Achievement gap - evidence

[Anonymous]

I am opening a specialized topic for people to put research about effectiveness of integration / boundary changes to reduce the achievement gap. BOE is collecting opinions from parents. While people may take different approaches, some of us are more quantitative in our thinking, and would like some familiarity with the subject.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/publicinfo/boundary-analysis/

Please leave the debate about property values outside this thread. I feel you pain, but we need data.
Please leave the emotional appeals of whether diversity is good or bad outside this thread. Opinions are like buttholes; we all have them. Stick to the facts please.
If you are a professional sociologist / researcher in this area, you are more than welcome to sign your posts as Researcher or Sociologist or similar, and we may clarify some point with you later. That way, your identity remains mostly shielded, but it helps us understand that you know this issue in depth.
Any disrespectful interactions will be reported - I cannot control what Jeff chooses to erase, but I will report.

If you are posting an article for or against, please:
* post it accessibly - behind a firewall does not work
* please note if the integration also improved funding / class size etc for the FARMS / URM kids
* was there self-selection involved (i.e. did the BOE move the entire district, or did parents have a choice to stay in the old place or move to the new place)
* how big the change was

Thank you, a Normal Parent collecting data because that's what techy people do when facing an issue.

[Anonymous]

Did MCPS even say that the boundary study had to do with the achievement gap?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am opening a specialized topic for people to put research about effectiveness of integration / boundary changes to reduce the achievement gap. BOE is collecting opinions from parents. While people may take different approaches, some of us are more quantitative in our thinking, and would like some familiarity with the subject.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/publicinfo/boundary-analysis/

Please leave the debate about property values outside this thread. I feel you pain, but we need data.
Please leave the emotional appeals of whether diversity is good or bad outside this thread. Opinions are like buttholes; we all have them. Stick to the facts please.
If you are a professional sociologist / researcher in this area, you are more than welcome to sign your posts as Researcher or Sociologist or similar, and we may clarify some point with you later. That way, your identity remains mostly shielded, but it helps us understand that you know this issue in depth.
Any disrespectful interactions will be reported - I cannot control what Jeff chooses to erase, but I will report.

If you are posting an article for or against, please:
* post it accessibly - behind a firewall does not work
* please note if the integration also improved funding / class size etc for the FARMS / URM kids
* was there self-selection involved (i.e. did the BOE move the entire district, or did parents have a choice to stay in the old place or move to the new place)
* how big the change was

Thank you, a Normal Parent collecting data because that's what techy people do when facing an issue.

Then may I ask a basic question: why do we need to "group" people first, and then look at which group is performing better/worse, or if there is "gap" between "groups"?
Those data may be meaningful for sociology studies, but for educational purposes, would it not be simpler to deal with the low performers directly?

How does it help to identify these people as a member of a certain group? If they belong to "low income" family, are we going to give them money to make them not "low income' to solve the problem? If they belong to URM, are we going to change their race so that they are not part of the URM any more?

Apparently not.

Why can't people just look at who perform better and who perform worse, and deal with that directly?

Is it because when people claim "we need to help the low-income families" or "we need to help the URM", it sounds better and more appealing than "we need to help those low-performers"?

[Anonymous]

Recent integration / achievement gap experiment in Missouri.

In 2013, a failing school district in St Louis called Normandy lost accreditation with the state because it was failing. The students received a state-mandated right to bus to a school district 30 miles away, called Frances Howell. Of note, Frances Howell had a negligible number of URM students prior to the integration.

The story of the initial integration was covered in depth by a journalist called Nikole Hannah-Jones, with the summary available on This American Life. The previous thread had suggested listening to Part 1 starting at minute 23 to see how the parents felt about the integration:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with-part-one

So I decided to follow-up on this experiment, to see what happened to the achievement gap. The state-mandated busing persisted through 2018, when the Normandy district reclaimed its accreditation. I decided to look at all 4 middle schools in Frances Howell since that is what Nikole Hannah-Jones focused on. By this time, all URM's in the 4 middle schools will have come from Normandy, and gone there for the entire time.

