Children at Risk School Ratings - By Poverty Level

Children at Risk rates all Texas public schools according to a variety of factors that are different from the state's accountability ratings. They just came out with their 2010 rankings, based on data from the 2008-2009 school year.

I'm not sure I'm crazy about the rankings for a couple of reasons. One reason is that they give "credit" for working with kids in poverty (why do that when you are ranking schools according to college readiness? Why not be completely transparent and show exactly what's going on?) I also prefer rankings that group statistically alike schools together, rather than a straight 1 to whatever brings up the rear. I have no way of knowing how much school #300 is like school #400. Are they actually almost identical, or are they very far apart in their performance? And, I think the focus on commended TAKS scores is too bad. It's an interesting indicator of how high students are performing at that school academically, but it does not take into account the tremendous effort that is put in just to get kids to pass TAKS. Also, are the high school rankings based just on Exit test data? That is unclear to me. Their methodology is explained here.

I looked at several local school districts to see what the correlation was between their high school Children at Risk rankings and the percent of children in poverty at those schools. Granted, I know the rankings already take into account poverty, but my assumption going into this is that schools with very low poverty rates are going to score much higher than schools with very high poverty rates.

For Fort Bend ISD:

State Ranking	High School	Student Poverty Rate
22	Clements	4.10%
35	Austin	13.10%
56	Dulles	16%
112	Kempner	23.50%
146	Elkins	14.20%
237	Hightower	30.20%
284	Bush	46.50%
660	Marshall	45.40%
975	Willowridge	55.60%

Fort Bend ISD performs as I expected, but with Kempner rating higher than the lower poverty Elkins.

Another suburban school district - Clear Creek ISD:

State Ranking High School Student Poverty Rate 65 Clear Lake 11.10% 217 Clear Brook 19.50% 330 Clear Creek 16.10% 1010 Clear View Ed Center 25%

I'm not familiar with Clear View Education Center, but here's some info I found on it:

Clear View distinguishes itself from other CCISD schools by having significantly smaller class sizes. This smaller learning environment allows for each student to receive one-on-one attention from teachers and administration to specifically meet his or her educational needs. (It serves 7th - 12th grades.)

I don't understand what it's characteristics are that make it so low performing.

Clear Creek ISD serves the Bay Area Houston area, with the Johnson Space Center right in the middle of it.

CCISD performs more poorly in the rankings than I expected. Poverty rates aren't as high as some of the Fort Bend ISD schools that are performing better, but then again, I do not how statistically different the #330 Clear Creek High School (16.1% poverty) is from the #237 Hightower High school (30.2% poverty.)

Houston ISD:

State Ranking	High School	Student Poverty Rate
3	Debakey HS for Health	49.40%
4	Carnegie Vanguard	28.80%
18	Eastwood Academy	81.50%
19	HSPVA	17.90%
40	Law Enforcement	76.40%
92	Lamar	44%
136	Westside	45.80%
387	Challenge Early College	58.40%
507	Barbara Jordan	81%
645	Waltrip	72.60%
656	Milby	84%
700	Cole Middle/High	23.80%
735	Austin	91.10%
766	Reagan	81.50%
803	Chavez	85.50%
881	Scarborough	81.80%
931	Madison	77.70%
941	Worthing	77.10%
958	Davis	89.10%
973	Westbury	73.70%
983	Sharpstown	83.10%
991	Furr	86%
998	Sterling	80%
999	Lee	90.90%
1005	Wheatley	92.30%
1008	Kashmere	92.10%
1013	Jones	80.70%

Houston ISD has many schools with very high poverty rates. Their schools with 70% or higher poverty rates are generally ranked very, very low. Exceptions are Eastwood Academy (a charter) and Law Enforcement High School (a magnet school.) I'm not sure why Cole Middle and High School performs so poorly with 23.8% of their kids in poverty. Otherwise, HISD high schools follow the trend of high poverty schools getting the lowest rankings. The top five ranked HISD schools are all charters or magnets.

This data  highlights another problem I have with the Children at Risk rankings. One stated purpose of the rankings is to arm parents with data regarding school choice and help them understand if their schools are doing a good job or not, so that they can demand better.  Children in high poverty, who are in subsidized housing, do not have much choice in where they go to school. On the other hand, I do have a choice because of my income level, and I chose to buy a house that is zoned to a high school in the top 25 of these rankings.

Back to another suburban school district - Conroe ISD:

State Ranking	High School	Student Poverty Rate
43	Woodlands	2.20%
450	Oak Ridge	20.70%
733	Conroe	46.20%
839	Caney Creek	48.80%

This one looks a lot like Fort Bend ISD, in that the school with an exceptionally low poverty rate ranks very high.

