Study says scholastic gains can be fleeting

[proud2BlibKansan]

By MELODEE HALL BLOBAUM
The Kansas City Star

If education worked like a measles shot, the nation’s schoolchildren would be set for success.

But education doesn’t work like an inoculation, say analysts at The Education Trust, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group that released a report last week showing that secondary students don’t always hold on to the achievement gains made at the grade school level.

Elementary school test scores are on the rise in nearly every state, and gaps between the scores of white and minority students and rich and poor students are narrowing in grade schools, the report said. But though test scores generally are rising for middle and high school students, gaps between groups aren’t narrowing as much as in the lower grades.

In some states, including Missouri, the gap is growing wider.

“For years we have approached education as if it were immunization,” said Kati Haycock, The Education Trust’s director. “If we just get the kids early and get it right, we can immunize them against later school failure. … But education is more like nutrition: You have to get it right early and keep getting it right.”

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