So let's look at the achievement gap results in 4 schools:

Frances - Howell Middle School
GS rating 8/10
https://www.greatschools.org/missouri/st-charles/1938-Francis-Howell-Middle-School/
All students: 10/10
White (86% of students): 10/10
Black (6% of students ): 4/10
Hispanic (3% of students ): 9/10

Saeger Middle School
GS rating 8/10
https://www.greatschools.org/missouri/st-charles/1947-Saeger-Middle-School/
All students: 9/10
White (84% of students): 9/10
Black (7% of students): 6/10

Hollenbeck Middle school
GS rating 7/10
https://www.greatschools.org/missouri/st-charles/1941-Hollenbeck-Middle-School/
All students: 9/10
White (83% of students): 9/10
Black (8% of students ): 3/10
Hispanic (4% of students ): 4/10

Bryan Middle School
GS rating 7/10
https://www.greatschools.org/missouri/st-charles/1957-Bryan-Middle-School/
All students 9/10
White (83% of students): 9/10
Black (9% of students): 4/10
Asian or Pacific Islander (3% of students): 9/10

Can we say that moving the students to Frances Howell district had no impact on them? I think that would be wrong. Not everything is measured in test scores; in fact, most things are not. Also, I looked up Normandy Middle School. Its GS rating is 1/10, so 4/10 is an improvement. On the other hand, the students who chose to commute 30 miles on the highway self-selected. There was also a much better funding structure in the Frances Howell schools, so several variables in play.

However, can you say that integration fixed the achievement gap in Missouri? You find, at best, marginal improvement, maybe a difference between HS drop-out and graduation, but not much more than that. There are probably a few select students that really benefited.

Also, with all the schools hitting the sweet spot of 15%-20% FARMS students, the achievement of the original student body, at least as measured through standardized testing, did not suffer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did MCPS even say that the boundary study had to do with the achievement gap?

That is certainly my understanding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am opening a specialized topic for people to put research about effectiveness of integration / boundary changes to reduce the achievement gap. BOE is collecting opinions from parents. While people may take different approaches, some of us are more quantitative in our thinking, and would like some familiarity with the subject.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/publicinfo/boundary-analysis/

Please leave the debate about property values outside this thread. I feel you pain, but we need data.
Please leave the emotional appeals of whether diversity is good or bad outside this thread. Opinions are like buttholes; we all have them. Stick to the facts please.
If you are a professional sociologist / researcher in this area, you are more than welcome to sign your posts as Researcher or Sociologist or similar, and we may clarify some point with you later. That way, your identity remains mostly shielded, but it helps us understand that you know this issue in depth.
Any disrespectful interactions will be reported - I cannot control what Jeff chooses to erase, but I will report.

If you are posting an article for or against, please:
* post it accessibly - behind a firewall does not work
* please note if the integration also improved funding / class size etc for the FARMS / URM kids
* was there self-selection involved (i.e. did the BOE move the entire district, or did parents have a choice to stay in the old place or move to the new place)
* how big the change was

Thank you, a Normal Parent collecting data because that's what techy people do when facing an issue.

Then may I ask a basic question: why do we need to "group" people first, and then look at which group is performing better/worse, or if there is "gap" between "groups"?
Those data may be meaningful for sociology studies, but for educational purposes, would it not be simpler to deal with the low performers directly?

How does it help to identify these people as a member of a certain group? If they belong to "low income" family, are we going to give them money to make them not "low income' to solve the problem? If they belong to URM, are we going to change their race so that they are not part of the URM any more?

Apparently not.

Why can't people just look at who perform better and who perform worse, and deal with that directly?

Is it because when people claim "we need to help the low-income families" or "we need to help the URM", it sounds better and more appealing than "we need to help those low-performers"?

I think we often find ourselves in the land of double-speak when it comes to education.
This thread is not for debating whether focusing on the achievement gap is a good idea, but to collect data whether the countywide boundary study is likely to reduce it.

