It looks like Wake will have a response to the fallout over the school board's decision not to sign off on a study on the diversity policy.
Administrators are trying to draw up the framework for an evaluation of the diversity policy. The nuts and bolts of the evaluation are still being prepared.
The latest controversy dates back to December when the board's student achievement committee rejected studying how well students who were reassigned from North Garner Middle To West Lake Middle are now doing.
During Tuesday's student achievement committee meeting, Lori Millberg, chairwoman of that committee, said it's "unfair" to say they rejected studying the policy. She said they only decided not to study how it was affecting one group of kids.
(Go to this post to see how it went from a districtwide to a one group request for a study in December.)
David Holdzkom, assistant superintendent for evaluation and research, told board members he's been talking with Chuck Dulaney, assistant superintendent for growth and planning, about what a policy evaluation would look like.
Holdzkom said he would come back at the March committee meeting with the framework for the new study. It's unclear whether the review will look at individual students or whole schools.
Critics of the diversity policy focus on its impact on individual students while supporters prefer to look at the impact on schools.
School board member Anne McLaurin said they all believe in looking at the diversity policy. But she also noted that that there's a lot of data and a lot of different ways to look at it.
Comments
Wake's own value-added system
Thu, 04/23/2009 - 23:11 — wakemomhttp://www.wcpss.net/evaluation-research/
Wake did a comparison of EVAAS and their system for analyzing data. You can get it off this website. It makes no sense. Read it closely. The two systems are nothing alike and don't do the same thing. Wake's system, Effectiveness Index, is a simple regression that adjusts for income and other demographic classifications. It is very simple and had built-in low expectations for certain subgroups, so it give results that all is well when there is a huge gap. They use the results of this "value added and subtracted" system in all their research to find what is effective. If a program has bad results for poor kids it can be found to be just fine because we expect bad results for poor kids. If they started using EVAAS, all the research they do about what is effective would be called into question because EVAAS gives different results.
Most important
Mon, 02/16/2009 - 22:08 — SDR256This is the single most important topic on this blog, and yet I'm surprised that the postings have stagnated. Where is the passion folks?
Academic Risks
Thu, 04/23/2009 - 23:22 — wakemomhttp://www.wcpss.net/evaluation-research/reports/index-date.html
I agree this is the most important thing on this web site. I am looking at the reports on this wcpss research website. It is where they post their in-house research. The February 2008 papers about students with academic risks are calling income an academic risk. This is a "given" for them. And it is built into their statistical analyses with that Effectiveness Index. I just read that Nov 2008 report on Blue Diamond. Do we have any researchers here? What is this saying? The conclusion doesn't seem to follow at all from what is in the paper. Does anyone monitor that what they are doing makes sense? Someone outside the school system needs to read these research reports and judge their quality. What if someone is actually using this information to make decisions? (And if they aren't, why is this being done?). First thing someone needs to do is examine that Effectiveness Index since all their "research" is based on it's output. That Feb 2008 paper on students with academic risks says they found students with positive or negative residuals from their Effectiveness Index. This Index adjusts for poverty, so students can do poorly and have positive residuals. And they call that successful! It is smoke and mirrors. Someone needs to review that Effectiveness Index and then look at this "research" they are doing and see if it makes sense.
other researchers
Sun, 02/15/2009 - 11:15 — mbgjwaltersThere are other researchers who have used data about WCPSS schools and students. Here is a link to a paper by an economics professor entitled "Taking Race Out of the Equations: School Reassignment and the Structure of Peer Effects". http://www.hks.harvard.edu/inequality/Seminar/Papers/Hoxby06.pdf The data came from the North Carolina Education Research Data Center (housed at Duke) and is available to any "qualified" researcher. This paper also compares several statistical models and shows that they are not equal and must be validated. There are a lot of papers about validity of statistical models used for this type of analysis. Here's a link to one: http://www.heartland.org/custom/semod_policybot/pdf/15626.pdf From the paper: While VAMs do not represent perfect strategies for measuring school effects, they more reasonably align with the notion of student learning, do not encourage schools to target instruction for middle-performing students, and set expectations for growth rates for individual students towards an expected learning outcome. Even with their imperfections, they are more likely to provide meaningful information than conventional methods of analysis. I think the value-added assessment system the state put in place is a good choice for this type of policy evaluation. I would like to know whether WCPSS plans to use a system the state has approved and paid for and if not, how is it deficient?
an available framework
Sat, 02/14/2009 - 17:27 — mbgjwaltersWhy does the district need a framework for doing this study? The state has paid for and deployed this system:
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/evaas/
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/evaas/guide/
which sounds like it will generate the evaluation the school board is asking for. This type of system is used in other states and they are using the results, and is also available state-wide to districts in North Carolina. I found by searching the web that a number of school districts in NC are actively using this system.
