightfoot in the current mayoral runoff election. Black, a career educator and author of several major volumes on the history of Chicago’s African-American community, released a statement about the mayoral race:

“I’ve been listening to political candidates for most of my 100 years of living. I feel confident that I can discern quality, intellect, and integrity when I hear it. I’ve been impressed by Lori’s thoughtful discussion of the complex issues we face as a city, and her commitment to make essential changes.

“Above all, I am so proud that we will have two African-American women in leadership positions When Lori becomes mayor, we will have two strong, accomplished and dedicated female executives–one in charge of the City of Chicago and the other in charge of Cook County. This is good news for the city, the county and the State of Illinois, and women especially can take great pride in this historic moment. That’s why I support Toni Preckwinkle to remain as the President of the Cook County Board, and I’m supporting Lori to take on the mantle of mayor.

“We will prove that we truly ‘hold these truths to be self-evident’–that all human beings are created equal. I’m just so pleased that I am here to witness this momentous event in our history. I’ll be casting my vote for Lori Lightfoot on April 2.”

“Dr. Timuel Black is a living legend and I am so honored to receive his endorsement for mayor,” said Lightfoot. “As an educator, a historian, and a civil rights activist, Dr. Black has always stood on the side of justice and fought to empower the disadvantaged and the dispossessed. As mayor, I will always strive to live up to Dr. Black’s immense legacy and work to lift up voices that are too often ignored.”

###

If school reform is the 'civil rights issue of our time', it's been a dismal flop.

During Arne Duncan's seven-year hitch as Obama's Ed. Sec., while he was using federal funds to punish mostly black and Latino, inner-city schools for their low test scores under Race To The Top, he was fond of calling school reform, "the civil rights issue of our time".  It's a claim being repeated by his successor John King.

Well if corporate-style reform, ie. testing madness, turnarounds, school closings, mass teacher firings and charters, is aimed at promoting equity and civil rights, it's been a dismal failure by all measures.

For example, there been a strong link established between "school choice" programs and an increase in student segregation by race, ethnicity, and income. Studies in a number of different states and school districts show that charter schools also contribute to increased school segregation

A review of the today's release from the Civil Rights Data Collection, also confirms the point. It shows the damage left in the wake of RTTT.

According to this report, Nationwide, 2.8 million students were suspended from public schools during the 2013-2014 school year. But black students were nearly four times as likely to be suspended as white students, and nearly twice as likely to be expelled. The same pattern showed up in preschool: Black children represented 19% of all preschoolers but accounted for 47% of those who received suspensions.

I know what you're thinking: "preschoolers suspended?" Yes, especially black preschoolers.

The latest data show that even as the nation's high school graduation rate has risen, many students lack access to college-preparatory classes in math and science. Just 48% of the nation's high schools offer calculus, for example, and the figure is even lower -- 33% -- among schools with predominantly black and Hispanic populations.

____________________________________________________
School Discipline

Black public preschool children are suspended from school at highrates: Black preschool children are 3.6 times as likely to receive one or moreout-of-school suspensions as white preschool children.

• Black children represent 19% of preschool enrollment, but 47% ofpreschool children receiving one or more out-of-school suspensions;in comparison, white children represent 41% of preschool enrollment,but 28% of preschool children receiving one or more out-of-schoolsuspensions.• Black boys represent 19% of male preschool enrollment, but 45% of malepreschool children receiving one or more out-of-school suspensions.• Black girls represent 20% of female preschool enrollment, but 54%of female preschool children receiving one or more out-of-schoolsuspensions. (2013-14 CRDC DATA HIGHLIGHTS: A FIRST LOOK)
________________________________________________________________

According to the data, predominantly black and Latino schools also have more more cops and fewer counselors on staff.

Black students were also three times as likely to be enrolled in schools where more than
20% of teachers have not met all state certification or licensure requirements.

As for students with disabilities, they are more likely to be physically restrained or secluded than others, according to the data. They also are more than twice as likely to be suspended.

