Being new to Florida, I was thoroughly confused by all the ratings I've seen applied to schools and students: AYP, FCAT, A+Schools -- there's more, but these seem to be the ones most folks talk about. It all seemed to be a big muddle. So, I did a little research, and this is what I found out about our "school report cards." Understanding how these measure fit together (or don't) is crucial to understanding whether we should be thrilled or cautious when a school adminstrator assures us that a particular school is "an A school."
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Part I: Adequate Yearly Progress
Florida's public schools are supposed to improve from year to year. Teachers and students are expected to get better in their roles as educators and learners. How much they improve (or don't) is measured with several yardsticks. The major measurements, the ones getting the most general attention, are data collected from standardized tests that score reading, math, science and writing achievement. Each year, students across Florida take a comprehensive achievement test, the FCAT, to measure their progress, both as individuals and as a group.
The state's department of education -- prodded by the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 -- wants students in every school to score better this year than they did last year and to score better next year than they did this year. That’s the progress part. The DOE -- again prodded by the fed -- also wants improvements to be not just small or incremental, but “adequate.” The DOE describes in some detail how to measure adequacy by analyzing the data it collects in several categories. That analysis is labeled “adequate yearly progress,” or AYP for short.
Schools where children don't make adequate yearly progress get a Florida report card with a grade of D or F. But even schools with Florida grades of A, B, or C -- a state ranking summarized in Part II, below -- can be found not making adequate progress. And that's what happened in most of the local schools. Here's the tally:
DeSoto High -------------- Grade: D -- AYP? No
DeSoto Middle School -- Grade: A ---AYP? No
West Elementary -------- Grade: A -- AYP? Yes
Memorial Elementary -- Grade: B -- AYP? No
Nocatee Elementary ---- Grade: C -- AYP? No
A school makes adequate federal progress if:
(a) at least 95 percent of its students take FCAT or an acceptable substitute test.
(b) at least 65 percent of all students and 65 percent of students in designated subgroups (African American, Hispanic, Asian, etc.) read at grade level (FCAT level 3) or better.
(c) at least 68 percent of all students and each subgroup score at grade level in math (FCAT level 4) or better.
(d) writing scores improve over the prior year by at least 1 percent; graduation rate must improve by 1 percent, and the school must not be graded by the state as D or F.
So here's what seems to be going on at DeSoto Middle School, graded A by the state, but targeted as failing federal AYP measures: Overall, just 57 percent of the students read at grade level and only 60 percent do math at grade level. By both reading and math yardsticks an inadequate number of students have learned to grade-level proficiency.
At Memorial Elementary, the picture is a little different. Overall, reading and math scores cleared the numbers hurdle (65 percent and 68 percent performing at math and reading grade level or better, respectively). But key subgroups did not. For example, among children with disabilities, 57 percent aren't reading at grade level and 56 percent aren't doing math at grade level. Two other groups at the school were "left behind" in math: white children and economically disadvantaged children.
The full report with sub-group details is available at:
Florida School Grades Homepage. Click on "Measuring Adequate Yearly Progress AYP in Excel format for the DeSoto-Lee report.
http://www.aypo809desototolee[1].xls/
Part II: Apples and Oranges: Why an "A School" Might Not Make "Adequate Yearly Progress"
All this might prompt a concerned parent to ask: Why would the state award a school an A if it’s not making adequate federal progress? The short answer is that different measures yield different results. The state's evaluation is based on different things than the federal evaluation.
The detail is found in looking at how Florida awards letter grade for schools. But here's a summary.
It’s actually pretty simple. It's a point system. Schools earn a point for each percentage point of students who meet eight standards. If 80 percent of a school’s students achieve a high standard, the school gets 80 points and if the remaining 20 percent of its students achieve a lower standard, the school gets 20 points for them. When all the eight categories are added up, schools with 525 points or more are graded A. Schools earning between 495 and 524 points are graded B. Those earning between 435 points and 494 points are graded C. Those earning between 395 and 434 points are. Less than 395 points equals an F.
The eight categories are tied to FCAT scores and earn points this way:
1. One point for each percent of students who meet high standards by scoring at or above FCAT Achievement Level 3 in reading.
2. One point for each percent of students who meet high standards by scoring at or above FCAT Achievement Level 3 in mathematics.
3. One point for each percent of students who meet high standards by scoring at or above FCAT Achievement Level 3 in science.