Here’s a snippet from the evaas guide:
Value Added Reports provide detailed information about the progress rates of an individual school or district.
Diagnostic Reports allow you to identify patterns of progress among subgroups in a school or district within the same grade and subject.
Student Reports present a table of available student scores in each subject tested. The accompanying graph provides the student's percentile, the school's mean percentile, and the district's mean percentile for each test administered.
Student Projections Reports present a table of available student scores in the subject tested, followed by the student's probability of achieving a particular level of proficiency on subsequent tests.
The guide said this software allows the administration to define any subgroup of interest and then the system will generate reports showing both actual and predicted achievement. The data about every student in NC is already in this system. Since the administration does not have access to the actual implementation of the statistical analysis, I don’t see how they could influence the results. There should be some oversight on the methodology use to define the subgroups (large enough sample to be statistically valid), but it sounds like it’s very feasible to use this system to compare students that have been reassigned from “unhealthy” schools to “healthy schools compared to students that have not been reassigned, as well as answering a whole host of interesting questions, for example:
Do multiple reassignments have any impact on individual student achievement?
How do students (both base and magnet) in magnet schools compare to students not in magnet programs? Are some of these programs more effective than others?
The tools are in place and the data is available. A reasonable next step is for the administration to use this system to evaluate their policies.
Wow! This is awesome. I
Sat, 02/14/2009 - 18:44 — Eric_BWow! This is awesome. I didn't know the state already had a system like this available. From the guide, it appears it is possible to drill down to individual students, so it should be simple to design a study that looks at the performance of reassigned students over time.
Is WCPSS using this? If not, why not?
They won't be able to skew
Sat, 02/14/2009 - 17:30 — SouthEastWakeMomThey won't be able to skew the results in favor of their current policies if they use it.
Simply solution.....
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 13:57 — WuptdoLet one of the education professors over at NC State take on the "project" and give them a grant to do the research. Plenty of folks working on the Master's and Phd's in the Education Department. We have the University, let's use it!
Surely you jest?
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 20:54 — kmisegadesA professor in a UNC education school? They are part of the problem! You need to read a study done last year looking at all the garbage taught to prospective teachers in UNC education schools. For instance guessing instead of long division. It will make you sick to your stomach, knowing what drivel is being fed to our poor children.
http://www.popecenter.org/inquiry_papers/article.html?id=1949
Elsewhere someone said that
Sat, 02/14/2009 - 11:45 — user1234Elsewhere someone said that a college professor should do the study because they did not trust the WPSS or DPI. Why not just have WakeCare do it so you can get the unbias outcoming you are looking for.
Ehh...
Sat, 02/14/2009 - 14:00 — Bob_SconceI have no problem with a professor doing it, just not a professor who has a dog in the hunt, which probably strikes out most education professors. ("Diversity" seems to be the current PC school of thought in education circles.) It's incredibly rare for somebody in the social sciences to conduct a study where the results disagree with that person's prior views.
We're talking about a statistical analysis here -- if all the relevant data is made public, as it should be, then anybody with enough math skills will be able to analyze it. My concern is that the district will collect the data and will have some friendly person analyze it, put out a release saying "the district is right," but never release the underlying data for anybody to verify.
Thank You
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 21:46 — Bob_SconceKent --
That is an excellent article. In a nutshell, it shows that the Ivory Tower thinkers are off on a social experiment lark. It's not too surprising -- education needs to be "reinvented" every so often, if for no other purpose than to give Professors of Education something to publish. Unfortunately, that reinvention makes it into the classroom.
The bizarre thing is that this "educational theory" is incapable of field-testing. They can't take 100 kids, teach them one way and then take a different 100 kids, teach them a different way and then compare results. The reason is that the two theories don't agree on what the results should be! But, parents know what they want the results to be -- I want my kid to be able to do long-division in 4th grade and multiply fractions.
