GreatSchools rating

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
GS is doing a comparison of DISPARITIES. (If I am reading the methodology report correctly - which btw many of you keyboard warriors have clearly not read). Meaning they are comparing the DISPARITY between groups at your school to the DISPARITY between the same groups at the state level. Do you even understand this? You can argue whether or not measuring this disparity gives any meaning to the overall measure of a school. Instead you're sitting there yelling about "racism."

From their website, this is what GS says they are doing:

"The Equity Rating is computed based upon the performance of disadvantaged groups and relative size of in-school gaps. These two components allow us to evaluate a school’s success in educating disadvantaged groups compared to students throughout the state, as well as compared specifically to other students at the school."

What they are actually doing is just the second, which means that the HS with the smallest population of disadvantaged students, Langley, has the highest equity score. Think about that. It doesn't make sense.

Your paragraph doesn't make any sense. Can you explain? Are you suggesting that GS is lying about their methodology?

DP, no GS is not lying. Their methodology is flawed. A school gets rewarded for "not having an achievement gap" by having an entirely homogeneous population. So, yes there is no gap, but that is because the kids are all well off and the lower SES kids are not present. Schools that have a larger FARMs population get penalized for that population performing lower.
That's not how it should work. The penalty for equity should somehow be normalized so that schools that have a completely homogenous population are also negatively impacted for not being diverse. Otherwise they are just penalizing schools for having a more diverse population, which doesn't make sense objectively.

No, I don’t think anyone should be penalized, including the nondiverse school.
By the way, are they also looking at the achievement gap of non-disadvantaged in a majority disadvantaged school compared to a not at all disadvantaged School??

[Anonymous]

The obsession with the "gap" is misplaced. Even Jay Matthews rejects it. I don't agree with a lot of what he says but he is right about this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/why-i-reject-the-american-obsession-with-achievement-gaps/2016/06/12/4831d636-2dff-11e6-9b37-42985f6a265c_story.html?utm_term=.a2f828c15f86

"The national champion of achievement gaps, scoring pretty close to zero in the difference between whites and those two minorities on that scale, was Detroit.

Detroit is our nation’s worst school district, or close to it. Yet it tops this list because its white students are as poor and disadvantaged as its black and Hispanic students. It wins first prize in a weird contest that, I think, should be discontinued."

... "We should instead be looking at how each group is doing, celebrating gains and addressing declines without comparing groups with different issues. I applaud programs that raise achievement for low-income and minority students, but also note that our best-performing students have sometimes not made the same progress. There shouldn’t be a ceiling on achievement."

[Anonymous]

There's an easy solution...schools should just start ignoring upper income students and stop teaching them materials for the test. The worse they do, the better their greatschools score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
GS is doing a comparison of DISPARITIES. (If I am reading the methodology report correctly - which btw many of you keyboard warriors have clearly not read). Meaning they are comparing the DISPARITY between groups at your school to the DISPARITY between the same groups at the state level. Do you even understand this? You can argue whether or not measuring this disparity gives any meaning to the overall measure of a school. Instead you're sitting there yelling about "racism."

From their website, this is what GS says they are doing:

"The Equity Rating is computed based upon the performance of disadvantaged groups and relative size of in-school gaps. These two components allow us to evaluate a school’s success in educating disadvantaged groups compared to students throughout the state, as well as compared specifically to other students at the school."

What they are actually doing is just the second, which means that the HS with the smallest population of disadvantaged students, Langley, has the highest equity score. Think about that. It doesn't make sense.

Your paragraph doesn't make any sense. Can you explain? Are you suggesting that GS is lying about their methodology?

DP, no GS is not lying. Their methodology is flawed. A school gets rewarded for "not having an achievement gap" by having an entirely homogeneous population. So, yes there is no gap, but that is because the kids are all well off and the lower SES kids are not present. Schools that have a larger FARMs population get penalized for that population performing lower.
That's not how it should work. The penalty for equity should somehow be normalized so that schools that have a completely homogenous population are also negatively impacted for not being diverse. Otherwise they are just penalizing schools for having a more diverse population, which doesn't make sense objectively.

That is not (necessarily) true, because within the GS methodology, they either punish nor reward you for having a homogenous population. They give homogenous schools (rich and poor) a multiplier of "1" - which is effectively a completely neutral adjuster.

Then, if you have a diverse population, this sub-score raises your GS score if you surpass the average state "equality rating."

The equality rating affects the overall score negatively if your score gap between groups is larger than the state's.

They also factor in whether your school is improving.

I suspect that in this area it's actually the large numbers of (very) high-performing students that are actually widening the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged groups, and that is negatively impacting the gap score.

