BALTIMORE OPTS FOR CHOICE

 #NoWayESEA                            

  #NO WAY ESEA    #NO WAY ESEA    #NO WAY ESEA

                                                                                       By Grassroots Mom

SHAME, SHAME!
(USING THE CHILDREN FOR CORPORATE GAIN)


The spurious claims about Baltimore schools by Fox News figures seeking to promote school choice come as little surprise given conservative media's pattern of demonizing various aspects of public education, including the declaration by a Fox host earlier this year that "there really shouldn't be public schools." Such false narratives are unfortunately to be expected when the media so rarely turns to actual experts when covering education.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/04/29/fox-news-figures-blame-baltimores-awful-worst-s/203476

(1)  "On Fox News, contributor Charles Krauthammer, frequent guest Rudy Giuliani, and host Gretchen Carlson touted "school choice" in separate discussions of the riots, insinuating that Baltimore public schools are to blame for the violence"

(2)  But these allegations ignore hard evidence that Baltimore schools are improving. According to the Baltimore City Schools website, over the past several years students have made significant gains in subjects like math and reading and graduation rates have improved. Some of the district's "student
achievement" highlights include:

 "83 percent of children who entered kindergarten from City Schools pre-k were fully ready to learn."

 "In the past decade, City Schools students have made solid gains in performance as shown on the Maryland School Assessments (MSAs). In 2004, 48.8 percent of students performed at proficient or advanced levels in reading; in 2013, 67.9 percent did so. In math, the percentage of students performing at proficient or advanced levels rose from 33.5 in 2004 to 58.9 in 2013."

 "The graduation rate for students who started high school in 2008-09 and graduated within five years (by June 2013) was 71.7 percent, up 5 percentage points from two years earlier."

In addition, the U.S. Department of Education found significant increases in student achievement in Baltimore City Public Schools from 2006 to 2010, and has recognized the city's 2010 "Award for Urban School Board Excellence from the Council of Urban Boards of Education." This Department of Education graph shows a leap of more than 20 percent in math scores and more than 10 percent in reading achievement:

The spurious claims about Baltimore schools by Fox News figures seeking to promote school choice come as little surprise given conservative media's pattern of demonizing various aspects of public education, including the declaration by a Fox host earlier this year that "there really shouldn't be public schools." Such false narratives are unfortunately to be expected when the media so rarely turns to actual experts when covering education.

Related post:

HOW CAN ANYBODY BE THIS STUPID?