Tag Archives: John Butcher

To Graduate or Not

by John Butcher

The 2023 4-year cohort graduation rates are up on the Virginia Department of Education Web site.

VDOE likes to report its “On-Time Graduation Rate” because it inflates the numbers by counting the nonstandard diplomas. The data below are the “Federal Graduation Indicator” that counts only the Standard, Advanced, and IB diplomas.

On average, Virginia’s economically disadvantaged students (ED) (mostly students who qualify for the free/reduced price lunch program) graduate at rates ca. 9% lower than their more affluent peers (Not ED). The handy VDOE database provides data for both groups.

To start, here are the division average federal ED rates plotted v. the Not ED.

The gold square is Richmond. The orange diamonds are the peer cities, from the left Norfolk, Newport News, and Hampton. The green diamonds are the Richmond ‘burbs, from the left Charles City, Chesterfield, Henrico, and Hanover. The aqua circle is the state average (average over all students, the averages of the division averages are slightly different, see below).

The fitted line (with the state average removed and Highland not showing because of the suppressed ED datum) confirms what our eyes tell us: The ED rate is only slightly correlated with the Not ED. Continue reading

Virginia’s Top and Bottom Local School Divisions, 2023

by John Butcher

Professor Excel is glad to sort the Division test results so let’s look at the top and bottom performers.

But first: On average, Virginia’s economically disadvantaged (ED) students pass at about 20% lower rates than their more affluent peers (Not ED). Thus, the overall division averages are affected by the relative percentages of ED students, which is not a performance metric. The excellent VDOE Build-A-Table offers data for both groups, so let’s look at them separately. Continue reading

Petersburg: Paradigm of VBOE Fecklessness, the 2023 Update

by John Butcher

Despite nineteen years of “supervision” by the Board and Department of Education, the Petersburg schools marinate in failure.

Va. Code § 22.1-8 provides: “The general supervision of the public school system shall be vested in the Board of Education.”

Va. Code § 22.1-253.13:8 provides:

The Board of Education shall have authority to seek school division compliance with the foregoing Standards of Quality. When the Board of Education determines that a school division has failed or refused, and continues to fail or refuse, to comply with any such Standard, the Board may petition the circuit court having jurisdiction in the school division to mandate or otherwise enforce compliance with such standard, including the development or implementation of any required corrective action plan that a local school board has failed or refused to develop or implement in a timely manner.

Documents on the VBOE Web pages show the following events as to Petersburg:

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“MOU” is bureaucratese for “Memorandum of Understanding,” which in turn is an edict to which the Board can point in order to claim it is doing something about lousy schools. The MOU process demands a Corrective Action Plan (“CAP”) that sets forth “specific actions and a schedule designed to ensure that schools within [the affected] school division meet the standards established by the Board.”

The 2023 SOL data are now out; they show the results of the nineteenth year of the Board’s attempts to improve the Petersburg schools.

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The SOL Disaster

by John Butcher

The 2023 test results (generally called “SOLs” but including results of other tests) are up on the VDOE Web page. Those numbers are not pretty.

First, some background.

2020 was the first year without statewide SOL testing since 1997. Then came 2021, when participation in the testing was voluntary. The VDOE press release (link now broken) said, “In a typical school year, participation in federally required tests is usually around 99%. In tested grades in 2021, 75.5% of students took the reading assessment, 78.7% took math, and 80% took science.”

So, the ‘22 data are the first post-pandemic numbers with a claim to measuring anything beyond individual performance. Continue reading

Secret SOLs

by John Butcher

The Superintendent of Public Instruction’s May 10, 2023, memo scheduled posting of the 2022-2023 student performance results to the Build-A-Table tool on August 17. Those data have not been posted.

It’s not that they don’t have the information. The SOL data, in particular, are collected as they are produced by the online testing. Richmond had data in time to produce for the August 21 Board meeting a 40-page report on progress v. last year.

Note added 8/31: As of last night, Richmond Public Schools took down the report, which broke the link above. Makes one think there was a phone call from VDOE. In any case, I have a pdf of the report. Shoot an email to cranky1{at}duck{dot}com if you’d like a copy. Continue reading

NAEP Before and After COVID

by John Butcher

We’ve been hearing about the post-COVID declines in scores on the National Assessment of Educational Process (NAEP) tests. The NAEP database offers some (in fact, an abundance of) details.

