The Education Doctor is in

I've virtually bumped into a new education blogger in Nashville. The Education Doctor's inaugural post was on July 15 and since then the 11 posts to date have been informative and thoughtful. This from the About page:

Welcome to my blog devoted to educational issues in Nashville and Tennessee more generally.

Who am I? I’m no insider to educational politics or Metro schools. What I am is a scholar and informed observer of educational news. With talk of more charter schools and mayoral control there’s a lot going on in the schools right now. I will bring a fresh perspective to these discussions. In doing so, I’ll explore what the research tells us about what works in education and bring in data to shed some light on current debates. Hopefully together we can find the prescription for Nashville schools.

The doctor is in.

I've no idea who this anonymous blogger is but I welcome them to the conversation. A couple of snips to pique your interest:

Self Governed Schools: "Third, despite the head of the AFT (Al Shanker) leading the call for charter schools in 1988, teacher unions opposed charter school laws after he stepped down. This was partly due to the intermingling of advocates for autonomy and innovation with anti-union rhetoric blaming union rules for the existing system’s inflexibility. Whether this was deserved or not, it shaped the charter school debate. Unions are now trying to get back into the charter school discussion by opening unionized charter schools. It will be interesting to see how the discussion of Self Governed Schools evolves and whether they in turn provide competition to charter schools."

What's the SCORE?: "The practices highlighted are good ideas. And they may in fact be leading to positive outcomes for the communities that are pursuing them. But it’s not clear these are the most evidence-based practices."

AYP, part 2: "Here’s what we know so far. MNPS has 30 schools on the high priority list. This means that 22% of their schools have failed to meet standards for 2 years in a row. The problem gets worse by grade level as 10% of elementary schools, 20% of middle schools, and 33% of high schools are high priority."

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Shearon shares his POV

Dave Shearon (a former MNPS BOE member from 1998 to 2001) made some very helpful observations in two recent posts to the NashvillePTOTalk list. I think they deserve broader publication and he has generously given me permission to post them here as he's no longer including MNPS issues on his blog.

I've been a little confused by MNPS getting "A's" on value-added even though we are losing ground to the state. So, I did a little investigating.

An "A" only means that a school or system is not doing significantly worse at helping students make gains than the state average from 1998. That's right, 1998 is the measuring stick, so it makes perfect sense that, with the vast majority of schools getting better, MNPS could be doing a poorer job of improving and still make A's.

Of course, this means that our students -- at all pre-achievement levels -- are losing ground to their peers across the state. For example, the 25th percentile for 3rd graders in 2002 for MNPS corresponded to the 22nd percentile for the state. Today, those students are at the 16th percentile. Our 50th percentile was the state's 44th, and today it's the 36th. Our 75th used to http://tinyurl.com/2cf6rr.

Members of the public can only see this data at the system level. Board Members, Dr. Garcia, and anyone to whome he gives a password can see similar data (and much more) for individual schools. Thus, if our leadership wanted to, it is possible for them to report on many additional views of our performance. For example, they could report, if they wanted to, on how zoned schools are doing compared to the academic magnets at helping high-achieving students to gain knowledge and skills in exchange for the time they spend sitting in class. This could be similar to the study I produced in 1999 (http://tinyurl.com/ekxuk) or they might find a better format. But it could be done relatively easily.

There are other interesting results that can be pulled from the online data available to Board members and the administration. For example, they could look at the effect of high concentrations of beginning or ineffective teachers in some feeder patterns. (http://tinyurl.com/ys454f) When I did my study, it meant requesting paper copies of a thick bundle of school-level reports, entering that data into spreadsheets and doing the anlysis. Today, it's just a password and a few clicks for any Board member.

In fairness, I should note that any Board member who undertook such an effort would open themselves up to attacks on three fronts.

First, they would be accused of not being supportive of the system. Many in the system and many parent and community supporters treat hard but fair questions as "attacking public schools."

Second, although I think access could be given to a Board member only down to the school level, for example, the system available to Dr. Garcia and those he designates (other administrators, principals for their own schools, etc.) goes to the teacher and even the student level. This leaves the Board member as a possible suspect if confidential data becomes public. Note: the kind of performance analysis I am suggesting is not confidential.

Third, some analyses would leave the Board member subject to accusations of mis-placed priorities. This line of attack sounds like "As long as low-achieving students are struggling, how can you be concerned about whether we're wasting the time of those who are already doing well?" For "low-achieving", feel free to substitute "minority", "poor", "ELL", "special-education" or any other categorization. The truth is that ALL parents want their children to be engaged, happy, and learning at school and Board members SHOULD represent ALL parents.

To me, the political risks to Board members are the price of leadership. We should have better information on how ALL our students are doing than we do today, and the fact that we don't is the responsibility of the Board.

David N. Shearon, JD, MAPP
Nashville, TN
Contributing monthly to www.pos-psych.com

and Dave continues in this second post:

I think it is fair to say we have not made the stunning gains that the PR campaign of MNPS has tried to claim and that we have made NO WHERE NEAR the jaw-dropping gains that Dr. Garcia claimed for his former district when he was being recruited.

