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04/06/2005: "NUL State of Black America"

The National Urban League released their annual report, The State of Black America, today.

Some highlights regarding education (I've only read the executive summary):

1. The authors connect teacher quality to student performance, and then cite statistics showing that black children are more likely to have a teacher without a college major in their subject than white children. The disparity is particularly obvious in middle school.

Comment: middle schools are the hardest to staff and by far the hardest places to work.


2. Black children are also much more likely to have teachers with less than three years of experience (21% of black kids vs. 10% of white kids.)
Comment: True, true. See the recent RFA report for Philly data on this subject...



3. They also have state that "test scores across nine areas show little difference between black and white students ages 9 and 17. "
Comment: too loaded a statement to be given without lots of support.