That is not true.

There are schools in FC whose Hispanics and blacks are performing well above the state average (10-17 points over the state average) but who received a 4 on equity because their Asians happen to perform at a 98 to 99 range.

They are getting penalized even if their minority groups are performing very well and far above the state average.

And then taking a school like WSHS where the point spread between all their groups is almost identical, around 3 at a max, and in some cases the minority score is one of the top demographics, and where everyone is far above the state average, they only get a 6 for equity. Having scores that close and that far above the state averages for demographics means that they should have received a higher score fo closing the achievement gap.

So then my question would be what score range would constitute a high equity score? If a 3-4 point spread with minority groups far above the state average (and outscoring other traditionally higher demographics in some subjects) is not closing the achievement gap, then what is?

So much THIS!! The methodology is flawed because the only way the scores can really be completely equivalent is by having homogeneous populations of students with quite similar backgrounds and SES. These metrics are not about growth, or improvement, or performing better than demographic averages. It's an impossible metric that EVERYONE from every background should perform the same, given the disparate experiences across socioeconomic levels. There will always be truly exceptional students of every demographic who outperform what is expected of them, but overall, there is very little chance that many of my child's cohorts will perform as well as my child by third grade, possibly ever. This is simply a fact of previous preparation, prior to even entering K. From birth, my child had a stable home, two parents and four grandparents with advanced degrees, food security, healthcare, part-time private preschool (where the teachers all had advanced degrees and nearly every other child had involved parents of high SES), and a SAHM parent with a background in early childhood education. Whereas very few of my child's peers had the same experience since birth. Will some of my child's peers catch up? I hope so, and I know the school is doing all that it can to make that a reality, and I am committed as a parent to making this more possible by donating both my time and energy to the school. But the new metrics don't show any of this. They don't show it AT ALL, but you could look at the raw data and see that the "gap groups" are outperforming statewide averages. But that counts for less than everyone being the same in this metric. It's very unrealistic to expect that all the students will perform the same on standardized tests, especially since they ARE NOT A MEASURE OF INNATE ABILITY OR INTELLIGENCE OR FUTURE SUCCESS. The schools that are outperforming the averages should be getting far more points for equity, and those without measurable populations of gap groups should get NO points for equity. They have nothing to equalize.

The new metric only makes it more likely that other parents like me will avoid our school, and their money will go toward enriching a different school that probably doesn't need as much funding given the larger pool of parents with deep pockets. Great Schools promotes segregation. It always has. The new metric is just further incentive to segregate. The end.

[Anonymous]

The new metric only makes it more likely that other parents like me will avoid our school, and their money will go toward enriching a different school that probably doesn't need as much funding given the larger pool of parents with deep pockets. Great Schools promotes segregation. It always has. The new metric is just further incentive to segregate. The end.

Agree that it promotes segregation!

But, a lot of high poverty schools get a lot of money from federal and county funds now (at least in FCPS). More funds than low-poverty schools. And have drastically lower class sizes. Yet, scores still aren't usually improving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The new metric only makes it more likely that other parents like me will avoid our school, and their money will go toward enriching a different school that probably doesn't need as much funding given the larger pool of parents with deep pockets. Great Schools promotes segregation. It always has. The new metric is just further incentive to segregate. The end.

Agree that it promotes segregation!

But, a lot of high poverty schools get a lot of money from federal and county funds now (at least in FCPS). More funds than low-poverty schools. And have drastically lower class sizes. Yet, scores still aren't usually improving.

That’s why the assholes in Mclean wanted to sue. So not fair for their schools get less funding. Boo boo.

[Anonymous]

I was responding to the poster who said other schools are getting more funds. They aren't necessarily better funded. And it's not appearing to change results to pour money into the high poverty schools either. I don't know what the answer is.

[Anonymous]

There's an easy solution...schools should just start ignoring upper income students and stop teaching them materials for the test. The worse they do, the better their greatschools score.

There is a new book out that talks about this.

"It also expects teachers to close the gaps between slow and fast learners. One way to do this is to slow down the fast learners, which some schools do rather well. They can also take advantage of the ceiling effect. This results from the fact that students already scoring at or near the top have nowhere to go but down, while low scorers have lots of room for improvement. In other words, it's easier to improve if your last scores suck."

He also talks about how if everyone learned at their own pace the gap would increase.

Title is Teaching Isn't Rocket Science, It's Way More Complex: What's Wrong With Education and How to Fix Some of It

[Anonymous]

The "Hints" greatschools provides now kind of highlights the issues with their new rating system.

A worrisome sign:

Test scores for low income students at this school fall below the state average for all students.

