Since my last post was a rant about some misleading headlines in Tuesday’s Star, let me begin this post by saying, the headline for this Star article is right on the money.
Pima County students lag rest of Arizona in passing standardized math tests
Here’s what I like about it.
First, it focuses on Pima County, not TUSD. Star headlines and stories about standardized test scores often focus on TUSD’s scores, which are always lower than most other districts in the area. Knocking TUSD sells papers, which is the only reason I can figure that the Star is so fond of going for the district’s jugular. But not this time.
Second, by saying the Pima County scores are lower than the state average in math, the headline implies that county schools equalled the rest of the state in English, which you learn in the story is true. I even like the word “lag,” which suggests that the math scores trail the rest of the state, but not by much. That’s true as well. Statewide, 42 percent of students passed the math test. In Pima County, it was 40 percent.
A good headline is a good headline is a good headline. Let me raise my glass and toast its creators.
The story is even better than the headline. When the Star’s annual standardized test stories come out, I often find myself shaking my head and muttering, “Comparing district test scores means nothing unless you factor in family incomes.” Then I sit down and write a post picking the article apart.
But as I read this article, I found myself nodding “Yes.” After the first three paragraphs summarizing the county scores, the reporter launches into a discussion of why the districts’ scores break down the way they do.
Like the state as a whole, race and socioeconomic status factored heavily into test scores — a consideration that many say is a problem with AzMERIT and other standardized tests.
Yes, that’s absolutely right. The next few paragraphs are an intelligent discussion of how family income correlates with test scores, going so far as to cite a recent academic study and a Census Bureau report. That. Is. How. It’s. Done.
When the story gets down to individual district scores, it relates them back to family income. The three districts with the highest scores, Catalina Foothills, Vail Unified and Tanque Verde, have the county’s lowest poverty rates. The districts with the lowest scores, Sunnyside and TUSD, have the county’s highest poverty rates. Which makes it clear, you can’t say one district is doing a better job than another by looking at standardized test scores alone.
The article cites two outliers to the correlation between scores and poverty rates. Flowing Wells’ passing rates are higher and Marana’s are lower than one would expect given their poverty rates.
Why do those two districts defy the correlation between test scores and family income? The article doesn’t venture an explanation, and I don’t have an answer either. But let me consider a few possibilities.
It could be as simple as, Flowing Wells does a better job with its students than other districts and Marana needs to clean up its educational act.
But a more granular analysis of the data might show the two districts’ scores aren’t the outliers they appear to be. Looking beyond the passing rates and analyzing the way students’ scores spread across the entire continuum from lowest to highest might indicate that Flowing Wells’ scores aren’t as high and Marana’s aren’t as low as that one data point, the passing rates, indicates. Likewise, looking at detailed socioeconomic data from the two districts, not simply the poverty rate, might indicate that Flowing Wells’ family incomes are higher and Marana’s are lower than the number of families above and below the poverty line indicates.
I have no idea what a more sophisticated analysis of the two districts would reveal, and I’m not likely to find out any time soon. A task like that is way above my pay grade and far beyond the scope of the Star article. It would probably take an academic crunching the numbers to reach any significant conclusions.
There. That was fun. It’s a pleasure writing about a good article on local education rather than picking apart one that doesn’t do the job.
This article appears in Oct 3-9, 2019.
If knocking TUSD sells papers why are there still 54,000 students there? If they spent the money on the paper they should have read it more closely.
Your assumption of one district doing better than others fails to accept the fact that not all students are created equally upon entering school. Much of what they Do know and what they Don’t know is based on their home surroundings. And that is influenced by their locale.
Don Betson, you might consider giving my post another read-through. What you way in your second paragraph is the point I made in the post. We agree.
Based on the AzMERIT results, there is a bright spot for Pima County that is overlooked by that headline. The piece identifies Catalina Foothills, Vail and Tanque Verde as the only three districts where at least half of the student body passed. There is more to it than that. Two of those districts, Catalina Foothills and Vail, posted the highest overall AzMERIT results in the state. Looking deeper, Pima County districts hold five of the top 15 spots, more than any other county (including the larger and wealthier Maricopa County). Clearly, not all Pima County students are lagging. Furthermore, there is no acknowledgment of the role that open enrollment plays. It is incorrect to assume that a districts student population lives in the district. For example, forty-three percent of Catalina Foothills students live outside of District 16s boundaries.
Due to parental work obligations and lack of transportation, children in less wealthy circumstances are probably less able to attend out-of-district schools. Thus, Julie Farbarik’s number regarding Catalina Foothills students from other districts indicates it most likely draws students from upper socio-economic households, reinforcing the socio-economic to student performance tie.
Marian Hill makes an excellent but always overlooked point in this and all discussions transportation. Suntran has little value in Tucson. Parents will not even put their children on it to access a better, FREE education. Or is it something else?
Debbie T, could children in various areas of Tucson take a bus directly to a school in the Foothills or another neighboring district? I doubt it could be done easily. It’s really dependent on parents having the desire, the transportation and the time to ferry their kids to another district. All those, and the knowledge that children can go to out of district schools (not everyone knows that), favor parents with a high level of education and a good income.
In addition to regressing test scores against poverty rates to estimate academic gains, in this modern day of computers you can actually just type in a question and the computer will give you the average academic gains for each school district.
Just to give you some perspective, I am in another state, in a very large school district where the student acavdemic gains were at the first percentile. A zero percentile doesnt exist. This is as low as it goes. As much as we beat the tar out of TUSD, they came out at the 70th percentile.
David, why dont you drive up to the next state board meeting, put in a speakers slip and make a public record request for average academic gains by school district. Also, we have a NAEP representative whose job it is to serve as a liason with the federal department of education. The feds have an Education Science division who undoubtedly have a six variable regression equation to estimate academic gains. Something with a little more horsepower than your one variable eyeball regression.
Gee, what a surprise to find David Safier praising the former Tucson Weekly reporter Danyelle Khmara again. Great to have someone at the ADS spouting just the kind of propaganda you like, isnt it David? That way you can occasionally take a break from your sham castigating of the Star, as you continue to try to throw a cloak over the fact that they pull more punches than they land on what needs criticism in the local educational scene. You and your friend Ms. Khmara can keep telling us those low test scores are all about poverty and conditions in the homes, not mismanagement of the schools. And perhaps you will add that if we just threw more money at the problem districts, things would immediately get SO MUCH BETTER!!!
One wonders if there is any other venue where you would get as little well-informed commentary on your sad enthusiasm for weak journalism, your chronic misrepresentations of what is needed to improve the schools, and your stereotyped, politicized propagandizing as you get here.
That. Is. How. Propaganda. Is. Done. Yeah, right. That IS how it is done. And some of us see right through it and, for the sake of the students, wish you and your cabal would stop doing it.
Pay no attention to the dislikes. They are as fraudulent as the information.