Yet another reason to take some power away from Del Burns, PhD.
I see this every week....
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 21:25 — AngelaWWriting about her personal observations, New York teacher Louisa Spencer found that the “attractive and colorful” student-centered classrooms did not live up to expectations. “Group work takes up much of the morning, a teacher visiting each group, guiding joint reading, while the rest of the children guide each other or read to themselves,” she wrote. During such group work, however, she observed “many unsupervised children daydream or fool around. . . . [T]he result too often is a rising tide of noise and disorder. The upshot is the most fearful waste of time in the school day” (Spencer 2001, 29).
Right on Angela!!!!!
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 21:44 — vsheehanRight on Angela!!!!!
geeky--WEP supports what is
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 13:08 — raleighreadergeeky--WEP supports what is good for business--attracting businesses to Wake county. They believe that the diversity policy keeps Wake schools attractive to businesses.
IIRC, WEP was crucial to getting the merger of county/city schools back in the 70s. They worried about Raleigh's appearance if the schools there were mostly black and poor.
Hogwash
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 20:56 — kmisegadesLook at the list of WEP sponsors, most if not all are direct benefactors of the massive spending in WCPSS. Follow the money.
So basically
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 15:01 — g88ky07this is a bunch of Dulaney/Burns supporters who really have no interest in seeing the truth, supporting the truth or caring about the truth.
I knew they chummed up with the realtors to spread the lies that schools are just dandy to help keep them selling houses, but I just wasn't sure if or at what point reality kicked in with a group such as that.
Obviously little to none! Thanks!
Friends don't let friends
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 14:19 — CaryCurmudgeonFriends don't let friends join WEP.
No Worries there my friend,
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 14:56 — g88ky07but they might be worried when they look up on Tuesday and realize they'll need to figure out how to quietly remove one in attendance who doesn't believe as they do!
Should one decide to waste his or her time!
They just cancelled the
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 16:28 — CaryCurmudgeonThey just cancelled the meeting, must have thought you were coming.
:c )
Sun, 02/15/2009 - 22:40 — g88ky07It wasn't just me, we were going to disrupt their world with some reality!
Darn, now I'll have to play golf!
I certainly plan on
Sun, 02/15/2009 - 23:21 — CaryCurmudgeonI certainly plan on attending the next and subsequent meetings. Great chance to hear what kind of spin the status-quo candidates will be flinging this Fall.
Why cancelled?
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 21:00 — kmisegadesDoes anyone know why the WEP propaganda night at F-V was cancelled on short notice?
A warning to anyone interested in attending one of these feel-good events. Here's how the one I attended last year in Apex started, a statement from Ann Denlinger's handler:
"Anyone with a disagreement with WCPSS policy will leave these outside the door."
End of debate. Webster defines this as "tyranny"
No
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 21:42 — SideburnsNo reason given for the cancellation. Just that WEP and F-V Chamber "find it necessary to cancel". Hmmmm....
Why ask why?
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 11:25 — JohnPershingIf diversity is our strength and so grand, why is all of this handwringing going on?
It's called nerves!
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 11:39 — g88ky07The Diversity Goon's are getting REALLY nervous. And rightly so! Change is coming this fall!!
thanks for posting that
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 09:53 — raleighreaderthanks for posting that conference info sstarks. That could be very interesting.
upcoming conference at UNC
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 15:14 — sstarksYou might also be interested in The Integration Report, an on-line journal put out by the Civil Rights Project out of UCLA, formerly of Harvard. They are co-sponsoring the upcoming conference at Chapel Hill. Check out their April, 2008, issue: http://theintegrationreport.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/issue-07/
the integration report
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 16:28 — sstarksFor those of you who read the above mentioned Integration Report you will notice that the CMS/Wake article says that community support for CMS has dropped considerably since 2002. This statement was published just 5 months after Mecklenburg County voters passed their largest school bond issue ever, so I find their assertion rather suspect. I would argue that support is stronger than ever, as schools are becoming associated with the communities where they are located.
Yes, right now CMS is feeling a budget pinch--I would be very surprised if Wake does not also. But that does not mean community support of schools is decreasing--it means the board is facing current economic reality.