Further, the data suggests that, at least through 2005 (the last year this study was updated), we weren't helping students learn as much between grades 3 and 8. Now, does this apply to every group of students, or is it weighed down by group differences such as increased ELL. Or, put another way, are early high-achieving, non-FARM students doing as well now as they were in 2008? Impossible for us to determine, but Dr. Garcia or his staff or a Board member could provide the answer.

Yes the state standards for proficiency are weak, and thus AYP under NCLB is weak, though we're not even achieving it. Remeber that AYP is based on a minimum cut score that creates no pressure to be concerned about high-achieving students (or those so far below the system determines they won't make it).

David N. Shearon, JD, MAPP
Nashville, TN
Contributing monthly to www.pos-psych.com

But are they learning?

In the middle of the fuss about dress codes and balanced calendars the measure of the real missions of public schools may get overlooked. Some are opining that's exactly the goal--distraction from the facts about whether these children are actually learning.

10 days late the state Department of Education will finally make this data available at 3:00 p.m. today (note this use of the late Friday news cycle tactic). Hopefully, reporters will take the weekend to go through this and lead with legitimate information Monday and not just MNPS press release quotes.

Metro Nashville Public Schools will hold their own Q & A just prior at 1:15 p.m. in the Board of Education room on Bransford Avenue.

"We expect to see information showing improved achievement in our district," said Paul Changas, district director of assessment and evaluation.

"A lot of data has been reported. What we have seen has been encouraging, but there are still a lot of areas that we need to address."Tennessean

Yes, indeed. I'm looking forward to the comparisons that the Save Our Students folks promised Nashvillians last spring. I'm convinced they will bring essential context to these numbers while providing accountability that the system has sorely needed. And we'll know better whether Superintendent of School Pedro Garcia actually earned his new three year contract.

AYP appeals

At last week's AYP briefing at Kirkpatrick Elementary I asked Dr. Garcia which schools were having their status appealed. At the time he didn't know.

Just now I've received the list of schools that are having their Annual Yearly Progress appealed from Paul Changas, Director of Assessment and Evaluation for Metro Nashville Public Schools. Here's the list:

Brookmeade Elementary
Cohn ALC
Glengarry Elementary
Goodlettsville Middle
Hunters Lane High School
J. B. Whitsitt Elementary
Martha Vaught Middle
McGavock High School
Stratford High School
Stratton Elementary

He further stated that these appeals should be resolved some time next week.

AYP report released

The Tennessee Department of Education has officially released the AYP information. From the DOE's press release.

Seventy-six Tennessee schools demonstrated marked improvement for two consecutive years and have come off the high priority schools list, according to the Tennessee’s 2006 Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) results.

Davidson County still has 32 schools on the high priority list and is considered a high prority system along with Cumberland, DeKalb, Fayette, Hamilton, Jackson-Madison, Maury and Robertson Counties. Memphis has 36 schools on the list.

High priority schools are listed here.

District 5, my own, had 7 on the list. It now has six. It looks like Bailey Middle which was in its second year on this list improved enough to be removed from the list. Kirkpatrick, which was on the list for restructuring was removed. New this year is Shwab Elementary. Still on the list and headed down are Dalewood Middle Schol, Glenn Elementary Enhanced Option, Jere Baxter Middle School, and Maplewood Comprehensive High School. Stratford Comprehensive High School has been moved from Restructuring 1 to School Improvement 1.

For the complete AYP status on all schools and districts, as well as supporting materials, visit www.tennessee.gov/education/nclb/ayp/.

UPDATE: The BOE members (both old and new) will be briefed by Dr. Garcia and staff at 11:00 tomorrow morning at Kirkpatrick Elementary.

[UPDATE: Thanks to Anonymous for pointing out that the following was LAST YEAR'S press release not this year's as I write immediately below. Please forgive the error.]

Here's the MNPS Press Release of moments ago:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (November 2, 2005) – Metro Nashville Public Schools made positive gains in several 2005 Tennessee Value Added Assessment System rankings, which were released last night by the Tennessee Department of Education, and made better than the state average gains in all TCAP (Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program) criterion referenced test categories. The scores show the amount of progress students make in a given subject from one year to the next, over a three-year period.

Areas in which MNPS made progress include TCAP reading/language, math, science and social studies. MNPS also made gains over the state average in all four TCAP categories.

“We are pleased to have yet another measure of success in our schools,” said Metro Nashville Board of Public Education Chair Pam Garrett. “These TVAAS results are the best we’ve earned in recent years, proving MNPS is on the right track. While we are certainly proud of what is happening, we recognize our task will be even more challenging next year as we adjust to budget shortfalls. The Board and MNPS administration are intent on moving forward as we deal with compromised funding; we will keep working to maintain the tremendous academic progress we’re now achieving.” MNPS also made strides in Gateway English II, End of Course English I, End of Course US History, writing assessment, ACT math, ACT English, ACT reading, ACT science reasoning and ACT composite. For the full list of scores, visit www.tennessee.gov/education.

Note the money excuse. "Tremendous academic progress"--I don't think so.