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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm just going to respond to this part:

[quote=anonymous] Since this is important, I’ll belabor the point: [i]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. [/i] [/quote]

[b]This is not true.  In DC "white" is a clean proxy for being the beneficiary of systematic racism.  There are so many studies that say that AA kids from highly educated, affluent homes where parents own books, and read to them, and value their education, are not protected from racism.  They are subjected to disproportionate discipline, and low expectations, which leads to achievement gaps that continue to exist even when income, parental education, time spent reading, and other factors are taken into account.

Similarly, there are plenty of white kids growing up in DC whose parents don't take them to the library, or have homes full of books, or give a shit about their education.  But because of their skin color, teachers and others treat them as if they were growing up in households that do these things, and hold them to the same high expectations. 
[/b]
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this is spot on![/quote]

OP -- your use of the adjective "white" to convey a virtue suggests to bias in your assessment.  With the deep racial default lines in DC, your choice of words is truly unfortunate.  I don't agree that everyone who meets your so-called virtuous category is the beneficiary of systematic racism, because doing so would suggest that academic achievement is a zero sum game, which it clearly is not.  There's room for everyone to succeed but great challenges for many, not the least of which related to race and poverty.  My child doesn't succeed because others are impoverished or because higher expectations based on skin color, but a socially just society would work to remove obstacles related to race and poverty so the expectations and outcomes are less disparate across demographics.[/quote]

OP here.

No, no it doesn't. You clearly did not read the preamble of the initial post, or, if you did, you failed to understand what those words meant.

"White" is a category for which we have DCCAS data. While it literally refers to race, in DC we can use "white" to proxy for other, non-racial characteristics. That is exactly what I did.

[/quote]

+100. You explained it very clearly in the opening post. (Where I disagree is on the need to analyze Proficient outcomes to validate, or not, your main conclusions)[/quote]

OP here.

You mean "advanced-only" outcomes, but I hear you. I have looked at the numbers but I don't believe much can be concluded from them. The sample sizes are just too small for reliable inference. The variability in performance is large year-to-year. (This is what happens with small samples. You need larger samples for things to settle down.)

For example, the percentage of 8th grade white students testing advanced in math at Hardy goes from 27% one year (11 students) to 60% the following year. This is not atypical. This suggests that any conclusions based on averages that haven't settled down are problematic without also considering the variance.

Since people seem to desire some analysis even if it isn't robust, I'll provide something as long as everyone acknowledges at the outset that it may be meaningless.

We care about kids improving over time. Since the data are a panel (many students each tested in three separate years), we can track scores over time for Deal and Hardy. Students' 6th grade scores likely represent  their stock of testing-proficiency when they arrive at the school. So, let's see how these same students do in 8th grade. The same caveat about small sample sizes applies here, so I'll just say that I don't know the worth of this type of analysis.

So, what the following numbers calculate is the difference in %advanced for white students between 8th grade and these same students in 6th grade. For example, we look at the %advanced for 8th graders in 2014 and the %advanced for 6th graders in 2012. We can only do three cohorts at each school since some 8th grade data is unreported at Hardy (because the samples are too small (not enough white students)) and some 6th grade data are missing at Deal.

In reading, the schools are pretty similar. For three years in which Deal numbers can be calculated, there were 18%, 28% and 19% more advanced scorers in 8th grade than there were in 6th grade. (These are the same students, modulo joining or leaving the school.) For Hardy, the improvements were 15%, 21% and 15%.

For math, at Deal there were 1%, 1% and 12% more advanced scorers in 8th grade than in the same cohort at 6th. For Hardy, there were 7%, 7% and 10% more advanced scorers in 8th.

I don't know what, if anything, can be concluded from these numbers. But they paint a somewhat different picture than simply looking at the %advanced by themselves. (I'll post another point in a separate reply now.)[/quote]

[b]OP -- you're blind to optics.  DCPS provides that data but you go a step further and draw dubious conclusions from it.  Plenty of racially white kids in DC are not academically proficient.[/b]  Many parents of all color have expectations that "proficient" is not much of a goal.

However, if you were an actual parent with a child at this school or any other you'd also know that the DCCAS is a highly flawed measurement tool and that many parents do not evaluate a school or its students based on standardized test scores.  There are many other ways to evaluate schools -- consider that most children enter elementary school well before testing grades and that some other factors must account for why parents opt for a school where no such evaluation is performed on younger students.[/quote]

OP here:

I'll take that as a compliment. I don't care about optics. I'm not trying to sell an agenda here.

As for your statement, I have the data: more than 9 out of 10 white students in DCPS are proficient or advanced in both math and reading. Greater than 90%. In both subjects. For the most recent year, it was 92% in reading and 92% in math. Your "plenty" is actually 165 or so out of almost 2100 white students in DCPS. Try again. [/quote]

but you have to actually look at schools where 1) white students are actually in attendance, and 2) where they are in testing grades.  That's a false assumption to distribute that across a system so heavily bifurcated on racial lines.[/quote]

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