4. One point for each percent of students who meet high standards by scoring 3.5 or higher on the FCAT writing assessment. In the event that there are not at least 30 eligible students tested in writing, the district average in writing is substituted.
5. One point for each percent of students making learning gains in reading.
6. One point for each percent of students making learning gains in mathematics.
7. One point for each percent of the lowest performing students making learning gains in reading. In the event that there are not at least 30 eligible students, the school’s reading learning gains are substituted.
8. One point for each percent of the lowest performing students making learning gains in mathematics. In the event that there are not at least 30 eligible students, the school’s mathematics learning gains are substituted.
For schools that fall into the A,B, and C categories of points earned, two other measurements are applied: To keep the grade, the school must have tested 95 percent of its students (no "cherry picking" allowed) in order to keep an A, or have tested 90 percent of its students to keep a B or C.
In addition, to keep a point-scored letter grade of A, the school must show adequate progress compared to the prior year among children who tested in the lowest 25 percent in both reading and math; similarly, to keep an B or C, the school must show its lowest 25 percent of performers made adequate progress in reading and math compared to either of the two prior years.
It’s all pretty straightforward except for one hiccup: the state’s measure of adequate progress is not the same as the federal AYP! The state calls it adequate progress, or “learning gains” (essentially higher FCAT scores), when half of a measured group do better than the prior year.
Here's where it gets a little tricky. To calculate learning gains, Florida converts FCAT scores (reported on a scale of 100-500) into “developmental scores.” Developmental scores are pegged on a scale that ranges from zero to 3000. The conversion makes different year-to-year scoring readable on the same scale. Those of us not proficient at scale conversions will just have to trust the experts on this point. To check the math, go to page 20 and 21 of Florida's 2009 Guide to Calculating School Grades Technical Assistant Paper.
The result of Florida's grading scale is that a school earns points toward a letter grade based on how well children perform on the FCAT tests. That letter grade is retained (or dropped down a notch) based on a school’s lowest performers scoring better than last year or the year before. This is a quite different measure than the federal No Child Left Behind measure.
So, how does an "A school" fail to make "adequate yearly progress?" Apples and oranges; two yardsticks, two measures of cloth; nonequivalents.
In conclusion: Should I be concerned if my kid's school isn't making adequate yearly progress (AYP) even if the school district squeezes an A or B out of the state's rubric? Lots of folks are bad-mouthing "No Child Left Behind," and perhaps with some reason. Nonetheless, its a national measure and DeSoto isn't measuring up.
Unfortunately, NCLB is not a "national measure." A true national comparison would come from a system where the curriculum is the same, where what is tested is the same, and where the test instrument is the same throughout all the states. Under the current system each state has its own version of "FCAT" and each state defines its subgroups differently.
ReplyDeleteI am all for high standards and the nobel edict put forth by NCLB to leave no child behind, but is testing cognitive competence the only way to achieve such a goal?
Of the dismal few who do earn high school diplomas, approximately 20% go on to college and only about a quarter of those earn degrees. What marketable skills do those who do not go on to college take with them after the high school experience? DeSoto, as do most rural high schools, lack serious vocational/technical programs that prepare kids for the workplace. Instead, DeSoto's Superintendent points proudly to the fact that now 9th and 10th graders (who are developmentally ill prepared to undertake the rigors and abstraction of college level courses) may now take dual enrollment classes. The money can be better spent and the energy can be better used toward developing a well rounded curriculum that includes vocational training programs that are rigorous and relevant to the community from which the kids come.
I agree on all points, and would only add a footnote to your observation about a lack of serious vo-tech programs: The school's School Improvement Plan notes the district has 42 majors from which students can choose. It turns the 42 subject areas come from a state board of ed's list of subjects approved for majors and includes subjects offered at charter and magnet schools. It looks mighty silly for DC to warehouse this informational document and use it to claim its students can major in electrical apprenticeship, heating and ac design, along with Hebrew and dressmaking and dance, to name just a few.
ReplyDeleteThe first poster rightly points out that 9th and 10 graders are developmentally unready for the rigors of college-level thinking. The school had addressed this problem by removing their DE students from the college campus and assigning an "in house" teacher to the courses. This assures the material will be scaled back to their level (pedagogically good) and that college credit will be given for what's essentially a slightly HS invigorated class (academically fraudulant).
