At the end of last week, reading scores came out. Here's a story from the Tallahassee Democrat about the scores, with a local focus:
So, now what do we do with the data? The focus here is on kids getting a 3 (on level) or above, and the numbers are % of kids in a school scoring 3+.
I'm going to consider all of this as a parent.
Before I go into my own parent explanation, let me point out what happens when data like these come out: people get concerned. People have their kids change schools. People seek the best schools, schools on an upward trajectory, etc. If a school goes down at all, we should be concerned. Very concerned.
My daughter's school (a public charter school) had 79, which is above the district (61) and state (54), but down 7% from last year. Should I be happy? Should I be concerned? How do I read the data? Above district and state, but decreasing from last year. This sounds good, and this sounds bad. It's confusing!
My daughter is finishing first grade. She'll take this test year after next. Is their quality dropping? Is she going to suffer? Should I put her in another school? Or at least go complain to her school?
Looking more closely, and considering other factors:
I see the breakdown of the kids at her school:
1 = 7%
2 = 14%
3 = 21%
4 = 18%
5 = 39%
39% of the kids were at the highest level on this test. Looking down the table, I see that's the highest percentage of any of the local schools. That's great! And combining 4&5 I see that they have 57% of the students ABOVE satisfactory.
But still ... they're dropping by 7%!
I'm also going to use other data to which I have access to further interpret what's going on here.
How about school size? My daughter goes to a small school! They had 2 classes of 2/3 students. The K/1 classes had 24 students, 12 in each grade. Supposing 2/3 has the same breakdown (it should) then in 2 classes of 2/3 students there would be ~24 3rd graders. Hmm. 24 of them. So, let's look at the data again with that in mind. The numbers aren't working out perfectly here (I don't know exactly how many students actually took the test, and I'm assuming that they did some rounding as well.
1 = 7% = 2 students
2 = 14% = 3
3 = 21% = 5
4 = 18% = 4
5 = 39% = 9 students
And if 7% is 2 students (maybe 3) ... then I'm not really convinced that we've got enough data here to suggest there's a downward spiral going on. How about you?
And then there's the personal data: my kid. This is a test of 3rd grade reading ability given to 3rd graders. She's a first grader. This school year she read books like Harriet the Spy (read chapters aloud to me - and understood them), which is 4th grade level, and has done the same with Harry Potter while reading to her dad (5th grade level). With two years between her and the test, I'm confident she'll score at least a 3, if not a 4 or a 5. I believe her school can help her achieve this performance. I don't think that the actual number of kids scoring below satisfactory growing from 3 last year to 5 this year is a problem at all, and certainly not a problem for a kid who is probably already able to score 3+ on this test.
The only situation in which I might be concerned would be if my kid were already below grade level. Why? Because the school clearly is dominated by high-peforming kids and that leaves the question of how much they focus on the low-performing kids. That said, without more data I wouldn't be inclined to actually do anything. I have no clue if more of these kids would be low-performing kids if they were at a lower performing school, or if at this school the low-performers are being left behind while the high performers are being pushed ahead, way ahead.
On another note, I know someone in Tallahassee whose kids go to a low-performing school (additional data points: 42% in the article, 48% economically disadvantaged kids) -- but his kids are above grade level and his family opts out of the tests (which further contributes to the low-performing perception of the school). Should he move his kids to another school? Is it a bad school? Why or why not?
What would you do as a parent? Or what have you done / have you seen others do in reaction to the release of test scores?
No comments:
Post a Comment