Schools are more racially segregated than at any time since the 1954 Supreme Court's Brown decision. Latinos and blacks, the two largest minority groups, attend schools more segregated today than during the civil rights movement forty years ago. In Latino and African American populations, two of every five students attend intensely segregated schools.  For Latinos this increase in segregation reflects growing residential segregation. For blacks a significant part of the reversal reflects the ending of desegregation plans in public schools throughout the nation.

So what good is reform if it only widens the gap?

Achievement Gap or Opportunity Gap?

At last... researchers in Boston are talking about the "opportunity gap" rather than just the "achievement gap." An Annenberg Institute study, released in November, revealed stark opportunity gaps and a separate, lesser educational track for black and Latino males in Boston.

Black and Latino males collectively make up about 78 percent of Boston schools’ male population. At every stage of education, black and Latino males have limited access to rigorous coursework such as advanced work classes, elite exam schools and college readiness curricula. As a result, the report says, black and Latino males in Boston schools have lower attendance rates, higher suspension and dropout rates, lower proficiency rates and lower graduation rates than peers. -- Learning Lab

Another recent study authored by UC Berkeley prof, Bruce Fuller,  found that a significant percentage of Mexican-American children who matched their white counterparts in cognitive growth at 9 months of age had fallen behind by the time the children reached 2 years old.

These findings exist even though other research has found that based on other measures, such as social and emotional growth and physical health, young Mexican-American children are quite similar to white children.

"These youngsters grow up in warm and supportive families and that yields emotional and social agility," Fuller said in an interview. "But all that caring and support isn't necessarily infused with rich language and asking kids questions and asking kids to articulate words and their own feelings." 

Mexican-American children who demonstrated strong cognitive growth in the study were more likely to have had mothers who had completed some college, worked outside the home, and read to their children daily, the study found.

Fuller's conclusions reflect his own racial bias as well. They reflect a whitenized vision of what good parenting is. Omit assets Mexican-American children carry with them.

Studies like these shine a light on the process of  systemic social reproduction, meaning the structures and activities that transmit social inequality from one generation to the next.

For example, our increased reliance on standardized testing as the indicator of "student achievement" only serves to maintain social and economic inequality. Higher education, rather than being the great social equalizer, threatens to become the great gate keeper as tests are used increasingly to sort and track kids rather than diagnostic tools for educators. Poverty and racial discrimination are seen simply as a "excuses" for poor performance.

On Chicago graduation rates. They're dizzy with success.

Crain's

 "This is a moment to celebrate." -- Consortium senior researcher Kaleen Healey, lead author of the report.

According to a study by the U. of Chicago's Consortium on Chicago School Research, CPS' graduation rate is up 4 points this year and more of those grads are enrolling in college and graduating (14%). Last year, 57.2% of CPS graduates enrolled into college, which was an increase of 1.2% from 2012. That's good, isn't it? It's an estimated rise of 6% over 8 years (Wow!). If that is, you have faith in the transparency of the system and faith that the researchers are measuring the same thing. I don't. But that's for another blog post.

Rahm and Byrd-Bennett are dizzy with delight, as is the Sun-Times editorial board. The Mayor bristles at the suggestion that the rising high school graduation rate might be the result of changes put in place under former Mayor Daley, saying his administration has “doubled down on that strategy” (what ever that strategy was).

While he may give a perfunctory nod to teachers and school administrators in his CPS press releases, it is clear from all the photo ops around the release of the report that he's happy to take credit. And Rahm deserves it, say the pundits (especially in an election year), for all the extra time he and BBB have put in, teaching and coaxing kids who might have otherwise dropped out or abandoned hope of going to a 4-year university after catching sight of the state tuition rates.

