Reply to PARCC Comparison for MIDDLE SCHOOLS in MoCo and Upper Northwest

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[quote=Anonymous]This post compares the PARCC performance at Pyle, Westland, Deal and Hardy. Unlike the analysis for elementary schools, where the demographic makeup of the schools was relatively similar, the demographics of the student bodies differ markedly at the middle school level. The differences are so extreme that any analysis that does not adjust for these differences is worthless.

[b]Main conclusions after adjusting for demographics: Deal is strongest of the four schools in English Language Arts and Pyle is the best for All Math [includes both grade-level math and advanced math].  Looking just at grade-level math and reading, Hardy is the weakest, although in math it is not dramatically different from the MoCo schools. When we examine performance in Algebra1/2 and Geometry [henceforth, Advanced Math], Hardy is the strongest school and Deal the weakest. This may surprise you, but it probably shouldn’t. Advanced students at Hardy perform phenomenally. The issue is that  -- traditionally -- there aren’t many of them. Advanced math students may perform just as well at Deal, but Deal seems to place many more students (in percentage terms) into the advanced math classes than the other schools. Some of these students appeared unprepared and bring down the school’s performance in advanced math. Finally, an odd note: multiple race (two or more) advanced math students perform better at the MoCo schools than at the DC schools. This may confirm the fears of parents of mixed-race children that their children fall into the “wrong” peer group when surrounded by a more diverse student body. It is certainly something worth monitoring going-forward. Lastly, Pyle and Westland are not equal: Pyle performs better than Westland for all subjects. 
[/b]

The general theme of the demographic differences is that Westland and, especially, Pyle are considerably whiter than Deal. Deal, itself, is considerably whiter than Hardy. Conversely, Hardy is much blacker and has a much higher FARMS rate than the other schools. (I do not adjust for FARMS rates.) Without getting into the reasons why black and Hispanic students traditionally perform worse on standardized tests, I calculate performance by racial subgroup for each school. These performance metrics get reweighted at Deal and Hardy to enable an apples-to-apples comparison with the MoCo schools. (Demographic data are at the end of this post.)

[i]In summary, I calculate PARCC performance for each subgroup at each school and then construct a summary measure that is comparable across schools. The summary measure evaluates the PARCC performance at the schools as if they had the same demographics. 
[/i]

[u]
[b]ALL MATH[/b][/u]
[b]Comparison to Deal:[/b]
If Deal had the same demographics as Pyle, Deal would have 56.9% of students scoring a 4 or 5 while Pyle would have 65.9%.

If Deal had the same demographics as Westland, Deal would have 52.1% of students scoring a 4 or 5 while Westland would have 48.8%.

[b]Comparison to Hardy:[/b]
If Hardy had the same demographics as Pyle, Hardy would have 41.5% of students scoring a 4 or 5 while Pyle would have 65.6%.

If Hardy had the same demographics as Westland, Hardy would have 38% of students scoring a 4 or 5 while Westland would have 48.3%.
[u]
[b]ADVANCED MATH (ALGEBRA AND GEOMETRY)[/b][/u]
[b]Comparison to Deal:[/b]
If Deal had the same demographics as Pyle, Deal would have 58.3% of students scoring a 4 or 5 while Pyle would have 91.6%.

If Deal had the same demographics as Westland, Deal would have 55.8% of students scoring a 4 or 5 while Westland would have 62.2%.

[b]Comparison to Hardy:[/b]
If Hardy had the same demographics as Pyle, Hardy would have 93.9% of students scoring a 4 or 5 while Pyle would have 91.9%.

If Hardy had the same demographics as Westland, Hardy would have 89.7% of students scoring a 4 or 5 while Westland would have 62.2%.

Here it seems relevant to mention that Pyle and Westland put about 25% of their students into advanced math while Deal puts over 45%. Hardy, by contrast, puts only 7.3% of their students in advanced math. The performance data suggest to me that Deal is too generous with placing students into advanced math while Hardy could stand to place more students in advanced math.

[u][b]ENGLISH LANGAGE ARTS[/b][/u]
[b]Comparison to Deal:[/b]
If Deal had the same demographics as Pyle, Deal would have 81.8% of students scoring a 4 or 5 while Pyle would have 72%.

If Deal had the same demographics as Westland, Deal would have 76.1% of students scoring a 4 or 5 while Westland would have 60.7%.

[b]Comparison to Hardy:[/b]
If Hardy had the same demographics as Pyle, Hardy would have 37.5% of students scoring a 4 or 5 while Pyle would have 72.2%.

If Hardy had the same demographics as Westland, Hardy would have 34.7% of students scoring a 4 or 5 while Westland would have 60.0%.

It seems relevant to mention that Hardy appears to have about twice the percentage of English-Language Learners as the other three schools. (Westland is the next highest percentage.) I doubt that this accounts for much of Hardy’s weaker performance in English Language Arts, but I imagine it does account for some of it.

[u][b]DEMOGRAPHIC DATA:[/b][/u]
[b]PYLE:[/b]
73% White
2% Black
12% Asian
8% Hispanic
&lt;5% FARMS

[b]WESTLAND:[/b]
63% White
11% Black
6% Asian
16% Hispanic
13% FARMS

[b]DEAL:[/b]
45% White
31% Black
6% Asian
13% Hispanic
19% FARMS

[b]HARDY:[/b]
13% White
59% Black
11% Asian
13% Hispanic
52% FARMS

[u][b]References:[/b][/u]
DCPS PARCC Data: http://osse.dc.gov/node/1120842
DCPS Demographic Data: http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/ and PARCC results
MoCo Data: http://reportcard.msde.maryland.gov/rschool.aspx?K=15AAAA&WDATA=school

[/quote]

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