You can play around with sorting the rankings for other school districts, at this link on the Houston Chronicle website. The Texas Tribune also has a great data app for searching schools rankings.

Brian Thevenot with the Texas Tribune has a story on how smaller schools ranked higher statewide, but I think the real point he made is that schools that have selective enrollment, do the best. The Houston Chronicle hosted a live chat with Children at Risk staff on the rankings. I participated, and found it to be very interesting.

The moral of the story is the same as it's alway been - without spending a dime on a new ranking system - if you have the money to buy a house in a upper middle class or high income neighborhood, your kids will be going to a school that way outperforms schools in low income neighborhoods.

Robert Sanborn, president of Children at Risk, thinks the data points to the fact that smaller schools do better, and large, comprehensive high schools don't work (although large schools like Clements High School don't fit that paradigm.) I don't disagree that smaller high schools are ideal, but it doesn't seem like a viable solution in the real world where superintendents are consolidating schools and laying off teachers to rescue huge budget deficits.

What I do like about the Children at Risk rankings is that they give a reason for stakeholders to have a conversation about what is working and what is not in our public schools.

Today is Social Studies Exit TAKS Day - the Easiest TAKS Test

Today is Day 3 of Exit testing for all 11th graders in Texas. The Social Studies Exit TAKS is the final test that must be passed in order to graduate. Juniors took the ELA Exit TAKS in March, the Math Exit on Wednesday, and the Science Exit yesterday. If they were absent for any of the tests, there are makeup days. And, if they failed any of them, they can retake the test up to four more times, for a total of five tries. If they  can't pass all four tests, they do not get to graduate from high school. And, yes, that means even if they passed all of their required classes.

Last year, 263,438 juniors took the Social Studies Exit, and 97% passed. I've got some questions for you below from the 2009 April administration of the test. The answers are in the comments.

I tried to pick questions that would irritate the right wing of the Texas State Board of Education - questions about minority groups gaining rights or spreading their culture. There are plenty of questions involving old, white men. If you want to see those, see the entire test at this link. I wonder if Dunbar, McLeroy, and crew know that an evolution question is sometimes slipped into the Social Studies TAKS (see below.)

Let me know how you did - or what you think about the test - in the comments! Mean, but truthful, comments about the SBOE are always also appreciated.

Today is Science Exit TAKS Day. Could You Pass and Graduate?

My education consulting this school year has been preparing teachers and students for today, when the Science Exit TAKS is administered to all Texas 11th graders. This is one of the four tests students have to pass in order to graduate from a Texas high school, the others being Math, Social Studies and English Language Arts Exit TAKS.

In addition, today a Science TAKS is being administered to all Texas 5th, 8th, and 10th graders, but their scores do not affect their promoting to the next grade. These scores do count towards the TEA school accountability rankings (Exemplary, Recognized, Acceptable, etc.), but not towards AYP - the federal Annual Yearly Progress accountability system.

There are 55 questions on the Science Exit TAKS, and students have to pass 30 (plus or minus - the cut score varies each year depending on the difficulty of the test.) In April 2009, 262,301 Texas juniors took the test, and 85% passed.

The Science Exit TAKS covers five area of science - the Nature of Science (labs, data, etc.), Organization of Living Systems (Biology), Interdependence of Organisms and the Environment (Biology), Structures and Properties of Matter (Chemistry), and Motion, Forces, and Energy (Phyiscs). Students typically took Biology in 9th grade, Chemistry in 10th grade and they are sitting in a Physics class as 11th grade Exit takers. You can see a breakdown of how last year's 11th graders scored on each part of the test here.

To thoroughly prepare students for this high stakes test, we implement many strategy layers, including:

1. Ensuring the taught curriculum is aligned to TAKS.
2. Ensuring assessments include TAKS-like questions.
3. Having students practice many problems from released TAKS tests. (The TEA website is my friend as well as this from Dallas County Schools and teacher created websites such as this.)
4. After school tutorials.
5. Saturday tutorials.
6. Direct TAKS instruction during the regular school day by Bio and Chem teachers rotating into 11th grade Physics classes on a once week basis during the spring semester.
7. Rallies and incentives.
8. Bringing in outside consultants and/or special TAKS prep programs (computerized, for example.)

Here are your seven practice Science Exit TAKS questions. Click on them to make them larger. The answers are in the comments. Please let me know how you did!

Today is Math Exit TAKS Day. Could You Pass and Graduate?

Today marks the beginning of a grueling three day process for 11th graders in Texas public high schools. In order to graduate they have to pass all four Exit TAKS - English Language Arts (administered in March) and Math, Science and Social Studies (administered today, tomorrow and Friday.)

The tests are 55-60 questions long and students are given the entire day to take the tests.

