The following was posted to soc.culture.china, soc.culture.korean,
soc.culture.japan, soc.culture.taiwan, and soc.culture.singapore

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Here's the latest news -- the 2008 California Standardized Test
Results are out!!

There's really a lot of data. What I've done is to summarize some of
the data and present it in 4 packages:

(1) CST - English/Language Arts
(2) CST - Math at the junior levels (as math then branches off into
algebra, integrated math, geometry etc making comparisons more
difficult)
(3) CST - Physics/Chem/Bio at the End of Course (EOC)
(4) CST - Life Sciences at the Grade 5, Grade 8, and Grade 10 levels

Here're the snapshots of the results:

(1) http://i37.tinypic.com/j5fl0g.jpg

(2) http://i38.tinypic.com/30icemd.jpg

(3) http://i37.tinypic.com/2193pzs.jpg (Tahitian too small a
sample- thus not reported)

(4) http://i37.tinypic.com/2w3tcgi.jpg

Posters who have more time will certainly want to visit
http://star.cde.ca.gov/star2008/Viewreport.asp
and download the database and plot more data.

Now, what does "advanced" mean?

California uses five performance levels to report student achievement
on the CSTs:

* Advanced performance in relation to the California content
standards tested
* Proficient performance in relation to the California content
standards tested
* Basic performance in relation to the California content
standards tested
* Below Basic performance in relation to the California content
standards tested
* Far Below Basic performance in relation to the California
content standards tested

All CSTs are reported with scores 150-600. The scale score that
divides basic scores from below basic is 300 for every grade and
subject area. The score that divides basic scores from proficient
scores is 350 for every grade and subject area. Tables that include
the score range for each grade level, subject area, and performance
level are available at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/resources.asp.
The target is for all California students to score at proficient or
above.

I've focused even more selectively and just plotted the Advanced
Levels.

As mentioned, all CSTs are reported with scores 150-600, and the
brackets are different and varies as follows:

English
http://i34.tinypic.com/6jkc39.jpg

Math
http://i33.tinypic.com/2d7ge34.jpg

Science
http://i36.tinypic.com/25g6u75.jpg

But going back to the original data, huge group disparities are seen.
NorthEast Asians (Chinese, Korean, and Japanese) usually perform the
best. Asian Indians also put on a surprisingly strong show. Blacks
are, as usual, at or near the bottom.

Of course, this baffles lots of educators. See, for instance, this
article re: San Francisco achievement titled “S.F.'s black students
lag far behind whites”:

http://tinyurl.com/5vg85l

First paragraph: "San Francisco schools earned bragging rights on
state standardized tests again this year - performing better than the
state as a whole across every grade in both math and English - but any
celebration was clouded by the subpar proficiency of the district's
African American students, who continued to fall further behind their
peers."

And amazingly, this quote: “Special education students had slightly
higher proficiency rates than black students in second-, third- and
fourth-grade math as well as fourth-grade English.”

Wow!!!!!

Needless to say, poverty must be the explanation, and the article goes
on to explain it.

One wonders, however, what they have to say when, at even higher
levels, i.e. at the level of the SAT, black kids from black households
that have parental incomes of over $100K actually score 17 points
LOWER than white kids from white households that have parental incomes
of below $10K.

Perhaps there's a slightly more parsimonious but unmentionable
explanation.....

http://www.vdare.com/taylor/071113_stumped.htm

Enough of philosophizing. The data speaks for itself.

And I urge posters to visit the above site(s) and appreciate and
relish in the wonderful diversity of achievement.