OT: Wake ED Round Table/Let
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 07:48 — vsheehanOT: Wake ED Round Table/Let your Voice be heard. http://app.bronto.com/public/?q=preview_message&fn=Link&t=1&ssid=256&id=bjq0xzl9odgkau8nvyymgudivx6mv&id2=knxd3ihtme6hvp0yj54esv28ybq15
Wake Education Partnership and the Fuquay-Varina Chamber of Commerce invite you to attend the next Wake Regional Education Roundtable. • Date: February 17, 2009 • Time: Noon - 1:30 p.m., including lunch • Place: Bentwinds Golf & Country Club - 6536 Dornoch Place, Fuquay-Varina, NC 27526 - map • Topic: Curriculum Management Audit • Register: Registration for this event is $10.00. Fee includes lunch. Follow this link to reserve your seat today. During the spring of 2007, a team of auditors from Phi Delta Kappa completed a Curriculum Management Audit of the Wake County Public School System. The report of their findings was released in the September 2007. Since its release, the Board of Education and the school system staff have been developing action plans to address the report’s findings with the overall goal of aligning systems and raising the academic performance of all students. Audit results, current accomplishments, and future action plans are the topics of this Roundtable.
Maybe a little inside help here
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 10:26 — g88ky07I'm not as familiar with WEP as many, so I need a brief and better understanding of this group. Are they always on the school system/board's side of things or do they ever support parents? You know, the ones of us who don't agree with what is happening!?
Is there really something to be gained at a meeting such as this or is it another pat the school system/board on the back and try to convince parents that all is well in education?
Any additional info is welcomed. Thanks!
School assignment
Thu, 02/12/2009 - 22:07 — sstarksIn April the UNC Law School Center for Civil Rights is holding a national conference titled: Looking to the Future: Legal and Policy Options for Racially Integrated Education in the South and the Nation (see their website at http://www.law.unc.edu/centers/civilrights/conferences/default.aspx). Be sure to note the titles of the various panels that will be presented during the day. The conference should be well attended by busing/diversity believers from throughout the country, and especially academia. I'm sure Wake schools would love to continue to serve as their poster child; however, current low test scores, unless they can quickly be explained away, may make things a bit awkward. Be sure to note the titles of the various panels that will be presented during the day.
What infuriates me the most
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 11:27 — NWRaleighMomWhat infuriates me the most is that liberal UNC professors keep sending their children to Chapel Hill/Carrboro schools while imposing their ideas on Wake county and other districts.
There is no talk of merging Chapel Hill/Carrboro school district with Orange County district.
Would not it benefit Hillsborough and surrounding communities? If countywide district is so great for Wake, why not for Orange county and blue states in NorthEast and MidWest.
You are so right!!! Do you
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 21:50 — vsheehanYou are so right!!! Do you know everyone of my son's Dr.s at UNC have said that they choose CH/C over wake so their kids could get a better education. They all say to move into CH/C.
then move, please
Fri, 02/13/2009 - 23:27 — supportwcpss.
Details, details
Thu, 02/12/2009 - 19:12 — SideburnsWe all know what the diversity-driven policies are doing to the neighborhoods, families and, most importantly, the children of Wake County. Here's my example of what WCPSS is "achieving" with diversity.
Many children from high-F&R nodes in Raleigh were assigned to Cary Elementary in 07-08. They were then reassigned to an MYR school in Apex but opted-out and ended up at their tradt'l option for 08-09. Next year, the traditional option is changing yet these children will be unable to grandfather as they depend on the bus. So, 3 schools in 3 years.
I don't need a study. My eyes have been opened.
Diversity Study
Thu, 02/12/2009 - 15:38 — JanisTango"David Holdzkom, assistant superintendent for evaluation and research, told board members he's been talking with Chuck Dulaney, assistant superintendent for growth and planning, about what a policy evaluation would look like."
This paragraph concerns me a bit. Because of the controversy surrounding this diversity policy and the data and how the data is used, we could get a skewed result if WCPSS conducts this study. I would really like to see an outside organization that has no horse in this race do the evaluation. I think most of us are in agreement we want data to prove it is working or not working. I can't imagine WCPSS would want to produce a study that would show their policy isn't working which is what a lot of us believe.