If you were sitting in a testing room today, could you pass the Math Exit TAKS and graduate from a Texas public high school? Below are five questions from the 2009 Math Exit TAKS administered last April, to test your abilities. 34 questions correctly answered out of 60 was the passing score for this test (you can see the entire test at this link.)

261,664 Texas juniors took this test last April, and 81% passed on their first try. Students get five chances to pass all of their Exit Tests.

I'd love to hear how you did, in the comments! (Click on the questions to make them larger.) Answers are posted in the comments section.

Related posts: Second Semester Brings Focus On TAKS (how schools prepared students for these high stakes tests.) And this post amuses me because my daughter's class cheered Chris Bell when they had to watch the 2006 gubernatorial debate and Chris talked about how bad the TAKS test is: A 12-year Old Muses On the Governor's Debate. 

Education Commissioner Robert Scott Makes Case for Texas Democrats

The Commissioner of Education in Texas is appointed, not elected. The Governor makes the appointment. Today, at a legislative hearing over the proposed social studies standards, Governor Rick Perry's appointee, Robert Scott, unwittingly made the case for the Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC):

"This inspires passion," Texas Education Commissioner said. "When you push out a particular group and say, 'we don't care about you' over time that creates a problem."

Scott added: "And when the pendulum swings back, you know, there's - whether you call it payback or a shifting in the alignment - I think that we need to be mindful as we deliberate to try to prevent the pushing out of any group, regardless of who they are. And that's what I think this process needs to be about."

Now, what he was talking about was the poor, oppressed religious right who got themselves elected to the State Board of Education for one reason only - to inject religion into the new science and social studies standards. They "snuck" onto the Board in plain sight when Texas Democrats were asleep on the job and didn't run anyone against them. Scott makes an amusing comment about the way things used to be before religious zealots controlled education in Texas:

Scott clarified his remark, explaining an historical context.

In the 1990s, for example, the four board conservatives lost, 10-4, in the adoption of new social studies curriculum standards.

"There was no outrage. No hearings. No New York Times editorial," Scott said of political swings.

Well, no, there was no outrage because common sense, accuracy, scholarship and the good of Texas school children were the standards back in the day.

I interpret Scott's remarks as:

1. Support of MALC's position that we "need to be mindful as we deliberate to try to prevent the pushing out of" Mexican Americans in the social studies standards.

2. The plain truth. Elections matter, and when we elect Democrats the pendulum will swing back, there will be a "shifting in the alignment" and we'll get the SBOE back on track to putting quality education for Texas school children first.

Let's all stay awake this go round and elect Bill White for Governor, and Judy Jennings  and Rebecca Bell Metereau for the State Board of Education.

Snakes on a Trail!

Governor Perry to no one in particular: "Why exactly are there snakes on this trail? Enough is enough! I have had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday jog!"

I'm not sure what to think. Either Rick Perry is a big fat wuss afraid of small reptiles, or we've got a serious security issue keeping our duly elected governor from being bitten by poisonous snakes on a daily basis.

Perry told The Associated Press on Tuesday he needed just one shot from the laser-sighted pistol he sometimes carries while jogging to take down a coyote that menaced his puppy during a February run near Austin.

Perry said he will carry his .380 Ruger – loaded with hollow-point bullets – when jogging on trails because he is afraid of snakes. He'd also seen coyotes in the undeveloped area.

"I knew there were a lot of predators out there. You'll hear a pack of coyotes. People are losing small cats and dogs all the time out there in that community," Perry said.

"They're very wily creatures."

On this particular morning, Perry said, he was jogging without his security detail shortly after sunrise.

What a manly man, taking out Wile E. Coyote in just one shot. The article claims Perry was packing a pistol in his belt (he wishes), but I bet he stashed it in his man purse or fanny pack.

The only predator I'm interested in taking out Perry is Bill White. In the meantime, maybe he needs to get a mother @#$%^&* treadmill for his mother @#$%^&* mansion.

Proud to Be an American. Proud to Pay Taxes.

I read this USA Today article, "Yes, I Love Paying Taxes," with interest. Like the author, I am proud to be an American and am happy to pay my share for all of the things our great country provides its citizens.

I'm happy to pay for our lawmakers salaries, the Federal Reserve, highways, public education, health care for most Americans, social security for the elderly, defense, homeland security, SSI, food stamps, school meals, housing assistance, veterans benefits, research (medical, energy, space, technology, and a myriad of other things), the space program, aid to other countries, national parks, the postal service, foreign embassies, federal prisons, unemployment compensation, assistance to college students . . . and the list goes on and on.

I'm not thrilled my tax dollars are still paying for Bush's senseless war, but I didn't form a crybaby Tee-Tee Party over it, and I know elections matter, which is why I am politically engaged.

