Reply to GreatSchools rating

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "GreatSchools rating"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
GS is doing a comparison of DISPARITIES.  (If I am reading the methodology report correctly - which btw many of you keyboard warriors have clearly not read).  Meaning they are comparing the DISPARITY between groups at your school to the DISPARITY between the same groups at the state level.  Do you even understand this?  You can argue whether or not measuring this disparity gives any meaning to the overall measure of a school.  Instead you're sitting there yelling about "racism." 
[/quote]

From their website, this is what GS says they are doing:

"The Equity Rating is computed based upon the performance of disadvantaged groups and relative size of in-school gaps. These two components allow us to evaluate a school’s success in educating disadvantaged groups compared to students throughout the state, as well as compared specifically to other students at the school."

[b]What they are actually doing is just the second, which means that the HS with the smallest population of disadvantaged students, Langley, has the highest equity score.  Think about that.  It doesn't make sense.[/b][/quote]

Your paragraph doesn't make any sense.  Can you explain?  Are you suggesting that GS is lying about their methodology?[/quote]
DP, no GS is not lying.  Their methodology is flawed.  A school gets rewarded for "not having an achievement gap" by having an entirely homogeneous population.  So, yes there is no gap, but that is because the kids are all well off and the lower SES kids are not present.  Schools that have a larger FARMs population get penalized for that population performing lower.  
That's not how it should work.  The penalty for equity should somehow be normalized so that schools that have a completely homogenous population are also negatively impacted for not being diverse.  Otherwise [b]they are just penalizing schools for having a more diverse population[/b], which doesn't make sense objectively.  [/quote]

That is not (necessarily) true, because within the GS methodology, they either punish nor reward you for having a homogenous population.  They give homogenous schools (rich and poor) a multiplier of "1" - which is effectively a completely neutral adjuster.

Then, if you have a diverse population, this sub-score [u]raises [/u]your GS score if you surpass the average state "equality rating."

The equality rating affects the overall score [u]negatively[/u] if your score gap between groups is larger than the state's.

They also factor in whether your school is improving.

I suspect that in this area it's actually the large numbers of (very) high-performing students that are actually widening the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged groups, and that is negatively impacting the gap score.

[/quote]

That is not true.

There are schools in FC whose Hispanics and blacks are performing well above the state average (10-17 points over the state average) but who received a 4 on equity because their Asians happen to perform at a 98 to 99 range.

They are getting penalized even if their minority groups are performing very well and far above the state average.

And then taking a school like WSHS where the point spread between all their groups is almost identical, around 3 at a max, and in some cases the minority score is one of the top demographics, and where everyone is far above the state average, they only get a 6 for equity. Having scores that close and that far above the state averages for demographics means that they should have received a higher score fo closing the achievement gap.

So then my question would be what score range would constitute a high equity score? If a 3-4 point spread with minority groups far above the state average (and outscoring other traditionally higher demographics in some subjects) is not closing the achievement gap, then what is?[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics