Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > October > 10
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Will a thicker wall keep violence out?
(The U.S. consulate in Turkey before 9/11)
(The U.S. consulate in Turkey today)
It’s actually worse than those pictures appear. Last year, while traveling in Istanbul, I lost my passport and had to go to the U.S. Consulate for a replacement. After a half-hour trip out of downtown, we came to the hilltop fortress that is the image of the U.S. in that country. Walls, checkpoints and reinforced concrete everywhere.
A well-traveled friend told me this is a growing trend around the world — U.S. embassies and consulates are being rebuilt into military-style compounds in the name of safety. I understand the need for safety, but have we thought about how this makes us look to the rest of the world?
After a week of violent incidents at schools, I’ve begun to wonder how long before school buildings are remade in much the same way — into your own little neighborhood Fort Knox.
So far, we’ve begun to see mostly subtle changes in school design to add safety features to buildings.
But if violent incidents continue, how long before schools undergo a more radical transformation in the name of safety?
Already, schools, perhaps unintentionally, send signals to parents to keep their distance. My daughter’s kindergarten teacher blocked the classroom door on the first day of school — kids were allowed to pass while parents were shooed away. No pictures were allowed either. (I admit to being one of those who backed down the hallway for a quick first-day-at-school snap shot. Sorry, but that was a keepsake photo I simply had to have).
At the same time, there’s a lot of evidence that the more involved parents are in a school, the better the students perform.
Schools have a difficult balance to strike. They are public by definition and the education process is enhanced when they are more open to the community. At the same time, we all want to guard against those who would hurt our kids.
Can it be done without moats and watchtowers?
(Image credit: www.state.gov, www.state.gov)
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: School Violence
What does black student data tell us?
(Trotwood-Madison High School students last month)
A couple years ago, a fairly affluent Dayton-area suburban school district was cited as in a wire service story for its success educating black students because the percentage of black students who passed state tests was very high.
When we looked at the data, however, we found that while indeed the black students had scored well, there were very few of them. If I remember right, I think the high percentage resulted from something like nine of 11 black students passing a state test. And while applauding their success, we hesitated to conclude, as the statewide story had, that this district was doing something extraordinary to help black students achieve. The numbers were just too small to draw that sort of sweeping conclusion.
But ever since that story, I’ve wondered how we might try examine which Ohio school districts might, in fact, be doing something notable to raise achievement for blacks students. Perhaps there are examples from which the rest of the state can learn, since Ohio has one of the nation’s worst gaps between white and black test scores?
Using this year’s report card data, I started poking around, trying to find trends that might indicate success in helping black students achieve. Some of what I found was interesting. Some of it was curious.
I started by looking for districts with a large percentage of black children. I made a list of the districts in which black students made up at least a quarter of the enrollment. There are 39 of them out of 610 Ohio school districts.
Then I looked at three variables for black students from the state’s data — graduation rate and the percentage of black 10th graders who passed the Ohio Graduation Test’s reading and math sections.
Here’s some of what the data showed:
Low test scores but good graduation rate.
Jefferson Twp. a close-in Dayton suburb, has amazing success graduating black students despite low test achievement. Seventy-eight percent of the district’s enrollment is black, fifth most in the state. Despite ranking in the bottom quarter among the 39 districts for reading and math test scores, Jefferson ranks in the top six for graduation rate, just short of a perfect score. Jefferson and Maple Heights are the only districts ranked among the top 10 in graduation rate that also fall in the bottom quarter for both math and reading scores.
Campbell schools, near Youngstown, remarkably rank second worst in the group for black students’ reading scores but maintain a 100 percent graduation rate for those kids. The other two districts with perfect black graduation rates — Reynoldsdburg near Columbus and the Cleveland area’s Richmond Heights — both also rank in the top 10 for reading and math scores.
Comparing well with peers
Trotwood-Madison is another close in suburb that, like Jefferson Twp., is traditionally one of the Dayton-area’s lowest scoring districts on state report cards. But in this peer group, it’s scores compare reasonably well for performance by black students, ranked 13 of 39 for graduation rate and ranked seventh in math and 16th in reading.
Dayton ranks low when it comes to graduating black students, but better than several of its peers among the large urban districts including Cleveland, Youngstown, Canton, Columbus and Cincinnati. But reading and math scores for Dayton’s black students are in the bottom quarter among the 39 districts and slightly lower than most of those peers.
On the low end
Nearby Springfield’s black graduation rate beats Dayton, but it ranks lower in math and reading scores (in the bottom five among this peer group on both tests).
I also couldn’t help but notice how stark Cleveland’s numbers are here. Ohio’s largest school district was the lowest rated overall on state report cards released in August, and those low scores are reflected here. The district is last in this group by nearly 10 points in black graduation rate, last in 10th grade reading and third to last in 10th grade math.
