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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2008 > September > 25
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Scott Elliott: If this list sounds familiar, it should
If this list sounds familiar, it should. You’ve heard it before.
Here are the five best school districts in the Miami Valley, as judged by the Ohio Department of Education’s district report cards released last month:
Mason.
Oakwood.
Russia.
Botkins.
Fort Loramie.
Mason and Oakwood get headlines every year for coming out on top. And this list should also ring a bell. State report cards say these are the five worst area districts (lowest scoring at the bottom):
National Trail.
Northridge.
Trotwood-Madison.
Jefferson Twp.
Dayton.
Every August, report cards come out, and these districts appear consistently at the top and bottom of the list. Four of those top districts scored in the top five last year also, and all five have been in the top 10 the last three years running.
The story is the same at the bottom of the list. Except for Preble County’s National Trail schools, the other four have been among the five worst three straight years.
The implication from the state report card is that the first five districts are doing a great job and the bottom five are doing dreadfully. In fact, that’s exactly how they are treated by Ohio’s accountability system.
But wait just a minute. Take a look at this list. Ladies and gentleman, the top five school districts in the Miami Valley are:
Sidney
Botkins
Versallies
Ansonia
Fort Loramie
And the bottom five are:
Jefferson Twp.
Huber Heights
Tri-County North
Jackson Center
Carlisle
Fort Loramie must be doing something really right, since it is on both top scoring lists. And Jefferson Twp., near the bottom of both lists, really has some explaining to do.
To get this second pair of lists, I used a different measure of test success than the state does. You might say my list shows you the Miami Valley’s five most “overachieving” school districts and the five worst “underachievers.”
Here’s where my list comes from:
It is a well-documented fact that there is a very strong correlation between wealth and standardized test scores in a school district. Two years ago, I talked to Chris Lubienski, a well-regarded University of Illinois researcher who studies the effect of student characteristics on test performance.
He said a host of studies over many years have shown outside factors such as wealth and the education level of parents in the community are the strongest predictors of standardized test results, accounting for 60 to 70 percent a school’s scores.
The schools themselves typically can only affect 30 to 40 percent of student scores on a standardized test.
And of the home factors, it’s wealth that often has the strongest connection to test results.
In 2006, I studied the affect of wealth on Ohio’s test scores and found the same result. The correlation between median income in Ohio school districts and test scores explained about 66 percent of the score.
Youngstown State Professor Randy Hoover, in a just released study of 2007 Ohio report cards, had similar findings — median income explained about 62 percent of a district’s score. He studied 60 possible variables and found strong test-score correlation only with nonschool factors.
So it’s not surprising that wealthy districts like Oakwood score high and poor districts like Dayton score low on the report cards. You’d expect that. Oakwood is the 11th wealthiest district in Ohio, and it’s test scores rank ninth best — almost right on the money. Dayton is the 590th wealthiest district and ranks last — 610th — for test scores. That’s also roughly the same.
But let’s look at Sidney for a moment. Sidney ranks 461st in Ohio for wealth, but for test scores, it ranks 230th. That means it is scoring 231 places above where its income would predict. I call that an overachiever.
At the other end of the spectrum is Carlisle. It ranks 190th for income in Ohio, but it’s test scores rank 416th — 226 spots lower than income would predict. That’s not good.
Incredibly, Sidney got no credit from the state for its overachievement. Ohio has added a “growth measure” that gives extra report-card points to districts that meet test-score improvement targets. Sidney didn’t qualify. So to those who look up Miami Valley test scores, Sidney ranks an unremarkable 31st out of 60 districts when ranked by test scores.
That’s really not fair to the hard-working teachers and students who defied the odds. Ohio should consider at least adding this information to the report cards so that parents can get a fuller picture of school-district performance.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Education, Scott Elliott
Rush on Bailout Doesn’t Foster Trust
At the writing, the news has just come across the wires that the leading Democrats and Republicans in Washington think they have agreement on the broad outlines of a bailout package for the nation’s financial system.
On the one hand, it’s good to see some cooperation. Rep. Barney Frank, the brilliant and unapologetically liberal chairman of the House committee on financial institutions, deserves some credit for getting Democrats on board for a proposal that looks a lot like a great big favor to Wall Street. But the Republicans have compromised, allowing, for example, for some sort of limit on payments to the CEOs who head up the failing institutions.
In testimony before the Frank committee on Wednesday, the two authors of the $700 billion plan for the government to buy debt it can later sell, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke escaped largely unscathed. Economists and others have written made arguments against the bailout, but the members of Congress couldn’t muster any, at least any that were very compelling. Every time a committee member pointed to the problems that result from bailing out businesses that have made bad business decisions, the two men said, essentially, “Compared to what?” Their point was that the alternative now is letting the system collapse, which would hurt millions of regular people.
Still, compelling answers to the cases made against this particular approach in oped pieces and elsewhere are hard to come by. So is a really convincing argument that it all has to be done this week. The politicians’ top goals seem to be to make sure they can’t be blamed for any collapse and to get out of town and back to the campaign trail.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: National Politics
Here’s the list of overachieving and underachieving school districts
In my column today, I suggested school districts should get extra credit, or at least recognition, from the state if their state rank for test scores out pace their rank in the state for median income, given the demonstrated strong connection between wealth and standardized test performance. For more on this, see my 2006 study of the link between test scores and income in Ohio.
By clicking the “continued” link, you can view the full list of the 60 Miami Valley school districts and the difference between their state rank for performance index score — a state measure of test performance across all grades — compared to their rank for median incomes among Ohio’s 610 school districts.
Positive numbers mean those district score better than their wealth would predict. I call these district “overachievers.” Districts that show negative numbers — lower ranks for test performance vs. median income — are “underachievers” in my view.
If you want to see the actual rankings for test performance and median income check out this post at the Get on the Bus education blog.
Sidney 231
Botkins 191
Versailles 184
Ansonia 177
Fort Loramie 156
Piqua 151
Milton-Union 116
Russia 107
Cedar Cliff 102
Anna 73
Brookville 69
Troy 64
Mississinawa Valley 54
Vandalia-Butler 46
Kettering 34
Greenville 25
Wayne 24
Newton 23
Northridge 17
Covington 16
Kings 15
Miami East 13
Mason 9
Tipp City 4
Oakwood 2
Northmont 2
Hardin-Houston -7
Centerville -14
Arcanum -17
Lebanon -18
Franklin Monroe -19
Dayton -20
Franklin -26
Sugarcreek -29
Mad River -29
Miamisburg -35
Yellow Springs -36
West Carrollton -45
Springboro -51
Trotwood-Madison -52
Beavercreek -55
Fairborn -64
New Lebanon -66
Bethel -67
Valley View -68
Xenia -100
Bradford -109
Little Miami -119
Eaton -132
Tri-County North -132
Twin Valley -147
Tri-Village -150
Greeneview -158
National Trail -159
Fairlawn -161
Preble Shawnee -193
Jefferson Twp. -206
Huber Heights -208
Jackson Center -218
Carlisle -226
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment | Categories: Education