[Anonymous]

The government did a large study on this. "Moving to opportunity". Finding #4 is related to the achievement gap.

https://www.nber.org/mtopublic/MTO%20Overview%20Summary.pdf

"A total of 4,600 low-income families with children, the vast majority of them headed by African-American or Hispanic single mothers, were recruited from high-poverty public housing projects in five participating cities between 1994 and 1998. These families were assigned by lottery to one of three research groups: A Traditional Voucher group, a Low Poverty Voucher group and a control group."

The findings:

A follow-up study carried out 4 to 7 years after random assignment found that:

1. MTO improved neighborhood outcomes. Assignment to either of the MTO mobility groups led participating adults to feel safer and more satisfied with their housing and neighborhoods.

2. MTO had no effect on the labor market outcomes or social program participation of adults, but improved adults’ mental health as well as several important aspects of physical health.

3. MTO improved outcomes for female youth, particularly their mental health, but on balance had deleterious effects on male youth risky behavior.

4. MTO had no detectable effects on the math and reading achievement of children

[Anonymous]

Oops sorry there is one more middle school. Same trend though.

Barnwell Middle school
GS rating 6/10
https://www.greatschools.org/missouri/st-charles/1952-Barnwell-Middle-School/
All students: 8/10
White (72% of students ): 8/10
Black (13% of students ): 3/10
Asian or Pacific Islander (6% of students ): 10/10
Hispanic (5% of students): 5/10

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The government did a large study on this. "Moving to opportunity". Finding #4 is related to the achievement gap.

https://www.nber.org/mtopublic/MTO%20Overview%20Summary.pdf

"A total of 4,600 low-income families with children, the vast majority of them headed by African-American or Hispanic single mothers, were recruited from high-poverty public housing projects in five participating cities between 1994 and 1998. These families were assigned by lottery to one of three research groups: A Traditional Voucher group, a Low Poverty Voucher group and a control group."

The findings:

A follow-up study carried out 4 to 7 years after random assignment found that:

1. MTO improved neighborhood outcomes. Assignment to either of the MTO mobility groups led participating adults to feel safer and more satisfied with their housing and neighborhoods.

2. MTO had no effect on the labor market outcomes or social program participation of adults, but improved adults’ mental health as well as several important aspects of physical health.

3. MTO improved outcomes for female youth, particularly their mental health, but on balance had deleterious effects on male youth risky behavior.

4. MTO had no detectable effects on the math and reading achievement of children

Interesting. So you see better ability to function in society, especially for girls, but no change in math/reading scores. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

There seems to be a lot of achievement gap in sports. Asian-Americans are never represented. What can be done about it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did MCPS even say that the boundary study had to do with the achievement gap?

Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did MCPS even say that the boundary study had to do with the achievement gap?

Nope.

^^^Boundary ANALYSIS. A boundary study is something different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There seems to be a lot of achievement gap in sports. Asian-Americans are never represented. What can be done about it?

Apparently we don't have a Board of Sports in addition to BoE, so, sorry, nothing can be done on that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There seems to be a lot of achievement gap in sports. Asian-Americans are never represented. What can be done about it?

I am a techy person, you are knocking on the wrong door. I have no idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The government did a large study on this. "Moving to opportunity". Finding #4 is related to the achievement gap.

https://www.nber.org/mtopublic/MTO%20Overview%20Summary.pdf

"A total of 4,600 low-income families with children, the vast majority of them headed by African-American or Hispanic single mothers, were recruited from high-poverty public housing projects in five participating cities between 1994 and 1998. These families were assigned by lottery to one of three research groups: A Traditional Voucher group, a Low Poverty Voucher group and a control group."

The findings:

A follow-up study carried out 4 to 7 years after random assignment found that:

1. MTO improved neighborhood outcomes. Assignment to either of the MTO mobility groups led participating adults to feel safer and more satisfied with their housing and neighborhoods.

2. MTO had no effect on the labor market outcomes or social program participation of adults, but improved adults’ mental health as well as several important aspects of physical health.

3. MTO improved outcomes for female youth, particularly their mental health, but on balance had deleterious effects on male youth risky behavior.

4. MTO had no detectable effects on the math and reading achievement of children

Interesting. So you see better ability to function in society, especially for girls, but no change in math/reading scores. Thank you.

And worse outcomes for boys.