New Study: Hungry kids score lower on tests. Shocking news?
| Black Panther Party's free Breakfast Program, circa 1969. |
Here's a shocker for you. Latest research coming out of Cardiff University confirms that kids who come to school hungry score lower on standardized tests than kids who are fed well. The latter group of the study's 11-year-olds scored twice as high as the hungry students.
More evidence that basing teacher evaluations on student test scores is bogus. What the tests are mostly measuring is student/family poverty -- not so-called "student achievement". Of course, by now nearly everyone in the field realizes this. Thus the growing movement of resistance to testing madness that have forced some small retreats in federal and state testing policies. Or maybe just lip service to change?
At any rate, Pres. Obama's call for "fewer and better tests" is welcomed by parents and educators. But it misses the point. That point being -- how high-stakes standardized testing is used to track and sort kids and to evaluate teachers.
Latest mini-retreat comes from one of the nation's greatest offenders -- N.Y. Gov. Cuomo himself.
According to NCPR:
New York State’s latest teacher evaluation system, which was Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: New Study: Hungry kids score lower on tests. Shocking news?: