

Calif. students rank 47th in science - mikecane
http://www.ocregister.com/news/students-353581-state-scores.html

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jhspaybar
It seems to me there's a giant elephant in the room that no one wants to speak
about. There is something broken with our educational system, specifically
related to blacks. If you look at the top 10 states, they are not racially
diverse consisting of large white populations. If you go from the bottom up,
you pretty much have locales ranked in their density of black population. THIS
IS A MAJOR PROBLEM. Until someone can stand up and say there is a problem
culturally in black populations that needs fixing, or can determine what our
school systems are doing wrong specifically to harm our black population our
country will continue to suffer the consequences. This is not an easy subject
to address, but it needs to be approached head on. We have a problem and it
needs to be acknowledged before it can be fixed.

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kaonashi
We have a problem in poor communities. Black communities are
disproportionately poor due to historical factors. The problem isn't that we
tap-dance around the issue, the problem is we don't like the solutions.

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enjo
What are the solutions?

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kaonashi
Investment in poor communities.

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paulhauggis
They tried that in Detroit...

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kaonashi
Yes, and certain people in Detroit didn't like the solution, so they bolted
and the whole city collapsed. They didn't seem to like the solution.

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rflrob
While it's certainly bad that California is so low (and somebody _does_ have
to be at the bottom, though I'd rather it not be one of the centers of tech),
I'm also surprised that even the top states only have about 44% of their
students "proficient/advanced".

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hsshah
Recently I saw a documentary ("Waiting for 'Superman'") about the state of
education and schools in US and its biggest challenges. It was very
disheartening. But it did try to discuss potential solutions. I highly
recommend this to anyone who wants a better picture about what's going on.

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1566648/>

It is available on Netflix streaming.

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nwenzel
Are they really going to blame statistical significance for a 47th place
showing? As if a bigger sample pushes CA up to a podium finish.

Also found the "large urban districts" comment interesting. I understand it's
an Orange County paper in which an Orange County supervisor is telling his
constituents that the story isn't representative of Orange County. But it
shouldn't be okay for "urban" kids to be 47th in science?

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idm
There's a sweet spot to be found, and I might even argue that their sample is
too large if it isn't stratified in some meaningful sense. (It seems it isn't
stratified: "Scores were not broken down beyond the state level.")

We're talking an average of 2400 students from each state. That's plenty for
certain tests, such as the question of whether or not all states perform
equally well. Since it's not stratified, we're basically talking about a rank
order test concerning 50 means (depending on how you formulate it). A sample
size of 120,000 is so enormously huge (for a question like that) that it might
even be detrimental.

The quote about small sample sizes is just wrong. If anything, this sample is
too large, such that even minuscule differences would appear to be
statistically significant, when in fact that might not be "practically
different."

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robbed
This sounds like the biggest problem:

> The exams measure knowledge and understanding of physical, life, Earth and
> space sciences.

> In California, eighth-grade students are only taught in physical science,
> not in Earth or space sciences

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spamizbad
It wouldn't surprise me if the science curriculum had to paired down due to
schools having a finite amount of time with students, and choosing to spend
that time focus on stuff that drives Reading and Math scores on testing like
the NCLB.

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georgemcbay
Suck it Mississippi, Alabama and DC! We totally pwned you!

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vbtemp
The great irony is that between Stanford, cal tech, the UCs, and the tech
sector, Calif probably ranks 1st in the world in science...

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rsanchez1
Too bad they don't invest more time and resources in educating their
community. They're content with sitting back and letting the government
mismanage the problem.

