Chicago's Learnding

By Margaret Lyons in News on Nov 16, 2007 9:42PM

The "nation's report card" for public schools came out yesterday, and Chicago ranks behind other urban areas on reading and math for 4th and 8th graders.

about 16 percent of the 2,400 4th graders who took the reading exam showed proficiency, compared with an average of 22 percent in cities as a whole. In math, 16 percent of Chicago pupils were proficient, compared with an average of 28 percent in other cities.

About 17 percent of Chicago 8th graders made the grade in reading, compared with an average of 19 percent in the other urban areas. In math, 13 percent of city children met the proficiency level, compared with an overall urban average of 22 percent.

The news wasn't all bad, though. Chicago's Hispanic 8th graders tested better than Hispanic students in the other 11 cities (Cleveland, DC, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, Houston, Charlotte, Boston, Atlanta and Austin), and Chicago's low-income students scored higher than their economic peers in all but one other city. Unfortunately, black students "scored near the bottom of the heap in most tests."

Phillip Jackson, founder of the Black Star Project, a racial equality in schooling initiative, led a 100-person march to City Hall today to present his eight-point plan to improve education for black CPS students. Jackson's march was based on statewide data, not the national report that came out today.

In other education news, this stupid moment of silence bullshit will apparently never end. A judge ruled yesterday that the state superintendent can't punish schools for not implementing the moment of silence, even though there's nothing in the law about noncompliance in the first place.

And finally, Barack Obama unveiled his education-themed ad for New Hampshire. We give it a B.

Amundsen High School as seen with Numoero Siete's rad as hell kite aerial photography