ReplyDelete*Anonymous is absolutely correct: NCLB cannot be a standardized national test until all districts teach the same thing (not gonna happen) or until the test can be validated to test only for the same things across all districts (not gonna happen). There's a lot to discuss about NCLB, including its unreasonable (IMHO) standard that even one child missing one criterion by one point can hold back a whole school's score. We'll keep looking into this, at least as it affects our main concern, the DeSoto district.
ReplyDeleteOn a related note, I hope our readers have seen the Atlantic Monthly article that ran last year under a tile something like Abolish Local School Boards. I'll hunt down the link and post it. Some good points in it about what Anonymous might be getting at -- the need for a national curriculum? Correct me if I've misread between the lines. More later, Barry.
The school board article ran in the Jan-Feb 2008 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Here is the link to read it online:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200801/miller-education
Barry-
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that "Lots of folks are bad mouthing NCLB... Nonetheless, it is a... measure." Although rife with flaws, we must start somewhere! To the 'bad mouths' (which are generally teachers and administrators), I ask two questions:
(1) Other than testing, what other 'gold standard' would you offer to measure academic performance?
(2) Are you against testing because it may well be a reflection of your teaching competence (or incompetence) ?
On another note, I want to say thanks for offering an explanation to the 'muddle' terminology - AYP, FCAT, etc.
- Mickey the Dunce
Dear anonymous....
ReplyDeleteYou began " Unfortunately, NCLB is not a 'national measure'." You are right! It should be and it should go one giant step forward with the creation of a national K- 12th grade education system, Matt-Miller makes a logical case for this in his Start of the Union article "First, Kill All the School Boards" (The Atlantic, Jan./Feb. 2008, pp. 92-97). As he notes " we have a national military; once upon a time a national role in retirement was anathema; then suddenly, after the depression, we had Social Security. Once, a federal role in health care would have been rejected as socialism; now, federal money accounts for half of what we spend on health care. "In short", we must carry Manns insights to their logical end and nationalize our schools... we started down this road on schooling a long time ago. Time now to finish the journey." (Horace Mann is considered the father of public education). Makes sense to me!
Mickey the Dunce
Mickey D and Barry,
ReplyDeleteAnonymous here.
Yes, a national curriculum would be an answer for truer comparisons. It would allow the use of criterion referenced testing where the results could then be used to determine academic success (or failure) of our schools. I would also like to see, however, a national push for vocational and technical training that is as rigorous as any college prep class for high school students. There is much, much more to education than the pursuit of academics alone.
I read the Atlantic article. VERY interesting ideas.
-Anonymous
The most important writers on American education are John Taylor Gatto and Charlotte Iserbyt. They have researched the origins of public schooling in America and uncovered the fact that Carnegie and Rockefeller designed American schools to create dumbed-down, easily-controlled automatons. These men spent more than the government to make sure that generations of Americans would never know anything about their controllers or the stupidity of their carefully-controlled subject matter.
ReplyDeleteI applied for a position as an English teacher with DCHS many years ago. I have a Ph.D. in English and years of college teaching experience. What I didn't know was that I was on a watch list of some kind and barred from working in my profession. I was watchlisted for reasons unknown and unknowable. I was murdered by my own country and forced to leave in order to survive. Thousands of Arcadians participated in this horrific murder, as they have done in the past with other innocents. At any rate, the man hired instead of me held only a paraprofessional degree, so I sued the district. The suit was immediately dropped and the only change made was that the distrct stopped printing the names of the hired teachers in the paper.
I'm sure, though, that DeSoto County Schools has refused to hire other highly educated professionals on the grounds that they don't want an educated populus. DCHS has provided the military with an endless supply of cannon fodder for its illegal and unethical wars against the people of the world.
Who is Adrian Cline? He is a good friend of Gen. Jay Garner, a Zionist neocon psychopathic killer on par with Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld. These neocons all work for Israhell and planned the 9/11 attack on Americans. Garner has spoken to DCHS students about fighting and dying like slaves for Zionists. The Zionists said in the early 20th century that they wanted three world wars, but you are not allowed to know anything about your controllers. Since the Federal Reserve System sneaked into power on Christmas Eve in 1913, America has been a slave state. Millions are waking up now, so why don't you and take your children out of their prison schools? You are free and sovereign people. Get off your knees. These psychopaths hate you and want you dead.