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The Numbers Game
On its quest for an A, this school is trying to identify 57 students they think are their "lowest quartile"--and "to see if they are the same students the state picked." What then? Do those students get even more test prep drill?
Sue Stoops and Betty Draper have spent hours poring over student test results since learning last week their school had received a B grade from the state.
They firmly believe Brooksville Elementary, which logged Hernando County's second-highest scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, deserves an A. They already had plans for the recognition money that comes with top marks.
So the principal and assistant principal decided to comb over the numbers to see if perhaps the state made a mistake. They want to appeal the grade.
"To say we are picking this apart is an understatement," principal Stoops said Wednesday.
But the administrators ran into a problem of definitions as they pursued their goal. They did not know how the state identified the bottom 25 percent of students.
That's an important point, because the difference between an A and a B for Brooksville Elementary hinged on the performance of the lowest-performing students in comparison to the student body overall. The school had 77 percent of its total student body improve on FCAT reading, but only 65 percent of the lowest performers.
To qualify for an A, the percentage point difference between those two groups had to be 10 or less.
After crunching numbers, assistant principal Draper said she believed the state's analysis was off slightly, and the school could benefit from an appeal. At worst, she said, the school's margin of error was one student who missed a Level 2 score by four points.
Again, that all depended on how the state picked who to count in the lowest 25 percent of students. Was it those who scored worst last year on FCAT, or this year, or something else?
"Until we find out how they calculate it, all we're doing is rechecking our numbers so we can compare ours to theirs," Stoops said. "We have selected 57 students that we think are our lowest quartile. We want to see if they are the same students the state picked."
A Department of Education technical paper on how to calculate school grades, dated June 18, says the children are those eligible who scored in the lowest 25 percent in the previous year and also had FCAT results for the current year. There had to be at least 30 students in that group.
"We don't want our schools, since we're focusing on learning gains, working with only the students that have the shortest distance to go," DOE spokeswoman Frances Marine said, adding that there are no plans to change the formula.
In the past, most school appeals of their grades were based on concerns similar to those at Brooksville Elementary.
Last year, the department received appeals from 152 schools in 34 school districts. Among them, 27 schools moved up to an A status; 10 schools became B schools; 13 became C schools; and nine became D schools, of which four had previously been graded an F.
Schools and districts have until July 18 to file appeals of their grades.
Stoops said it was some comfort to know so many of the lowest performing students had shown vast improvement and that many of them had scored Level 3 on FCAT. But "you could have told us we got an F and it wouldn't have hurt any worse" than the unexpected B, she added.
So while it's possible the state might reject the appeal and assert its numbers are right, Stoops said, simply filing the appeal might help ease the sting, if nothing else.
"If we look at their figures and we come up with the same numbers, we could appeal the unfairness of the process, I guess," Stoops said.
— Jeffrey S. Solochek
School on quest to raise grade to 'A'
St. Petersburg Times
June 26, 2003
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sptimes/index.html?ts=1056763721
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