By Denise Smith Amos
The Cincinnati Enquirer

QUESTION: About half of Ohio's third- and fourth-grade students passed state reading tests, but only about a quarter of black students passed. Why such a wide gap?

ANSWER: The reading test scores, released last week, measure students' knowledge now against what they should know by the end of the school year.

Students who fail get two more chances to pass the tests - in March and July.

Vanessa Allen-Brown, a professor of educational studies at the University of Cincinnati, says proficiency tests offer too general a picture, when a variety of factors create the wide gaps in reading scores between black students and white students.

"You have to look at what resources are available at home and school," she said. "You have to look at it according to socio-economic class and the locations of schools before you make these broad judgments."

She said studies indicate that differences in learning styles put some black children at a disadvantage for the tests.

"Studies of black kids have shown that many are more tactile, more hands-on in their learning style," she said. "It has to do with how children communicate."

Resource differences at home and at school also play a role, she said.

"Did they grow up with books in the home? Are they being read to? Do they have computers in the home, versus just a television? Do they see their parents reading? Is there a quiet place for them to study?"

At school, Allen-Brown says, class size is important, as are the use of educational technologies and computers. Often, black students attend schools with larger classes, fewer computers and with fewer teachers trained to use them in class.

Q: What happened to the teens who participated in the demonstration against police brutality last week? Did any of them get into trouble for leaving school during the day?

A: A group calling itself Youth Against Racism tried convincing hundreds of high school students to walk out of class Tuesday and protest at Fountain Square around 12:30 p.m. Nearly 30 students marched, chanted and spoke to Cincinnati City Council about the Nov. 30 death of Nathaniel Jones after a struggle with police.

Cincinnati Public Schools officials warned that only students whose parents came to school and signed them out could leave. All others who left would be considered truants.

The district hasn't kept track of the specific fate of the truants, said spokeswoman Janet Walsh, but Superintendent Alton Frailey urged principals to treat their absences like any other truancy, typically punishable by detention or Saturday school.

Many students were with an adult relative at the rally or said they got written permission from a parent to attend.

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E-mail damos@enquirer.com