"what a policy evaluation would look like"
Thu, 02/12/2009 - 16:37 — g88ky07This might as well read,
"what can we do to manipulate the #'s so we don't get egg on our reassignment papers? You know Chuck, we can do it this way & that way and we'll come out looking like the winners, then all those WSCA folks will pat us on the back for doing such a great job. Chuck, do you think we could get Madoff to do the study for us? I hear he's real good at making people believe things that aren't true!"
There's not one parent out there, with any common sense, who would believe any results from ANY study these people would produce, that I know!
I agree Janis Tango, I don't
Thu, 02/12/2009 - 15:51 — jenmanI agree Janis Tango, I don't trust Dulaney, Holdzkom or WCPSS in general to produce a truly objective study.
A little political "food" - or ......
Thu, 02/12/2009 - 14:42 — WuptdoA little political "food" - or what the local media is NOT reporting and what the BoE(eR) chooses to ignore:
http://www2.talkingaboutpolitics.com/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ArticleView/mid/364/articleId/1555/Resegregating-Raleighs-Schools.aspx
Once again --
Char-Meck: Doing Schools right
WCPSS: Doing Schools wrong
Remind me again, what school system showed Chuck Delaney the door?
http://news14.com/content/sch
Thu, 02/12/2009 - 13:39 — AngelaWhttp://news14.com/content/school_news/604757/half-of-all-cms-students-qualify-for-lunch-aid/Default.aspx
Mecklenburg Citizens for Public Education says poverty at CMS still doesn't compare to larger urban school districts. The executive director also said the numbers aren't high enough to indicate a panic.
(only 30% of Wake county are considered low income, yet they insist on being compared to "large urban districts")
“(only 30% of Wake county
Thu, 02/12/2009 - 14:17 — user1234“(only 30% of Wake county are considered low income, yet they insist on being compared to "large urban districts")”
Angela, Not that we are a large urban area now but might will be in the near future. We are following a similar pattern of an older repopulating downtown and growing suburban affluent ring ... plus, we are getting more and more diverse in race and income than in years past which comes with being more urban. People often point to Seattle orN. VA (Fairfax / Arlington ) as examples we should follow but they are prosperous areas but you also have Richmond , Charlotte , and Atlanta
Really?
Thu, 02/12/2009 - 16:34 — Bob_SconceI'm not sure what you mean by "older repopulating downtown" -- do you mean that homes in downtown are older? If so, that's clearly correct (30-odd years ago, North Hills Mall was way out in the boonies). But, there's a lot of gentrification in older areas (think historic Oakwood, Boylan Heights and, to a lesser extent, Mordecai) and Raleigh never really had an industrial base in the city center that dried up. So, I don't think that "older homes" necessarily equates to "poor families."
(How did Charlotte got such a large poor population? 58% is quite high.)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20
Sat, 02/14/2009 - 20:09 — AngelaWhttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090214/ap_on_bi_ge/charlotte_banks
AngelaW, Any chance of you
Sun, 02/15/2009 - 10:25 — user1234AngelaW, Any chance of you including a short one sentence summary of what your URLs are about? They may be of interest to me but I don't have the time to click on all fo them and might miss one of interest.
last one was Charlotte in
Sun, 02/15/2009 - 10:31 — AngelaWlast one was
Charlotte in same predicament as Wall Street
Thanks, I know you put a lot
Sun, 02/15/2009 - 11:08 — user1234Thanks, I know you put a lot of work into finding and bringing these to the discussion and I just wanted to make sure I did not overlook one.
Charlotte's assignment policy
Thu, 02/12/2009 - 21:21 — sstarksMany of the parents of the Free and Reduced Lunch kids in Mecklenburg County today had to have attended school during the CMS busing era. If busing was so successful it is curious that these parents cannot support themselves and their children above the poverty level. We are also told that they do not know how to help their children succeed in school because they did not have a good school experience. How can this be? I thought that attending diverse schools, which they should have done under busing, was the magic bullet for academic success.
recent bank implosions??
Thu, 02/12/2009 - 18:02 — AngelaWrecent bank implosions?? Charlotte was becoming a banking capitol now an unemployment surge?
When I moved here 30
Thu, 02/12/2009 - 17:48 — user1234When I moved here 30 years ago, we lived inCameron Village Cary