

Florida Passes Plan For Racially-Based Academic Goals - stfu
http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2012/10/12/florida-passes-plan-for-racially-based-academic-goals/

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lutusp
A quote from the article: "On Tuesday, the board passed a revised strategic
plan that says that by 2018, it wants 90 percent of Asian students, 88 percent
of white students, 81 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of black students to
be reading at or above grade level."

Putting aside for the moment the racial and political issues, and because of
the technical meaning of "grade level", the described goal is impossible.

Let's say for the sake of simplicity that the size of the four named groups
are equal in the student population (the outcome of this thought experiment
doesn't depend on this assumption). Using that assumption, this means the
school board wants (90+88+81+74) / 4 = 83.25% of the students to perform at or
above grade level. But by definition, the statistical category "at or above
grade level" cannot possibly be greater than 50%, and if it was, the meaning
of "grade level" would change to accommodate that reality.

Unless the town is named Lake Wobegon (where all the students are famously
above average), this school board needs to learn some mathematics and
statistics along with laws against discrimination based on race, creed or
color.

