Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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The back door out of “emergency”
Should a school district that meets none of the state’s 25 “report card” standards be allowed to receive a better grade just because it’s made good standardized test gains?
There’s a chance this could happen in Dayton come August.
In today’s paper, I wrote about how Dayton school officials think they might get out of academic emergency, even though right now it is not a sure thing that Dayton will meet any of the state indicators.
This idea of rewarding school districts for growth is new, and it’s an idea low income urban districts like Dayton very much favor. Dayton and others have long argued that they don’t get enough credit for moving their low-scoring kids forward.
While more affluent districts with already high-scoring kids might make little or no gains, they still earn top ratings from the state. Meanwhile, districts like Dayton argue they don’t get enough credit when the take low scoring kids and make really big gains, even if they don’t meet the high thresholds the state standards require.
So the state ultimately was convinced that it’s fair to consider growth for the report card. Thus the “performance index” was born. It’s a complex calculation that seeks to estimate test score growth across several rating categories.
All the results are not yet in for Dayton and many possibilities remain. Dayton still could meet the standard in a category or two. Or it might miss on performance index after all.
But as of right now, Dayton has met no indicators, but the district’s own numbers show it has made enough gain to earn a bump up out of “academic emergency” to the next category, “academic watch.”
What do you think? Should a district be allowed out of academic emergency for growth even if it goes 0 for 25 on the state standards?
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Comments
By Rachael
June 20, 2006 8:41 AM | Link to this
Progress is progress. Dayton is steadily improving its scores, but it’s going to take time. The growth in Dayton reflects the hard work of students, parents, teachers and administrators. It should be recognized.By Karen
June 19, 2006 1:43 PM | Link to this
I’m not sure about moving the district from academic emergency to academic watch, but I do think that the difference between what students are predicted to achieve and what they actually achieve is a better point of comparison among schools than straight achievement scores. A school whose students’ scores are improving is doing its job. In choosing a school, the stat I want to see is the difference between a group’s predicted Terra Nova score and its actual score. When a group is predicted to score in the 50th percentiles and its scores are in the 60’s and 70’s, that group is obviously being challenged and being motivated to live up to the challenge.