Education

by David Safier

I posted yesterday about a truly terrible, misleading article in the Star written by Alexis Huicochea about the achievement of students in the Mexican American Studies program. Read the first half, and you would think the MAS people are liars claiming their students achieve and graduate at a higher rates than other students. Read the second half — the part few people get to — and you'll find that the TUSD statistician and the Supe, John Pedicone, agree the program raises students achievement scores and graduation rates.

I'm going to go into a longer analysis after the jump, but I want to keep it short here. Here is a summary of the findings put together by the TUSD statistician David Scott.

• In February, Scott analyzed the graduation rate of all Hispanic students in TUSD in the 2010 cohort and those in Mexican American Studies. The Mexican American Studies students graduated at an 11% higher rate: 89% compared to 78% for all Hispanics. The AIMS passing rate of Hispanics in Mexican American Studies was 3 to 5% higher than among Hispanics in general.
• In March, Scott created a different comparison: every TUSD student who did not participate in Mexican American Studies (took no classes or less than one credit) compared to students who took one credit or more of Mexican American Studies. In 2010, Mexican American Studies students had a 93.6% graduation rate compared to an 82.7% rate for everyone else. Remember, the "everyone else" includes Hispanic and non-Hispanic students, including those at University High and other high performing schools.
• Also in March, Scott looked at the percentage of students in and out of the Mexican American Studies program who did not pass AIMS their sophomore year, then passed it their junior year. The junior year passing rate for Mexican American Studies students tended to average more than 10% higher than those not in the program. To understand how significant this is, you have to realize that Mexican American Studies begins at the junior year, so more students passing as juniors can most likely be attributed to their participation in Mexican American Studies.

By any standard I can think of, those are incredibly impressive results.

Read more about the problems with Alexis Huicochea's article after the jump.

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