WIS Gov Makes-Up BOGUS National Ranking to Trash Wisconsin Teachers

[kpete]

Fri Feb 18, 2011 at 09:47 AM EST
WIS Gov Makes-Up Bogus National Ranking to Trash Wisconsin Teachers

by Jud Lounsbury

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If you go to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's website , you would come to the conclusion that Wisconsin's schools are in pretty rough shape. He claims that Wisconsin is ranked 30th in the nation in fourth grade reading and uses these reading scores to come to the broad and damning conclusion that "Wisconsin schools are failing our children."

Republican State Senator Glenn Grothman was on Sly in the Morning on Tuesday, also apparently was reading off the same talking points:

You have to remember, the quality of education in this state has dropped since Lee Dreyfus and Tommy Thompson were governor. I was looking at the most recent NAEP test scores, nationally, when I was a child, they they used to say Wisconsin had good schools. After the strong unionization over the last 30-40 years, our 4th grade reading test scores are below the national average.

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So, with that in mind, I look up Wiscsonsin's most recent NAEP score for fourth grade reading and it says that it is 220.14. Is this score "below the national average" as Senator Grothman claims? No. The national average score is 219.60.
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/statecomparisons/withinyear.aspx?usrSelections=0%2cRED%2c5%2c0%2cwithin%2c0%2c2
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What about the rest of the NAEP scores? Since Walker and Grothman brought it up, let's take a look. Below is a table of all of the most recent NAEP test scores:

4th Grade Math: Only five states statistically higher than Wisconsin

4th Grade Reading: Only 18 states statistically higher than Wisconsin

4th Grade Science: Only seven states statistically higher than Wisconsin

8th Grade Math: Only eight states statistically higher than Wisconsin

8th Grade Reading: Only ten states statistically higher than Wisconsin

8th Grade Science: Only five states statistically higher than Wisconsin

8th Grade Writing: Only five states statistically higher than Wisconsin

So, in other words, not only are Walker and Grothman wrong about the statistic they cherry-picked from the NAEP and tried to fabricate into some kind of phony ranking, but they were using it as a representative example of how Wisconsin schools are "failing." Clearly, the exact opposite of what they were reporting from the NAEP is true.



more plus links:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/18/946562/-WIS-Gov-Makes-Up-Bogus-National-Ranking-to-Trash-Wisconsin-Teachers

[HereSince1628]

1. The urban schools, like urban schools everywhere are averaging low

performance.

But the charter schools are beating the hell out of the public schools in terms of prosecutions for malfeasance.

[dkofos]

2. Unfortunately the lies and propaganda is all the M$M will report.

With a few exceptions.

[Ellipsis]

3. I'd be really really curious to see the numbers if you pulled MPS out of the mix...

The Milwaukee school district... the county he was in charge of and then look at the numbers. That would certainly tell a tale.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Fraud. Why don't we start calling it for what it is. Fraud. I believe that's a felony.

Same thing in Florida. The governor is using fraudulent numbers to turn his back on a works project.

[Bozita]

5. The corporate MSM needs to start doing some digging