By the numbers: A dispassioned evaluation of Hardy (compared to Deal and Wilson)

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04/02/2015 09:35

Subject: By the numbers: A dispassioned evaluation of Hardy (compared to Deal and Wilson)

quote

Anonymous

This is a long post. It starts with disclosures and ends with predictions. I will try to check in periodically over the coming day/days to answer questions.

Disclosure: I have no children at Hardy, Deal or Wilson. I have no children at a Hardy feeder. I have no immediately vested interest in any of these schools.
I’m an economist and I find the Hardy discussion fascinating because the two “sides” are so directly opposed. I decided to see what the data say.

Data: all data come from http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/About+DCPS/DCPS+Data/DCPS+Data+Sets. In particular, I will be using the DCCAS scores from 2006-2007 through 2013-2014. I will discuss the overall scores for reading and math as well as the scores for white students and the (implied) non-white scores. The numbers discussed are the percentage of students scoring advanced or proficient on the DCCAS reading and math exams. If there is a way to post the data in a clean format, I'd happily do that.

Whiteness: I will be using “white” as a proxy for several things. From an objective perspective, all white students in DC appear similar. They generally:
• Come from families with higher incomes;
• Come from homes that value education highly;
• Are likely to have books on the shelves and spend time reading together from an early age;
• Have meals together where the school day is discussed;
• Have parents who take an active role in homework;
• Come to school after a night sleeping with heat and after a morning with food in their bellies.

We don’t care about “whiteness” directly, but we care about the things bulleted above. If you’re African-American but the bullets above describe your household, then you should expect your children to achieve DCCAS scores of “white” students. That is, if those bullets describe your AA household, it is the “white” scores that are applicable to you, not the AA scores.

Since this is important, I’ll belabor the point: in DC, “white” is a clean proxy for high income. This does not mean all high income people are white. But what it does mean is that if you’re high income, whether white or AA, the best predictor of your child’s scores is given by the “white” average since this average represents only high income students.

Nonwhite: while “white” can be taken to mean high income, we cannot assume non-white is not high income. So, in scores broken down by non-white, please have caution in interpreting these numbers. They may be meaningless for drawing conclusions.

So, onto conclusions.

1. “White” scores at all three schools (Deal, Hardy, Wilson) are in the 90s. (That is, 90+ percent of white students score advanced or proficient on the DCCAS for reading and math.)
a. This has been the case since 2006 (at least).
2. “White” students perform as well at Hardy as they do at Wilson.
3. “White” scores are lower (though still in the 90s) at Hardy than they are at Deal. I haven’t checked, but I suspect the difference is statistically indistinguishable given the sample sizes. (Hardy’s “white” scores are sometimes higher than Deal’s “white” scores, by the way.)
4. There is a race gap at all three schools. Non-white scores are roughly 20 points lower than white scores at Deal and roughly 30 points lower than white scores at Hardy and Wilson.
5. Non-white scores are better at Hardy than Wilson. They are better still at Deal. Deal’s non-white scores are in the 70s, Hardy’s non-white scores are in the 60s, and Wilson’s non-white scores are in the 50s. I suspect but cannot confirm that non-whites perform better at Deal because non-whites at Deal feeders (like Shephard) are all described well by the bulleted points above. That is, many non-whites at Deal probably appear pretty similar to whites at Deal. Without a feeder school composed primarily of high income African-Americans, I doubt this is the case at Hardy.
6. Hardy is the least white of the three schools. Deal has never been below 28% white and is now consistently around 43% white. Wilson has never been below 21% white and is now 28% white. Hardy, on the other hand, hasn’t been above 11% since 2007 and has been 10% or below for the last 5 years.

7. The difference in overall scores between Hardy and Deal is overwhelmingly due to composition effects (i.e., demographics). White students score similarly in the two schools (consistently above 90% proficient or advanced). Non-whites score better at Deal than Hardy, but the main driver of the overall scores is the school composition. (See the final sentences of point 5 above for a guess why non-whites perform better at Deal than Hardy.)
8. If the percentages of white and non-white students at Hardy matched those of Deal, Hardy’s overall numbers would be about 10 percentage points higher for each category. For example, the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced at Hardy in 2012-2013 would be 70% for reading and 77% for math instead of the observed percentages of 62% and 67%. This is without making any changes to performance (i.e., assuming no cohort or spillover effects). Deal’s numbers are still better (83% and 88%), but the gap is cut in half right there.
9. The above bullet understates the gains (in scores) to Hardy from having identical demographics to Deal. If Hardy’s percentages of white and non-white students matched those of Deal in 2008-09 or 2009-10, the schools would have the same overall DCCAS scores. There was no gap once one accounts for demographics. Since a gap does remain currently once demographics are controlled for, this suggests there are spillover effects benefiting Deal. It is reasonable to expect the same spillover effects to benefit Hardy as its demographics change.
10. Deal’s overall DCCAS scores have increased from the low 70s to the mid-to-high 80s over the sample period. This is driven primarily by increased percentages of “white” students – going from 29% to 43% over the timeframe. Using this as a guide, if Hardy should become more in-bounds (i.e., more “white”), a similar transformation would occur.

Main, actionable takeaways:

By the numbers, Hardy at present is at least as good as Wilson at present. If you care about DCCAS scores and you’re willing to send your child to Wilson, you should be willing to send your child to Hardy. “White” students perform as well at Hardy than at Wilson and non-white students perform better at Hardy than Wilson.

Hardy, today, is pretty similar to Deal of six or seven years ago. Deal has been stellar for the last four years or so. With increases in the IB percentage of students attending Hardy, the best forecast is that Hardy should become stellar just as quickly. (For “white” students, it is already stellar, much like Deal years ago. The overall numbers will catch up as the composition changes.)

If you believe that Murch is actually as good as Mann, then you should believe that Hardy is actually as good as Deal. The argument of the Murch supporters is that Murch’s lower overall numbers are explained by the composition of the Murch class. Looking at just “white” scores, Murch performs as well as Mann. An absolutely identical argument can be made for Hardy and Deal.

So, what should you expect for your child? If the bullet points at the beginning of this post describe your household – regardless of race – the white scores are the best predictor for your child. If you’re IB to Hardy, look at the white scores. If you’re IB to, say, Brent or Ross, but OOB to Hardy, look at the white scores. If you’re OOB at a Hardy feeder, chances are the bullet points describe your household. This means, look at the white scores to evaluate how your child will likely do at Hardy. It doesn’t matter if you’re AA or white, the relevant numbers are the white scores if those bullets apply to you.