Reply to New Great Schools Ratings Released for FCPS/APS High Schools

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Adding the limited English number to the F/R Lunch number provides the following  (by the sum of those two numbers - highest to lowest). It might provide a better picture of the burden some schools have relative to others. For example, Stuart has an ESL number of 32.29 percent and a F/R lunch number of 64.47 percent, for a total of 96.76. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Jefferson has an ESL number of 0 percent and a F/R lunch number of 2.11 percent, for a total of 2.11. The numbers come from the FCPS website. The Great School rating is in parentheses:

Stuart - 96.76 (3)
Falls Church - 82.34 (4)
Annandale - 81.28 (4)
Lee - 81.16 (3)
Mt. Vernon - 73.27 (2)
Herndon - 61.29	(4)
West Potomac - 58.46 (4)
Edison - 52.59 (5)
South Lakes - 40.33 (6)
Hayfield - 38.15 (5)
Westfield - 36.71 (6)
Fairfax - 36.18	(6)
Centreville - 35.57 (6)
Marshall - 26.36 (9)
Chantilly - 23.85 (8)
South County - 21.93 (6)
Lake Braddock - 21.83 (8)
Oakton - 18.79 (8)
Madison - 17.01 (8)
Woodson - 16.33	(8)
McLean - 15.25 (9)
West Springfield - 13.89 (9)
Robinson - 13.23 (8)
Langley - 3.48 (9)
Thomas Jefferson - 2.11 (10)

Some schools appear to have fallen outside expectations: Mt. Vernon, Hayfield, and South County should probably do a bit better; Marshall does a bit better than one would expect (and maybe Annandale and Falls Church as well).

Things of note: 8 schools have broken away from the rest with high ESL numbers and F/R lunch numbers (&gt;50 combined, starting at Edison and running up through Stuart). FCPS has a serious problem in this regard because education focused families with money moving to the area will see these numbers and run to the other schools, making the problem worse for the low rated schools.

Some schools (Marshall, Lake Braddock ) benefit from inbound transfers of education focused students. Others, like Mt. Vernon, Falls Church, and Lee suffer the opposite problem - they lose education focused students via transfer.

[/quote]

You don't get accurate data by adding ESOL and FARMS numbers.  That will overstate the numbers.  There is significant overlap between ESOL and FARMS, so you're double counting.  64 percent at Stuart is still extremely high and a burden.[/quote]

I was just about to write that. That's counting the same students twice.[/quote]

Stated differently, it's just a number, not a percentage.[/quote]

I am the poster of those numbers. Sorry for the confusion. I wasn't trying to say that was a total percentage (you obviously can't add them up like that). But adding them up, a fairly rudimentary method, does give a 'score' of sorts to the schools for their overall burden. For the most part the ESL and the F/R lunch numbers correlate pretty strongly. There is no doubt that Stuart has it harder because it has many poor students who also don't speak English as their first language. Or Herndon and Edison - almost the same F/R lunch rate, but Herndon's ESL is almost 7 percent higher than Edison's. Edison scores higher on Great Schools by 1 point. Same with West Springfield and Madison (though the difference in ESL number is not quite as big). All the schools with GS ratings of 4 or lower have ESL numbers higher than 15%. Just wanted to point out that F/R lunch numbers are not the only factor.[/quote]

As you note, the GS ratings don't track exactly to your 'overall burden' number. One explanation is that this is due to differences in school choices/performance. The other is that there is a hidden variable. The latter is my guess. It is probably AA population. Hayfield, for example, is slightly more AA than the county as a whole. It does slightly worse than your index would suggest it would. I think that's not a coincidence.[/quote]

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