Tag Archives: John Butcher

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 seen, economically 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 →

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 →

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:

Continue reading →

by John Butcher

It’s Spring! The Narcissi are standing tall and promising blossoms. The Croci are in flower. Data are sprouting in last year’s Superintendent’s Annual Report.

Table 8, “Number of Days Taught, ADA, ADM,” gives us an early measure of the impact of the pandemic-related shutdowns on school attendance.

The City of Richmond’s end-of-year count of days taught was 120, just two-thirds of the statutory minimum. Richmond’s total was one day more than those of Hampton and Newport News, three days more than Norfolk, and 6.6 days short of the division average.

Continue reading →

by John Butcher

An earlier post discussed the remarkably large number of unlicensed teachers in Richmond City public schools, as reported in the 2018 USDoE Civil Rights Data Collection.

An email from the Richmond public schools chief of staff responded that only four of about 2,100 Richmond teachers now are unlicensed, unless you also count 38 whose paperwork is hanging at VDOE because of COVID-related backups.

If true, that would show an astounding improvement in just three years. Unfortunately, it was not true, at least in the sense of the federal data. Continue reading →

by John Butcher

If you want to boost the pass rates of the Standards of Learning exams, you have three choices (aside from the one perfected at Richmond’s Carver Elementary): Improve teaching, make the tests easier, or relax the scoring.

On the 2019 revision of the math tests, the Board of “Education” chose the last option: They adopted cut scores in five of six cases that were less than the level necessary to retain the same level of rigor as the earlier tests. The results were predictable (and, of course, fed the false notion that student performance was improving).

The Board now has jiggered the English tests to the same end. The recommendation (teacher-driven; no pretense here of objectivity) was for every cut score to be lower (easier) than the level necessary to maintain the rigor of the tests. Continue reading →

by John Butcher

It’s December. The Generous Assembly is about to return and the demands for more education funding (see Executive Summary at p.4) resound throughout the Commonwealth.

The data would suggest that these demands are misplaced.

VDOE won’t post the 2020 expenditure data until sometime this spring and there were no 2020 SOLs, so we’ll use the 2019 expenditure and SOL data. The expenditure numbers below are the those for “day school operation” (the sum of Administration, Instruction, Attendance and Health Services, Pupil Transportation, and O&M spending). Student counts are the year-end average daily membership.

One wrinkle: Statewide, “economically disadvantaged” (here, “ED”) students underperform their more affluent peers (“Not ED”) by some 17 to 22 points, depending on the subject. Thus the division average pass rates depend both on student performance and the relative numbers of ED and Not ED students. We’ll avoid that issue here by looking at the rates for both groups.

Here, then, are the division average reading pass rates for the two groups plotted v. the division day school expenditure per student: Continue reading →

by John Butcher

The popular sport in the Richmond “education” establishment has been to blame the kids for the awful performance of our schools. We particularly hear about our less affluent (the official euphemism is “economically disadvantaged”) students.

We have some data on that. Again.

Here are the average reading pass rates by grade of the economically disadvantaged (”ED”) and non-ED students in Richmond and the state.  “EOC” indicates the End of Course tests that generally must be passed to receive “verified credits” that count toward a diploma.

Both in Richmond and on average, the ED group underperforms the non-ED group.

To the point here, the Richmond ED students underperform their peers in the state averages, as do the non-ED Richmond students.

We can calculate the differences between the Richmond groups and state average to measure that underperformance.

Here we see Richmond’s ED students underperforming their peers by about 7% in elementary school while our non-ED students average some 9% below that group statewide.  In middle school the difference increases to roughly 19% for the non-ED students and 25% for the ED group.

The math test results show a similar pattern.

These data tell us two things:

• Richmond students, both ED and not, underperform their statewide peer groups on average; and
• The average SOL performance of Richmond students, ED and not, deteriorates dramatically in middle school.

As I have demonstrated elsewhere, the large percentage of ED students in Richmond (64% in 2017) does not explain our low pass rates.  So we are left with (at least) two possible explanations: Either Richmond students are less capable on average than students statewide or our schools are less effective than average.

If Richmond’s students were just less capable, it would explain the low elementary school scores but not the drop in pass rates after the fifth grade.

The plummeting performance of our students when they reach middle school tells us there’s a (big!) problem with our middle schools.  And there’s every reason to think that the school system that has terrible middle schools might also have problems with its elementary schools. Continue reading →