Math Scores Deceiving (and Flattering)

Originally posted in a LVRJ Forum

Private-school students continue to outperform those in public schools, according to the scores.

"Math test". Intentionally vague. The material is so rudimentary that it's embarassing. For 4th graders, the degree of difficulty must have ranged from 1+1 to 325÷5; for 8th, 6+2 to 94.6÷13.5, with a few simple word problems thrown in. Still, the average NV kid only scored 47%/55% (235/274).

Pathetic.

On a 500-point scale ..

Intentionally vague.

Does that mean you get 100 points for just showing up? Does a 500 score indicate > 3 Sigma's above the mean?

The test results can't be a simple X out Y == X/Y. You don't need an army of bureaucrat statisticians to do that. Chances are the scores were all "normalized" by race, family income, geography, etc. In other words, the bureaucrats applied any number of subjective filters to make the results come out the way they wanted.

Abolish the unconstitutional US Department of Education.

How many more generations of Nevada kids are we prepared to ruin, and BILLIONS of dollars wasted, in the name of social engineering? All you people who advocate more/less testing/Ritilin/special-ed/sugar/TV/etc, just don't get it.

Public schools are a catastrophe and cannot be reformed.