Here, as a small sample, are the 4th and 8th grade reading and mathematics data for the nation and Virginia.

First, reading:

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Dollars and Scholars

by John Butcher

Table 15 in the 2022 Superintendent’s Annual Report includes the division expenditures per student for operations. Let’s juxtapose those data with the 2022 division Standards of Learning (SOL) pass rates. But first: Economically Disadvantaged (ED) students (those eligible for Free/Reduced Meals, receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF], eligible for Medicaid, or identified as either Migrant or experiencing homelessness) pass the SOLs at rates about 20 percent lower than their more affluent peers (not ED). Thus, division SOL averages are affected by the relative percentages of ED and Not ED students in the division. The (very nice) SOL database provides data for both groups so we can look directly at the divisions’ performance.

To start, here are the 2022 SOL reading pass rates graphed vs. the per student expenditures.

There’s no room to label that crowd of data points. I have settled for labels on some of the high performers and three not-high performers. The aqua points are the state averages. Richmond is the gold points.

As you can see, some of the high-expenditure divisions do very well while some do not. And a number of low expenditure divisions do just as well as the best high expenditure ones. Falls Church leads the pack for the Not ED rate but is just above the state average as to its ED number. Continue reading

Graduates. And Not.

by John Butcher

The U.S. Department of Education requires every state to annually report high school graduation rates. Those data, along with students’ performances on state assessments in subjects such as mathematics, English, and science, along with other measures, are also used to determine annual accreditation ratings.

The VDOE’s website includes the Superintendent’s Annual Report where one can find a wealth of information at the state, division, and school levels.

At first glance, the spreadsheet in Table 5, Diploma Graduates and Completers, looks to be a source of interesting graduation data. The 2022 report gives the diploma counts for 2022 and the fall memberships for 2019. However, calculating the federal diploma rates from those data shows a 203.6% rate for Radford and 151.8% for Hopewell.
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Poverty and Performance in Virginia Schools

by John Butcher

A recent study out of Stanford looked at 11 years of district-level National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data by race and economic disadvantage from all public school districts and concluded that racial segregation is strongly associated with the magnitude of achievement gaps in third grade and the rate at which gaps grow from third to eighth grade. The association of racial segregation with achievement gap growth is completely accounted for by racial differences in school poverty (termed “racial economic segregation”). Thus, racial segregation is harmful because it concentrates minority students in high-poverty schools, which are on average less effective than lower-poverty schools.

On the subject of economic disadvantage, the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) database offers Virginia SOL data on a granular level, so let’s look at some of those numbers. In particular, the graphs below present 2022 SOL pass rates by subject, per school, for students who are economically disadvantaged (“ED”) (i.e., those who qualify for the free/reduced lunch program, TANF, or Medicaid) and for their more affluent peers (“Not ED”).

Notes: The percentage of ED students below is calculated from the number of ED students taking a particular test and the number of Not ED students taking that test. Data are school averages for the subject area for all grades tested, 3-8 and End of Course. The VDOE suppression rules omit data for just over 3.5% of the entries in the 2022 SOL database, primarily for cases where the number of students in a group is <10.

Aggrieved note: As of 12/20/22 and again on 12/29 (well after I complained), the links on the VDOE Web site to the data dictionary (definition of “economically disadvantaged”) and to the suppression rules, among others, do not work.
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Truancy Morass

by John Butcher

In a follow-up to his post on chronic truancy in Virginia, Capt. Sherlock writes, “We have decided, with laws reflecting our decisions, that children must attend school.” (Emphasis in original).

If only it were that simple.
Va. Code § 22.1-254 provides:

Except as otherwise provided in this article, every parent, guardian, or other person in the Commonwealth having control or charge of any child who will have reached the fifth birthday on or before September 30 of any school year and who has not passed the eighteenth birthday shall, during the period of each year the public schools are in session and for the same number of days and hours per day as the public schools, cause such child to attend a public school or a private, denominational, or parochial school or have such child taught by a tutor or teacher of qualifications prescribed by the Board and approved by the division superintendent, or provide for home instruction of such child as described in § 22.1-254.1.

