Success using FOIA to tease out SOL results for programs within a school?

[Anonymous]

Has anyone been successful at figuring out the split between multiple programs in a given school in terms of SOL test achievements? If so, share some pointers, please?

Did you ask for a specific school or were you able to see the entire district? Were you able to find historical data, over the last 5 to 10 years?

Specifically, I'm looking at the effect of adding an AAP program to a school which is already thriving academically. What happens to the kids *not* in the program?

[Anonymous]

What school are you referring to? What is your general situation?

Please note that VFOIA requires that a request for public records must identify the requested records with "reasonable specificity."

A VFOIA request may be made for any existing documents or reports; however, VFOIA does not require public bodies to create a new document that does not exist.

[Anonymous]

Are you hypothesizing that the SOL scores of the kids not in the program will go down? That seems to be a given since some of the top performers will be diverted into the AAP program, leading to lower averages for GenEd.
That doesn't mean that a given child in either program is performing better or worse than he or she would have otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Are you hypothesizing that the SOL scores of the kids not in the program will go down? That seems to be a given since some of the top performers will be diverted into the AAP program, leading to lower averages for GenEd.
That doesn't mean that a given child in either program is performing better or worse than he or she would have otherwise.

+10000

Anyway, I don't think you will get that information. They probably don't do it "that way" --though they should.

[Anonymous]

I don't believe this can be done with a FOIA because it doesn't exist. When students take the SOLs, they are given a state testing identifier number and are coded by their ethnicity, their SES status, LEP level, gender, special education status and grade level. This is the information the state requires. Students are not coded by their AAP status. That is an FCPS designation.

Schools with an AAP center on their own can and probably do figure out how gen ed versus AAP kids did. But again, that is not information that is officially collected and documented.

[Anonymous]

OP here.

Yes, I am hypothesizing that the GE scores will go down. Not that they are lower than AAP. That's a given. But that they are getting less service with AAP in their school than than without. Last year a few schools have started new AAP programs, so there is a great opportunity to find out.

If the SOLs are not tracking programs, because the state did not mandate it, then the questions is, how does FCPS know that it works? Since a higher number of schools are hosting "centers", there is a real danger that the scores overall are artificially inflated, when compared to last year. I would expect the school system would track all that, and I'm an interested parent who wants to know what lays ahead for my child's future. I'm sure FCPS, as a good steward, would be tracking that information as well.

[Anonymous]

You know very well that the principals know this information like the back of their hands. Even in my kids' non-AAP school, the vice principal or principal has stated that they know exactly which kids didn't pass and which questions they got wrong. The live to drill down on the data so that they can focus on the kids who need more help or the questions that the teachers didn't cover. They know very well how the AAP kids scored and the rest of the school scored.

[Anonymous]

sorry for my over use of "know very well" -- I got a little worked up!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

Yes, I am hypothesizing that the GE scores will go down. Not that they are lower than AAP. That's a given. But that they are getting less service with AAP in their school than than without. Last year a few schools have started new AAP programs, so there is a great opportunity to find out.

If the SOLs are not tracking programs, because the state did not mandate it, then the questions is, how does FCPS know that it works? Since a higher number of schools are hosting "centers", there is a real danger that the scores overall are artificially inflated, when compared to last year. I would expect the school system would track all that, and I'm an interested parent who wants to know what lays ahead for my child's future. I'm sure FCPS, as a good steward, would be tracking that information as well.

I'm not following: how does FCPS know what works?
Also, I'm not sure what you mean by less service. Do you mean that they're somehow forgotten and that attention is lavished on AAP students? I have kids in both AAP and GenEd, and what's far more important than the actual program imo is the quality of the teacher they get. My kids have had great ones and lousy ones in each.