Much ado about the release of Oregon's Education Rankings of schools. The rankings mostly measure neighborhoods, not schools, but people might not realize it.
"We see it every day. Some kids have every advantage and they do well at school. Other kids have it harder and we try to give those kids the boost they need."
Sunny Spicer, Exec. Dir. Kid Time
 |
| The Oregonian organized the data |
I don't blame the schools or the politicians for worrying about the Smarter Balanced Assessment report. Schools will be ranked. Parents will notice. Zillow might link to it. Principals might get recognition one way or the other because of it. School Board members will read it. Newspaper and TV news editors might think it measures something real.
People like to compare. People like to see where they stand. The ranking is classic internet click bait.
"Click bait" is the name for internet sites that draw curious internet surfers to click and look. "The ten best cities for retirees" or "Eat these eight foods to lose weight starting today."
The Oregon School Rankings report is another example of click bait. It is more interesting than valuable and more likely to mislead than inform.
Here it is, from the Oregonian newspaper, which put the data into an easily searchable form:
Click on a city you know, then look at the schools. Something is being measured, but not what people think it measures. School achievement scores mostly measure the readiness of the students for school, not schools.
Home environment matters a lot when it come to readiness for school. It involves whether the child's parents speak English at home. It measures the child's nutrition. It measures whether there are books in the house. It measures whether the parents consider school important. It measures the student's peer group.
Here is what I see:
****The school rankings track closely with neighborhood affluence. The more affluent the neighborhood the better the rankings. This is the overwhelming message from the rankings.
****Less affluent neighborhoods, and ones with lots of apartments, have school children who move a lot and have more absenteeism. They don't do as well as other kids.
****Specialty alternative and charter schools concentrate on certain kinds of students, which then gets reflected in test results.
People who look at the results hoping to evaluate teacher skill or principal quality--which school is better--will be misreading the data. What happens in each classroom is unique to that teacher. Natalie Hurd, speaking on behalf of the Medford schools, said "Our mission is to provide an equal, solid education for students no matter their zip code. While it's true some students come to us with special challenges because of lack of resources, either way when students come through our doors we provide a great education. We have systems in place to assure a good education no matter which school you attend."
People who look at the results hoping to evaluate teacher skill or principal quality--which school is better--will be misreading the data. What happens in each classroom is unique to that teacher. Natalie Hurd, speaking on behalf of the Medford schools, said "Our mission is to provide an equal, solid education for students no matter their zip code. While it's true some students come to us with special challenges because of lack of resources, either way when students come through our doors we provide a great education. We have systems in place to assure a good education no matter which school you attend."
Are some schools better than others? "We have excellent teachers in all our schools," Hurd said.
The Smarter Balanced Assessment appears to be measuring school quality on an apples to apples basis. After all, some schools have green boxes and some have red boxes, and the colors presumably mean something. Green is better than red. Green means the schools are meeting the Assessments' standards.
But if inherent school quality were being measured one would expect to see surprising outliers in results--schools with similar socio-economic status in their catchment areas showing different results. After all, some schools would be doing a better job than others, with the student population being held equal.
I don't see it. I see a correlation with socio-economic status. Struggling schools have kids with struggles.
Kid Time, a local agency providing pre-school education and exploration exhibits, set up a satellite site at one of the least affluent elementary school catchment areas in the state, one of the schools showing a comparative disadvantage. Sunny Spicer, the Executive Director, said they end up providing baseline parental services. "You cannot teach life skills until you have dealt with the fact that the kids haven't eaten. You can't expect a kid to sit still to hear a story if they have a tooth cavity that hurts. We are trying to help these kids get ready for school, but they are at a disadvantage. That's the reality."
Click on the click bait if you must, but look to see what is really being measured. The tests are measuring students and the environment they come from, not schools.
 |
| Different students, different needs. |
The Smarter Balanced Assessment appears to be measuring school quality on an apples to apples basis. After all, some schools have green boxes and some have red boxes, and the colors presumably mean something. Green is better than red. Green means the schools are meeting the Assessments' standards.
But if inherent school quality were being measured one would expect to see surprising outliers in results--schools with similar socio-economic status in their catchment areas showing different results. After all, some schools would be doing a better job than others, with the student population being held equal.
I don't see it. I see a correlation with socio-economic status. Struggling schools have kids with struggles.
Kid Time, a local agency providing pre-school education and exploration exhibits, set up a satellite site at one of the least affluent elementary school catchment areas in the state, one of the schools showing a comparative disadvantage. Sunny Spicer, the Executive Director, said they end up providing baseline parental services. "You cannot teach life skills until you have dealt with the fact that the kids haven't eaten. You can't expect a kid to sit still to hear a story if they have a tooth cavity that hurts. We are trying to help these kids get ready for school, but they are at a disadvantage. That's the reality."
Click on the click bait if you must, but look to see what is really being measured. The tests are measuring students and the environment they come from, not schools.
No comments:
Post a Comment