I’m still not certain how much this data tells us. Give me your thoughts on what you see here and if you have suggestions for what other data you would like to see on this topic, I’d love to hear them.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: My Favorite Posts, Urban School Issues
Graduating black students
Four Dayton-area districts are among the 39 in Ohio in which black students make up at least 25 percent of enrollment. Which ones do the best job helping those kids achieve? Here are three measures. The districts are ranked by the percent of black students who graduate. In parenthesis, I’ve listed how each district ranks among the 39 for the pecent of 10th grade black students passing the Ohio Graduation Test in reading and math:
Reynoldsburg 100 (Reading 10, Math 1)
Richmond Heights 100 (Reading 1, Math 5)
Campbell 100 (Reading 38, Math 26)
Warrensville Heights 98.8 (Reading 21, Math 28)
South Euclid-Lyndhurst 98.4 (Reading 6, Math 2)
Jefferson Twp. 98.1 (Reading 30, Math 33)
Shaker Heights 96.8 (Reading 9, Math 11)
Maple Heights 95.8 (Reading 31, Math 36)
Liberty 93.3 (Reading 33, Math 19)
Finneytown 92.5 (Reading 13, Math 6)
Princeton 90.9 (Reading 18, Math 10)
Garfield Heights 90.9 (Reading 2, Math 20)
Trotwood-Madison 90.8 (Reading 16, Math 7)
Groveport Madison 90.5 (Reading 22, Math 14)
Whitehall 90.5 (Reading 12,Math 30)
Bedford 90.1 (Reading 4, Math 15)
Euclid 89.2 (Reading 5, Math 9)
Cleveland Heights-University Heights 88.1 (Reading 15, Math 13)
Mt Healthy 87.6 (Reading 17, Math 12)
Winton Woods 86.8 (Reading 7, Math 4)
Oberlin 86.7 (Reading 3, Math 38)
Lockland 84.6 (Reading 8, Math 3)
Springfield 84.5 (Reading 34, Math 35)
Warren 82.3 (Reading 36, Math 29)
North College Hill 80 (Reading 11, Math 16)
Akron 79.9 (Reading 25, Math 23)
Toledo 79.2 (Reading 14, Math 21)
Mansfield 78.9 (Reading 28, Math 22)
Steubenville 78.3 (Reading 37, Math 18)
Dayton 77.8 (Reading 29, Math 32)
Cincinnati 75 (Reading 19, Math 8)
Canton 73.9 (Reading 23, Math 31)
Columbus 70.7 (Reading 27, Math 25)
Lorain 70.6 (Reading 24, Math 24)
Lima 66.8 (Reading 35, Math 39)
Youngstown 64.8 (Reading 32, Math 27)
East Cleveland 63.2 (Reading 26, Math 34)
Sandusky 62.2 (Reading 20, Math 17)
Cleveland 51.2 (Reading 39, Math 37)
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Urban School Issues
Districts with the most black students
These are the 39 Ohio school districts, out of 610 in which black students make up at least 25 percent of enrollment (district, county, percentage). Dayton-area districts are in bold:
East Cleveland (Cuyahoga) 99.2
Warrensville Heights (Cuyahoga) 99
Maple Heights (Cuyahoga) 88.5
Trotwood-Madison (Montgomery) 84.8
Jefferson Twp. (Montgomery) 78.7
Cleveland Heights-University Heights (Cuyahoga) 75.9
Bedford (Cuyahoga) 73.6
Cincinnati (Hamilton) 70.9
Euclid (Cuyahoga) 70.6
Dayton (Montgomery) 70.5
Cleveland (Cuyahoga) 70.3
North College Hill (Hamilton) 67.7
Mt Healthy (Hamilton) 67
Youngstown (Mahoning) 66.9
Winton Woods (Hamilton) 66.1
Richmond Heights (Cuyahoga) 64.4
Columbus (Franklin) 62.6
Shaker Heights (Cuyahoga) 52.9
Princeton (Hamilton) 49.8
Akron (Summit) 48.5
South Euclid-Lyndhurst (Cuyahoga) 47
Toledo (Lucas) 46.1
Warren (Trumbull) 41.8
Lima (Allen) 41.5
Canton (Stark) 35.9
Mansfield (Richland) 34.8
Finneytown (Hamilton) 33.3
Sandusky (Erie) 32.9
Lockland (Hamilton) 32.3
Garfield Heights (Cuyahoga) 30.9
Steubenville (Jefferson) 30.7
Campbell (Mahoning) 30.4
Liberty (Trumbull) 29.3
Oberlin (Lorain) 28.5
Whitehall (Franklin) 27.2
Groveport Madison (Franklin) 27.1
Lorain (Lorain) 27.1
Springfield (Clark) 25.7
Reynoldsburg (Franklin) 25.4
Permalink | | Categories: Urban School Issues
