The Latest Dismal NAEP Scores
The latest 4th grade reading scores for U.S.
students made the front page of
The New York Times
with the
headline: "Gap Between Best and Worst Widens on U.S. Reading Test." The
reporter, Kate Zernike, observed that after a "decade-long emphasis on
lifting the achievement of all students ... the release of the scores
led to a round of finger-pointing over the cause of the growing
gap."
That would lead to some tired fingers. The gap has persisted for half a century. On that front—nothing new.
If not exactly news, the continued verbal gap between rich and poor students does deserve to be on the front page, not because of anything that happened or didn't happen last year, but because the 4th grade reading gap (which widens in each succeeding grade) represents the single greatest failure in American public schooling and the most disheartening affront to the...
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