This is 100% across-the-board expected. The fact that they are providing it as a "worrisome sign" makes me assume it is being used in the rating calculation. Here is how a properly worded Hint/Factor would be presented and used in the rating:

A worrisome sign:

Test scores for low income students at this school fall below the state average for all low income students.

See what I did there? The above quote would have been a valid, and useful factor in calculating the ratings. The first one does nothing but contaminate the entire rating system, rendering it useless.

I know there is never going to be a perfect way to do this. But why wouldn't they just compare test scores of each sub-group to the subgroup's average within the state? And then aggregate the results from all sub-groups into an overall rating? It's still just using objective data instead of some completely concocted formula pulled out of thin-air.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The "Hints" greatschools provides now kind of highlights the issues with their new rating system.

A worrisome sign:

Test scores for low income students at this school fall below the state average for all students.

This is 100% across-the-board expected. The fact that they are providing it as a "worrisome sign" makes me assume it is being used in the rating calculation. Here is how a properly worded Hint/Factor would be presented and used in the rating:

A worrisome sign:

Test scores for low income students at this school fall below the state average for all low income students.

See what I did there? The above quote would have been a valid, and useful factor in calculating the ratings. The first one does nothing but contaminate the entire rating system, rendering it useless.

I know there is never going to be a perfect way to do this. But why wouldn't they just compare test scores of each sub-group to the subgroup's average within the state? And then aggregate the results from all sub-groups into an overall rating? It's still just using objective data instead of some completely concocted formula pulled out of thin-air.

That's what US News does. It's why Madison HS dropped out of the rankings this past year. You aren't eligible if you have a sub-group that is under-performing compared to the average for that particular sub-group within the same state.

[Anonymous]

So annoying.
Great schools rankings should just take UMC scores into account. They are the only people looking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
That's what US News does. It's why Madison HS dropped out of the rankings this past year. You aren't eligible if you have a sub-group that is under-performing compared to the average for that particular sub-group within the same state.

That seems a bit harsh to make in "ineligible," but honestly...if a subgroup at Madison is performing worse at Madison than the rest of the state, then they should be dinged. Although, I find it hard to believe that Madison would perform worse with certain sub-groups than other schools in the state.

And for what it's worth, the overall population of each subgroup within each school would also need to be taken into account.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
That's what US News does. It's why Madison HS dropped out of the rankings this past year. You aren't eligible if you have a sub-group that is under-performing compared to the average for that particular sub-group within the same state.

That seems a bit harsh to make in "ineligible," but honestly...if a subgroup at Madison is performing worse at Madison than the rest of the state, then they should be dinged. Although, I find it hard to believe that Madison would perform worse with certain sub-groups than other schools in the state.

And for what it's worth, the overall population of each subgroup within each school would also need to be taken into account.

It's not worse than the state average. It's just a bigger discrepancy between other learners and this subset. That's what makes it annoying. Yes, they should be dinged if they aren't performing up to the average of the state. It's another thing to ding a school like Langley or Madison for having children who perform way about the average including various subgroups, but just have a higher delta between groups.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
That's what US News does. It's why Madison HS dropped out of the rankings this past year. You aren't eligible if you have a sub-group that is under-performing compared to the average for that particular sub-group within the same state.

That seems a bit harsh to make in "ineligible," but honestly...if a subgroup at Madison is performing worse at Madison than the rest of the state, then they should be dinged. Although, I find it hard to believe that Madison would perform worse with certain sub-groups than other schools in the state.

And for what it's worth, the overall population of each subgroup within each school would also need to be taken into account.

Read the description - Madison clearly got dinged (i.e., not rated) because of Step 2 in the US News methodology: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings

It would have been among the top 10 in the state had only Steps 1, 3 and 4 been at issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Read the description - Madison clearly got dinged (i.e., not rated) because of Step 2 in the US News methodology: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings

It would have been among the top 10 in the state had only Steps 1, 3 and 4 been at issue.

I just read the description. Unless I'm reading it wrong, it would mean that disadvantaged groups at Madison performed WORSE than that disadvantaged group performed on average across the whole state. They should be dinged for that, if that is true.

It doesn't saying anything about a "gap" like the other post seemed to mention. It appears like they're just comparing disadvantaged groups at a school to the same disadvantaged group state-wide. That is exactly what they should be doing.

Step 2 assessed whether their disadvantaged students – black, Hispanic and low-income – performed at or better than the state average for the least-advantaged students.

I do have an issue with that being a "make or break" eligibility requirement. The moment these ratings start conjuring "rules" is when they become too subjective and swayed by biases. The above should absolutely be a factor in an overall calculation, and it should be based on the population of the disadvantaged group within the school.