Chicagoans Done Learned to Science
By Sean Corbett in News on Nov 16, 2006 10:58PM
Grade school kids are still taking loads of tests beyond the ones required to graduate. Chicagoist remembers the IOWA, IGAP, ISAT….etc. Those were the days... A study of the nation’s science knowledge was recently released by the National Center for Education Statistics based on one such standardized test.
Some Highlights of the study: 0% of CPS 4th graders were ranked as advanced (the highest rank) in their understanding of science, while 65% of CPS 4th graders were off the charts (in a bad way.) They were not even categorized on the studies “Basic, Proficient, Advanced” ranking system. Both race and class are good predictors of test score: White and Asian students in CPS scored near the national average score, Black and Hispanic students scored below, reduced price lunch students also scored below. Comparing “apples to apples:” Blacks, Hispanics, and reduced price lunch students in Chicago scored below the national averages for Blacks, Hispanics, and reduced price lunch students. What does this all mean? We need to work on teaching kids more science understanding. Chicagoist has found out that it’s easy to get a job when you’ve got science and math skills and everybody likes having jobs right? Compared to the other 10 big cities in the US (Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Cleveland, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City and San Diego) our scores in various categories put us consistently in 8th or 9th place.
CPS’s response: “We’re still trying to get the youth of Chicago to read good, and now you want us to teach them to science too?!?”
Critics have long argued that spending more than one school-week per year taking standardized tests serves little purpose other than reminding us that we score below national averages, and it is taking up valuable learning time which could otherwise be used to actually help remedy the situation. Chicagoist attended CPS for 12 long years and later went on to be one of the most scientifically knowledgeable people you could hope to meet. Our friends thought we were nerdy for reading Science News all the time, but look where it got us! This result for CPS is a little disappointing but not unexpected.