If minority students need to score at the highest levels of the FCAT to have a fighting chance of becoming physicists and engineers, then Florida is making progress. But. Oh. So. Pain. Fully. Slow.

In math last year, only 5 percent of black third-graders scored at Level 5 on the FCAT, while only 1 percent of black 10th-graders did, according to some quick slicing and dicing by the Gradebook. Level 5 is the highest on the FCAT’s 1-5 scale.

Meanwhile, not a single black student in the entire state scored a Level 5 on the science FCAT, at any grade level. Let us repeat that: Not one. In the entire state. On any grade level.

You can see the numbers here (they also show results for white, Hispanic and Asian students).

At Level 4, the numbers are better for black and Hispanic students. And at both Level 4 and Level 5, they’re going up. But are they going up fast enough? And if they’re not, what do we do?

(Photo from the-scientist.com)

Ron Matus, State Education Reporter

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