How easy is it to relate to that thought process as an alumni, parent, or student? Very easy. I’ve fallen victim myself. I graduated with honors from a school colloquially termed, “Ghettocreek.” I lived in the blissful realm as the principal’s kid in AP and gifted classes, and I’ll tell anyone my school was amazing. After all, just look at me! In statistics, that is known as a sampling error. While doing some research for the expansion of the BKCL academic mentor program, I saw something very disconcerting.
Perusing target areas for struggling schools is the particular methodology of choice for BKCL market analysis, and finding inner city schools with less than amazing test scores isn’t very difficult, believe it or not. (If you want to know how a school is performing, I recommend www.greatschools.org.) School quality is determined by test scores, of course; however, at schools with 60% 3rd grade proficiency in English, parents comment that the school is “one of the best learning institutions I’ve ever experienced.” To put that into perspective, 40% of the 3rd grade kids at that great learning institution can’t use pronouns, write in cursive, or use a dictionary.
At one of our schools, we asked the students, who were selected by the principal for the academic mentorship program, to write autobiographies, and we received submissions from authors with a wide range of varying skill. There were some though, that were nearly illegible. 5th grade writing that didn’t have any structure or flow… or punctuation.
… in case you thought I was just being dramatic. This isn’t representative of all the students at the school, or even in the program. But now, I have put a face to the 10% when I read “90% proficient in writing.” I can’t live with 90% when the other 10% can’t spell NBA.
Enough talk. Help us do something. Sign up to be a mentor: www.blackkidscanlearn.org under “Academic Improvement.” Show these kids that they can learn.
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