Chapter Two: Schools that 'beat the demographic odds'
'Beat the Demographic Odds' is in quotes because many of these assessment systems/pedagogical philosophies/programs/institutions fail on some level. Here are summaries and main points of each one discussed:
Dr. William Sanders and the Tennessee value-added assessment system
Dr. William Sanders and the Tennessee value-added assessment system
- Dr. Sanders, agricultural statistician, believed better schools can close the gap.
- Based on the value-added system, which states that if students are in the 45th percentile grades 3-5 and jump to the 50th in grade 6, this must be due to effective teaching, the teacher's "value-added"
- Teachers must be very effective for significant gains, in the 90th percentile of effectiveness. All the best teachers are not likely (nor willing) to go to schools with students in need.
- 21 high poverty schools that owe success to accepting "no excuses" for failure--principals defy district bureaucracies, aim for progressive, new fads in teaching, test frequently, fire bad teachers, and refuse to use poverty as an excuse.
- However, out of these 21 schools, only six were non-selective neighborhood schools. Parents had to apply for children to attend, many are parents of unusually able children.
- A "no excuses" school in Queens requires students to have far above average IQs from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
- Rote teaching spikes scores in early ages, but scores decline in later grades when critical thinking becomes important. The Heritage Foundation only highlighted the primary school scores.
- 1,320 schools, with at least half the students being both poor and minority, with test scores in the top 1/3 of their states. 10% of the schools have mostly poor/minority students.
- These schools do have high schools, but in only one grade, one subject, one year. Their success years were statistical outliers.
- Dr. Douglas Reeves says that judging by socioeconomic factors is racist.
- Sites 90/90/90 schools in Milwaukee where 90% of students are eligible to subsidized lunches, 90% are minority, and 90% meet "high academic standards."
- But these schools only score above the "basic" level of standardized tests, far below "high academic standards" or acceptable scores for middle class schools
- Mr.Kim Marshall said that the Mather school delivered a "first rate education" to all children, despite socioeconomic troubles via vigorous testing, high expectations, teacher coordination, good curriculum, and his own leadership abilities.
- However, Marshall did not mention that the Mather school was the subject of a six year demonstration conducted by optometrists who fixed kids' vision problems. Students saw a 4.5% increase on reading tests annually, compared to a .6% increase before.
- Army base schools boast high scores by minority and low-income students.
- Socioeconomic classes are integrated (kids of enlisted and officers)
- Health and social services provided
- Parents forced by COs to attend parent-teacher conferences, discipline children, and make sure homework is done.
- Rafe Esquith taught a 5th grade class with immigrant students to perform full Shakespearean plays, full music concerts, mastery of good literature, and rank at the top of the nation in math.
- His "jungle" school=virtually no black students, mostly Korean and Central American immigrants. Children of well-educated political dissidents, also class time was extended and attended voluntarily. He funded it as well.
- AVID prepares low-income, above average students for SAT exams, but this doesn't really help typical cases.