Here's an abbreviate recap of the discussion at today's Wake County school board retreat.
At Superintendent Tony Tata's request, the board agreed to set target performance goals for individual subgroups as opposed to a specific systemwide goal. Tata will consult with staff and come back with a draft of the specific numbers for the targets. (It's a variation on the goals set by the prior boards.)
This came amid a discussion in which Tata said a new audit will show Wake isn't closing the achievement gap.
On Tuesday, a team from Harvard University will present a report on Wake's achievement gaps. It's one of the three free audits being provided by the Broad Superintendents Academy.
Tata said the audit will show that there's been no measurable closure of the achievement gap.
Supporters of the old diversity policy have pointed to the recent gains in passing rates on state exams for minority groups to argue that the achievement gap has been shrinking. They say this shows Wake was moving in the right direction and didn't need to change the assignment policy.
But Tata said the auditors looked the raw scale scores for the exams and didn't see a closure of the gap.
Tata said the audit shows the need to aggressively use the predictive capabilities of EVAAS to place minority students in the appropriate classes, as has happened with middle school math this year,. He said it's a key to closing the achievement gap.
The board wrapped up the meeting early at noon.
UPDATE
When Tata reports back on the subgroup goals, he'll also indicate what impact they'd have if reached on systemwide performance. He said they'll discuss then whether to set a districtwide performance goal as well.
Click here to view the handout from the meeting.
Comments
wrong focus
Sun, 06/19/2011 - 08:51 — red_balloonThe BOE should look at maximizing achievement for all students. A reduced achievement gap is a pernicious metric unless it can be shown that this was achieved while advancing achievement for all students.
Measuring the Gap
Sat, 06/18/2011 - 18:24 — nriemannI am sure Mr. Tata is right, though I think it would also be prudent to minimize high poverty, racially isolated schools too. The two goals are not mutually exclusive, as he has pointed out.
Setting that aside, I think the blog post implies a nonexistent contradiction between the claims of "supporters of the old diversity policy" and what Mr. Tata says the audit will show. The "achievement gap" measured by differences in the raw scores (presumably how many questions were answered correctly) differs in kind from the "achievement gap" measured by differences in percents proficient. Closing the former would mean that subgroups have converged in terms of how much they know about the tested topics. Closing the latter would mean that subgroups have converged in terms of how many of them know enough about the tested topics to be deemed "proficient."
If the raw scores of both groups went up without any change in test difficulty, the "proficiency gap" would close, but the raw score gap might not. This might still be a thing to celebrate.
Conversely, if the raw scores of both groups converged because high performing students did worse, the score gap would close, and the proficiency gap might also, but it would be a sad thing to celebrate.
We need to look at all these things carefully.
Need to see the data....
Sun, 06/19/2011 - 09:11 — Bob_SconceThere are really two possibilties here. The first is, I believe, what you're referring to -- although the "gap" has not shrunk, both groups of students have improved. This could happen, for example, if the median raw score for ED students went from 55% to 65% while the median raw score for non-ED students went from 75% to 85% -- still a 20% gap, but the second situation is still better than the first.
The other possibility is that the performance of ED students has not improved -- they're still at 55%. On the surface, this seems inconsistent with the idea that they've become more proficient. But, it maybe that the state has lowered its standards for what a student needs to be "proficient." Recall the effects of the 2007(?) rejiggering of the EOGs on profociency rates.
IMO, there's been too much focus on the 'achievement gap,' because there are two ways to shrink it: bring scores of poor students up, or bring scores of non-poor students down. After all, the achievement gap would disappear if the state fired all the teachers and had kids make paper-airplanes all day, followed by an EOG at the end of the year -- scores of both groups would hover right above 0. We'd be much better off if the important measurement was just average achievement.
...
Sun, 06/19/2011 - 09:34 — red_balloonI believe a more relevant metric would be to assess students at the start and end of the grade. Making sure all kids are about average is a questionable effort and will likely come at the expense of kids who have above average potential.
Thank you
Sun, 06/19/2011 - 08:23 — Dove314As a parent pondering Tata's phrasing, I was wondering at many of the concepts you so eloquently express in your post!
Finally
Sat, 06/18/2011 - 13:31 — loriac'Tata said the audit shows the need to aggressively use the predictive capabilities of EVAAS to place minority students in the appropriate classes, as was happened with middle school math this year, is a key to closing the achievement gap.'
Let's focus on teaching every student, instead of 'healthy schools.'. This is great.
This would be a huge step
Sun, 06/19/2011 - 22:34 — klanders65This would be a huge step forward if it were true. They were not able to tell how many students who met the criteria and were predicted to succeed actually were properly placed. They kept trying to and kept finding thousands of kids were missing from their data set. They called kids "not qualified" if they had already misplaced them in previous years. There probably was tremendous improvement, but who knows?
Are they looking at whether kids are properly placed for next year?
Good questions that need to
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 06:48 — loriacGood questions that need to be answered if Gen. Tata means what he says.
I agree
Sat, 06/18/2011 - 16:13 — lferreriThis is a huge step forward.