That’s wordy but clear enough: The parent or other person in loco “shall … cause” the kid to attend school. Continue reading

2022 SOL Data: Economically Disadvantaged Gap Widens

by John Butcher

2020 was the first spring since 1998 without SOL tests in Virginia.

Then came 2021, when participation in the testing was voluntary. The VDOE press release said, “In a typical school year, participation in federally required tests is usually around 99%. In tested grades in 2021, 75.5% of students took the reading assessment, 78.7% took math, and 80% took science.

So, the ‘22 data are the first post-pandemic numbers with a claim to measuring anything beyond individual performance.

But first: as we have seeneconomically disadvantaged students (“ED”) underperform their more affluent peers (“Not ED”) by around twenty points, depending on the test. This renders comparisons of the school and division and state averages meaningless because of the varying percentages of ED students. Fortunately, the VDOE database offers data for both groups. Hence the more complicated analyses below.

First, the state data for the reading tests. Note: the decreases in 2013 were the result of the adoption of new, tougher reading tests. Continue reading

Counting Parents

In this post John Butcher, author of CrankysBlog, explores the relationship between K-12 academic outcomes, as measured by Standards of Learning (SOL) test scores and single-parent households. His conclusion: the data imply “a strong relationship” between the two. — JAB

by John Butcher

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count Web site includes Virginia household single-parent percentages by race and by Hispanic culture or origin. Juxtaposing those data for calendar 2010 to 2018 with the SOL pass rates for 2010-2011 through 2018-2019 produces some interesting graphs.

Note: The VDOE database offers data for students who are, or are not, “economically disadvantaged” (here abbreviated ED and Not ED). The criteria are largely driven by eligibility for free or reduced price lunches. The ED/Not ED distinction is interesting in the SOL context because ED students generally underperform their more affluent peers by some fifteen to twenty points, depending on the subject. So, let’s look at the data for both ED and Not ED students. The ideal dataset would provide single-parent counts for both economic groups. The Kids Count data are totals for each race or culture so we’ll make do with that limitation.

To start, the graph atop this post shows the reading pass rates over the nine-year period for Not ED Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White students v. % single-parent homes for ED + Not ED members of each group. Continue reading

Where Have All the Students Gone?

by John Butcher

The estimable Jim Bacon recently posted on declining enrollments in many public schools. He used VDOE data comparing the fall division enrollments (aka division “memberships”) in 2021 with those in 2019. Those data showed the largest drops in “rural, non-metropolitan” areas.

Of course, most Virginia school divisions are in such areas.

Highland County, with the smallest enrollment in Virginia, provides an extreme example. Here are its enrollments, back to the fall of 2011, compared to the state totals. Enrollments are presented as percentages of 2019 in order to fit the disparate enrollments onto the same graph. Continue reading

2021 SOLs Don’t Tell Us Much of Anything

by John Butcher

2020 was the first spring since 1998 without SOL tests in Virginia. Then came 2021, when participation in the testing was voluntary.

The VDOE press release says, “[2020-21] was not a normal school year for students and teachers, in Virginia or elsewhere, so making comparisons with prior years would be inappropriate.” The first line of the very next paragraph of the press release then quotes the Superintendent making a comparison: “Virginia’s 2020-2021 SOL test scores tell us what we already knew—students need to be in the classroom without disruption to learn effectively.”

Let’s look at some data and see whether they offer any principled implications.

But first: As we have seeneconomically disadvantaged students (“ED”) underperform their more affluent peers (“Not ED”) by around twenty points, depending on the test. This renders the school and division and state averages meaningless because of the varying percentages of ED students. Fortunately, the VDOE database offers data for both groups. Hence the more complicated analyses below.

To start, let’s look at the numbers of students tested by year for reading in Richmond and statewide. Continue reading

2020 Teacher Salaries

by John Butcher

It’s Spring and the data in the lower half of the 2020 Superintendent’s Annual Report have sprouted.

Table 19 reports on salaries in some detail. As well, it provides an overview report of division average salaries of “All Instructional Positions” (classroom teachers, guidance counselors, librarians, technology instructors, principals, and assistant principals). Here is a summary of those summary data:

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