I pay my taxes for the privilege of being an American, and I thank all of those who have fought on the battlefields and on the campaign fields and in the halls of government to make our country great. My part is small - writing a check - in comparison to the very real sacrifices of so many.

As a P.S., for those who are whining and hollering about their taxes being "too high," consider this and know that if you are paying more taxes than you used to, you are probably also making considerably more money than you used to, so take an expensive vacation or buy a 50-inch flatscreen toy and calm down:

America's overall effective federal tax rate, or the percentage of income that households fork over — in the form of individual, corporate, payroll and excise taxes — was 20.7% in 2006, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office's most recent calculation (2009). The lowest-earning fifth of Americans paid roughly 4.3% of their income in federal taxes, the middle fifth 14.2% and the top fifth 25.8%. Today these rates are lower for every income bracket, except the richest fifth, than in 1982, when President Reagan's first historic massive tax cuts went into effect. For all the recent grief doled on Uncle Sam, federal tax rates have remained remarkably flat, or often declined, over the past 30 years.

Moreover, taxes on the average single worker— including personal income taxes and employer-paid taxes on the worker's behalf — are lower in the USA than in any G-8 democracy (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, theUnited Kingdom), except for Japan, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a non-partisan international organization that supports democracy and free markets.

Looking at federal tax rates over time, or comparing America with its closest competitors, our federal income taxes cannot plausibly be called "too high."

Privatizing Parking Meters in City of Houston's Future?

I was a part of a blogger conversation with Houston Mayor Annise Parker last week, and there was much discussion about they city's budget. I asked what creative solutions were being looked at, short of furloughing city employees, A followup question was asked about the possibility of privatizing parking meters to get an influx of cash.

I researched that scenario, and found out that Chicago leased its parking meters to a private company for for 75 years and a $1.2 billion immediate influx of cash that completely erased the city's budget deficit. Not everyone has been happy with the deal. A little googling on this brings up many hits, on both sides of the issue.

Washington, DC privatized their meters, in part, to upgrade their severely out of date equipment that was losing revenue.

The Los Angeles City Council recently voted to spend $500,000 to consider privatizing its parking meters and city garages, as one solution to getting out of its massive budget problems.

One complaint by consumers about privatized meters, is that parking rates rise, but I have to wonder if they would anyway, because of city budget deficits.

If the City of Houston goes this route, the important thing is the deal - who sets the rates, how long is the lease, how does the cash deal compare to revenues vs. expenses if the city maintained the meters over the same amount of time, etc.

I also read with interest this morning, about a city in Florida that has a parking meter system that you can pay for via cell phone. You set up your account ahead of time, and then text in your parking spot when you park your car. A text message is sent to you when your time is about to expire. This is a fabulous idea that I hope gets implemented in more cities. My question: what are the costs of this system and who absorbs the cost?

Which leads me to a related transportation note. I was still able to use my EZ tag to park in a lot at Hobby airport this past week, even though the system is being canceled, due to lack of revenues. Does anyone know when that program gets yanked? It's been super convenient for me, and I blame its failure on the lack of advertisement to EZ tag holders about this option.

Bill White on Rigor and Relevance in the Classroom

"Rigor and relevance" is a catch phrase in education right now, and it's one I like. When implemented well, classroom instruction includes relevant examples from students' lives, from the news, etc. Relevance is related to rigor. When students have to apply their learning to relevant scenarios, the rigor is usually there.

Bill White, Democratic candidate for Texas governor, implemented these two concepts beautifully during a recent visit to a ninth grade algebra class:

He tells them that you have to have algebra, for example, to figure out what the school dropout rate would be if it were 10 percent over time. "All you have to do is set it up to solve for X," he says. "This is a practical skill!"

White talks about using algebra to figure out what a homeowner would have to pay in interest if the interest rate goes up. "Solve for X," he says. "See what I'm saying?"

He thinks of one other example, one close to his oil-and-gas heart. "I'm talking about finding oil deposits in the center of the earth," he says. "Unless you have some level of algebra skills, I can tell you that you cannot find oil and gas. I didn't know this when I got in the business."

White tells them about bouncing sound waves off rocks deep underground and measuring how long it takes for the echo to return as a way of determining where the oil might be. "I didn't know this," he says. "It's cool."

It was, indeed, cool, and interesting, at least to those of us in the room whose math experience is seriously lacking.

What a startling contrast to the guy he's running against, incumbent Rick Perry, who gets an F on education every time he opens his mouth.

Can we get Bill White to run around to Texas high schools and do Math TAKS prep lessons? All high school juniors will be taking their Exit Math TAKS on April 28th. They have to pass that, along with Exit TAKS tests in ELA, Science and Social Studies in order to graduate. Bill White, we need you!