The Consortium gives credit to its own research, which they say has led to successful early interventions on the part of BBB and the school district. There may be some truth in the claim. But the way it's being spun -- good data trumps poverty -- makes me leery. I'm not exaggerating. Here's a quote from U of C's Tim Knowles:

Suddenly, addressing the dropout problem was not about the host of factors over which educators have no control — neighborhoods, poverty, violence or prior academic achievement. There was a single, manageable intervention point: ninth grade course performance.

So wait. Let's not pop the cork on the bubbly quite yet, Kaleen and Tim.

A closer look reveals lots of spin and cherry picking of the data to cover over the continued widening of the racial gap on grad rates Take the rates among African-American male students for example. It's true that their grad rate went up slightly over past years. But the rate of degree attainment remains in the single digits for black boys, at 6%. It was only 4% 6 years ago so you could say that's an amazing increase, percentage wise. Yes, you could say that if you're the incumbent mayor, running for re-election and in charge of the entire school system.

Or you might compare it to the grad and degree attainment rate of white males which improved from 17% to 27% over the past 6 years, or a 62% increase, nearly double the rate of black student improvement.

Of course, one can spin these numbers any which way. And since school data has become little more than political fodder, one will. But here's the essentials, at least the way I see them.

• Talking about percent increase is meaningless here. Grad and college degree rates of CPS students are still dreadfully low, especially for black and Latino students. 
• There is a trend upward, here and in most urban districts. But it's relatively small and uneven.
• The Consortium Report gives no indication of any causal relationship between the mayor's imposed education policies and any of the gains in graduation or degree attainment. 
• While most racial, ethnic and gender groups have shown slight increases in grad and college-going rates over the past decade, the gap continues to widen and educational inequities continue to grow.
• All this may have more to do with demographic changes in the city and nationally over the past decade than anything going on inside of school classrooms, ie. a decline in the black student population (200,000 black people have left Chicago) or the worsening of living conditions for families on the south and west sides of the city while post-recession economic conditions improve on the north side.
• Whenever we talk about quality of life statistics or chances of success or survival statistics (crime, shootings and murder rates, unemployment), we really need to examine them from the "two-cities"-- increasingly separate and unequal-- perspective. This, rather than averaging them all in together, which tells us little about what's really going on in the schools. 

It's my opinion and many others in the field that educational inequality, not school, teacher, or parent "failure" is the central problem facing CPS and other urban districts. It's the issue that Rahm, as well as his two main contenders need to address directly as we approach election time in February. We should be happy about any upswings in reported graduation rates. But we should keep a critical eye on the research and on early calls for celebration. 

20,000 homeless CPS students. Not an 'excuse' but a reality.

Homeless Jesus statue unveiled in Chicago. But 20,000 homeless students remain invisible. 

I and many others have been trying to make the case for years, that children's lived experiences outside of school have as great, or even greater impact on measurable learning outcomes than anything that goes on in the classroom. Conditions of poverty, homelessness, poor medical care, pandemic violence, poor nutrition, etc.. all play major roles in shaping the student's connection to school.

Of course, great teachers, small classes and small, well-equipped schools, along with good school district, state and federal policies and leadership can do much to counter or soften the negative impact of poverty but nevertheless, today's widening poverty gap explains most of what is called, the "achievement gap."

In today's test-crazy school environment, the above statement is often attacked by corporate reformers as "making excuses" or "defending the status quo." But the facts are stubborn fellows and can't be dismissed so easily.

Take as a case in point Monday's public meeting by a state task force, which concluded that homelessness and transportation are two big reasons why so many Chicago Public Schools students are truant and that mass school closings in black and Latino neighborhoods have intensified the problem. The task force estimated that 20,000 CPS students do not have a stable place to live.

"Homelessness is not always those who live on the street or in shelters but also those staying with family and friends on a regular basis," said Antoinette Taylor, chairwoman of the 42-member Truancy in Chicago Public Schools Task Force. "And because of school closings it has forced students to travel even farther to get to school." -- DNAinfo

According to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, there were 2,615 homeless students attending the 99 schools that are being closed or scheduled to receive closing schools.

