It goes without saying that the first rule of ®eform is “Don’t talk
about poverty.”
The second rule of ®eform is “Don’t talk about poverty”. Either number 3 or 4 is “Don’t talk
about population changes.” I
don’t mean the fact that students change from year to year. I mean changes in who is tested because of s district level policy change, same kids, same teachers, new policy.
I could be referring to LAUSD’s increased use of the CMA for
students with special needs instead of the actual CST, and how this policy
change is accounting for a good chunk of LAUSD’s “growth” over the past few
years. But I’m not, because LAUSD
doesn’t talk about changing the population that takes the CST.
I am talking about a recent set of post from LAUSD’s LA School Report that actually talks about LAUSD changing who is getting tested and its negative impact on percentages, not the benefit of the policy to students. The first post “Why HS Math Scores Are Low(er),” gave 3 generic reasons for a perceived drop in HS Algebra scores. The second post must have been a rookie
mistake for Hillel Aaron. The
second post “More on Math Scores” makes the case that LAUSD has been
doing a good job placing students into the correct math class so there are
fewer competent students repeating a class.
If you’re confused at this point, I’m not criticizing LAUSD for
putting students in the correct class.
LAUSD is openly talking about the role of a specific policy change that
is affecting percentages used for evaluation. Algebra passing rates are on of the percentages used when
LAUSD labels a school “failing” and bullies it with PSC. Policies about who takes what class
have very real consequences on the statistics LAUSD is measuring itself
on. District policy that changes
who takes what test affect percentages.
LAUSD and ®eformers do not like to talk about year over year changes
in what type of students are taking a test. For market based solutions to work, you need to compare apples
to apples. Even value added
measurements can only tolerate a finite amount of change in the year over year
testing samples before the results become meaningless. LAUSD routinely makes large scale changes to how it tests, yet remains oblivious to the affect on evaluation of schools. There is a good reason rule 3 or 4 from the ed-®eform
playbook is “Don’t talk about population changes,” even moderate population
changes undermine “market place solutions.”
Bonus Point 1: What does
changing the population mean in the current climate.
As LAUSD moves toward the idea of small learning communities and
“Expanded School Based Management” you might think that the school’s results
are all its own. You might think
student outcomes are tightly aligned to just the teacher or school. Most ®eforms require you to focus on
just the teacher or just the school leader. When LAUSD is making policies that will change who is
assessed, how does the district and school claim credit/ blame for the outcomes
of the school.
Bonus Point 2: LA School Report is LAUSD's propaganda
blog – they really did just run a “get to know you” piece for a someone aligned
to Deasy who might be running for a Board seat but hasn’t yet declared.