The Coalition warned Byrd-Bennett and Rahm about the potential consequences of the school closings and turnarounds for homeless students last May.

Under the massive plan, another 28 schools are impacted – five schools will become “turnarounds,” with all teaching and support staff fired and replaced, and 23 grade and high schools will undergo 11 “co-locations” in shared buildings. When including all 127 schools impacted by closure/mergers, turnaround and co-locations, a total of 41,096 students will be impacted, and  3,607 students (8.8%) are homeless.

Let's see what, if anything will change now that the task force has heard from community voices.

Common Core Standards not so common

CCCS were supposed to prepare students for a global economy by equipping them with critical thinking skills. They were touted as a way to even the playing field so that class, race and gender wouldn't determine what and who were being taught (See Jean Anyon on Social Class and School Knowledge).

But it appears that the implementation of Common Core standards reflects and reproduces the growing divide and inequities between have and have-not states and school districts. Given the expensive and redundant testing regimen that comes with CCCS, it's the testing,  publishing and training companies that are benefiting, more than the poorest and neediest kids.

A new study finds that, "cuts or freezes in state funding … have negatively affected CCSS implementation activities in some states," with 20 states reporting K-12 funding deceases. Twelve of these states reported that these reductions led to scaling back Common Core efforts. States also reported that their education agencies are struggling with capacity."

Although many states have already begun teaching content based on the Common Core State Standards and preparing school staff to implement the strict educational standards, they are also struggling to come up with the funds to properly train their teachers, according to two reports from George Washington University's Center on Education Policy. -- U.S. News and World Report

The CEP is heavily funded by the Gates Foundation and as you might expect, the report is overall favorable to Common Core despite these apparent inequities in its implementation.

Joy Resmovits writes in Huffington:

Only one-quarter of all states surveyed reported they had enough staff to support implementation, provide professional development and help school districts ease into the digital exams associated with Common Core. And 32 states indicated they're having trouble connecting the standards to a new wave of teacher and principal evaluations. "Funding levels in K-12 may be stabilizing, but most state education associations are under-resourced," [CEP Director Maria]Ferguson said. 

In L.A. the least experienced teachers are being placed with the neediest kids

A new Harvard study shows the so-called "achievement gap" growing wider in L.A. as the neediest of the district's students are taught by the least experienced teachers. Under Supt. John Deasy's control,  LAUSD has increased its reliance on extended substitutes and TFA five-week wonders as an austerity measure and a way of undermining the union contract. First-year teachers are assigned to students who begin the year academically behind students assigned to more experienced teachers.

According to the L.A. Times:

No single finding can produce a strategy to erase the district’s substantial achievement gap between white students and their black and Latino classmates, the study said, noting that the difference in performance on fifth-grade math tests is roughly equivalent to more than one and half years of learning. 

The study also shows the limitations on the district's use of value-added or "teacher affects" evaluation based on student standardized test scores.

Further, teacher effects are only as good as the assessment used to formulate them. Assessments that are insufficiently challenging or that are poorly aligned to the curriculum that the district expects its teachers to cover will not yield useful estimates.

Yet, it is just those types of assessment that the study and the district rely on to generate their evaluations.

Disaster politics

The most compelling Tweet this morning comes from Chris Policano ‏@cdpolicano:

The government. Hated by conservatives. Until suddenly it isn't. #FEMA”

No one knows for sure how Sandy will affect polling says pollster supremo Nate Silver. How any of those 50 million people (voters?) whacked by Sandy could support the candidate who calls for the liquidation and privatization of FEMA and who mocks the idea of climate change, boggles the mind. Conciliating Dems are also proposing big cuts in FEMA funding, 3% as compared with 40% by proposed by the Republicans --this as a first step towards liquidation.

Aside from the closing of thousands of storm-threatened schools, I haven't heard much yet about the damage to schools in N.Y. and New Jersey and what impact the storm will have on public education. But I can't help thinking about what happened in the wake of Hurricane Katrina when Arne Duncan called the storm, "the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans."  Katrina opened the door for the privatization/charterization of New Orleans school public school system and with it, the firing of every public school teacher and the destruction of the teachers union.

Duncan was only echoing pal Rahm Emanuel's charge to never let "a crisis to go to waste" and that of their mentor Milton Friedman who described Katrina as "an opportunity" rather than a disaster.

I'm sure Mayor Bloomberg in N.Y. and Gov. Christie in N.J. would both relish such an "opportunity."

The Recruiting of High Scoring Students Award goes to...

Here's one reason for the gap.

To determine the Best High Schools national rankings, schools were first analyzed at the state level in terms of how well students in each school performed on state assessments. -- U.S. News

I find it implausible that The School for the Talented and Gifted in Dallas should be named the "top public high school in the country." While I'm sure it's a perfectly good school for those students it selects, I find the name to be presumptuous.  After all, aren't all of our children talented and gifted in different way? Of course by talented and gifted, they mean, high-scoring on standardized tests. OK then why not just face up to the fact that you are only teaching kids who score high and then reaping awards from some business mag for having students with high test scores.

Among U.S. News' top 20 high schools are four charter schools, "which usually accept a limited number of students through an application process and are also exempt from some of the government regulations of other public schools." Charters have also become infamous for screening out English Language Learners and kids with disabilities. Two others on the U.S. News list are magnet schools, "which use an application process that typically involves test scores and grade point averages to attract the most talented students in a region."

This ranking system is little more than a marketing system. One that matches perfectly with Arne Duncan's Race To the Top approach to school funding and improvement. It can only lead to the reproduction of all the basic inequities our society faces with the end result being a two-tier system of schooling -- one tier for the elite and another, with few resources and little chance for success.

No surprise -- AP pass rate mirrors family income

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the gap in student achievement across the region tracks almost exactly the differences in wealth between the state's richest and poorest jurisdictions. -- Baltimore Sun

Maryland leads the rest of the nation in AP test scores. But what the test results really show is that kids from wealthy Maryland districts like are scoring high while the gap between them and their fellow students from low-income communities is growing ever wider. Fewer than 3 percent of Baltimore city students passed an AP exam, for example, and that represents an improvement.

Despite the "no excuses" mantra of the corporate school reformers, this disparity has less to do with anything going on inside the classroom or with "bad teachers" as it does with the lives of students outside of school.

According to the Sun report:

As one might expect, the reason is that affluent families have far more time and resources to devote to their children's upbringing and education than do poor families, and the differences start long before a student ever sits down to take an AP exam. The intensive intellectual cultivation and stimulation that affluent parents — who are themselves likely to be more educated than their low-income peers — lavish on children literally begins in infancy continues throughout their school careers, and it includes everything from better diet, nutrition and health care to cultural activities, weekend sports and family vacations.

Fordham's "High Flyer" report gets low marks

"The report’s flawed analysis and interpretation leads to biased results and to an unsupported conclusion that many high-performing students do not maintain their academic edge while more low-performing students catch up." -- NEPC review of High Flyer

These days, it's getting tougher for right-wing think tanks to pass off their school reform propaganda as legitimate research. The reason? There's a group of skilled academics over at NEPC, armed with the necessary research skills, who are able to take on and debunk their politically-aimed studies.

Case in point -- A recent report put out by the conservative Fordham Institute and Northwest Evaluation Association, Do High Flyers Maintain Their Altitude?, claims that the academic performance of high-achieving students is being undermined by a policy focus on lower-achieving students.

The problem is, their claim isn't supported by solid evidence. University at Buffalo, SUNY, professor Jaekyung Lee, a nationally known expert on accountability and equity issues in education, finds that Fordham's conclusions rest on biased methodology and misleading arguments.

Lee concludes:

"So the good news or bad news, depending on one’s predilection, is that everybody improves to more or less the same extent over time, implying equal benefits of schooling. However, if we are concerned about the issue of equity, the picture looks gloomy. The clear bad news is that the achievement gap between high and low achievers is large and does not narrow over time in general. And more specifically, racial and poverty gaps also do not narrow (and sometimes widen) over time."

Find Jaekyung Lee’s review on the NEPC website at: http://greatlakescenter.org/docs/Think_Twice/TT_Lee_HighFlyers.pdf

In fairness, Fordham's Mike Petrilli went on the Jim Bohannon Show and got Jimbo to say that he found the study to be "very important."

Pew Study: Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs

A third of black & Latino families have no wealth

Hispanic families accounted for the largest single decline in wealth of any ethnic and racial group in the country during the recession, according to a study published Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. Moreover, about a third of black (35%) and Hispanic (31%) households had zero or negative net worth in 2009, compared with 15% of white households. In 2005, the comparable shares had been 29% for blacks, 23% for Hispanics and 11% for whites. The median wealth of Hispanic and black households is at its lowest point since 1984, when the Census Bureau first conducted the study, the report said. 

“It’s a very stark reminder of the high share of minorities who live at the economic margins of this country,” said Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew Research Center and an author of the report. “These data really show their economic vulnerability.” -- New York Times

To the "no excuses" crowd: Will the widening poverty gap be reflected in the so-called educational "achievement gap? You bet.

The Vitamin D Gap

A good reason to keep and expand health care reform

Severe Vitamin D deficiencies may cause cognitive impairment, missed school days, and affect a student's academic ability. More importantly it can also lead to high risks of death from cardiovascular disease, asthma, cancer, diabetes and other serious physical and mental health problems. It, along with other elevated health risks for African-American children may provide reasons for the widening so-called "achievement gap" in standardized test results.

Recent studies find 98% of African-Americans and 90% of Mexican-Americans are Vitamin D deficient. That compares with 72% of whites. Of those, 27% of African-Americans and 8.5% of Mexican-Americans suffer from severe Vitamin D deficiency as compared with only 2.5% of whites.

Reasons for the gap may include darker skin, with higher levels of melanin, reduces the body's ability to make Vitamin D in response to sunlight exposure. But there's a poverty factor operating as well. Those with resources can usually make up for deficiencies by taking vitamin supplements or adjusting their diets. Those living in poverty and without access to medical care, often don't even know they are deficient.

Today's corporate school reformers would like us to believe that the entire responsibility for measurable learning outcomes rest on the school and individual classroom teachers. They show little interest in improving the conditions for students outside of school and claim that focusing on such issues is simply an "excuse" for low performance. Providing all students with (especially preventive) medical care and children of color with Vitamin D supplements could go a long way in narrowing the gap.

What tests may really be measuring

90% African-American children on food stamps, lack Vitamin D

I'm no statistician, but I was taken by the statistical correlation I found in two recent studies.

One released Monday in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine reveals that half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher.

The other Academy of Pediatrics study, which came out a week ago, shows a similar percentage of children and black and Hispanic children in particular, suffering from Vitamin D deficiencies. Such deficiencies compromise the immune system and can make children more susceptible to diseases like the H1N1 virus.

What's missing is a study of the effect the two above may have on student learning and relative scores on standardized tests. Is it possible that what these tests are really measuring in large part, is the relative health and nutrition levels among school children?

If so, shouldn't the new version of NCLB mandate states to look after the proper nutrition of all students, close the Vitamin D gap, and track annual yearly progress (AYP)?

Closing the gap

National Journal Online asks its teacher-free panel of experts, what to do to close the achievement gap? The response from most is the usual blah, blah, blah. Monty Neill and Pedro Noguera, as expected, are on target. Andrew Rotherham, as expected, is the worst. He's still moaning over the collapse of Reading First, the great neocon reading swindle that nearly got past the investigators.