South Shore PreK-8: What's the Mystery?
Almost a year ago I did a thread on South Shore and compared it to the other K-8s. I found in reading, SS is about the same as most K-8s but the math is worse.
So I did a comparison today with South Shore, Roxhill and Maple from 2009 to today and there seems to be two issues.
One, something seems amiss from 3rd to 4th grade at South Shore. The children in third grade do really well only to see those scores drop (and I mean drop) by 4th and into 5th.
Two, there is a bit of a mystery about South Shore. No one mentions the long-time partnership that started South Shore (with the New School Foundation and now LEV). Not at their school website and barely in the district's own pages. You'd think this would be some shining example of (1) what you can do with smaller class sizes and (2) public/private partnerships. Why doesn't the district talk about SS more when confronting legislators over funding? I note the district did honor South Shore this past Feb at a Board meeting and Director Martin-Morris held them up as role models to other parts of the country.
They do have two tutoring programs, their own school nurse, two kinds of empathy/behavior programs and literacy coaches. I'm thinking between that - and the ability to buy down class sizes per their MOU - that's where the nearly $1M per year that New School kicks in must go. About 25% of their school budget is grant funds. (I'd venture that that may be the largest in the district.)
Here's what I found when I examined the data at OSPI:
- South Shore's black population has gone down from about 50% (that was at least 5 years ago) to just about 40%. As that has happened the Latino population has gone up slightly (about 9%) with the rest mostly Asian/Pacific Islander and 11% being white. It is 63% F/RL.
- Roxhill is about 36% Latino, 25% black, 31% Asian/Pacific Islander and 13% white with 81% F/RL.
- Maple is about 49% Asian/Pacific Islander, 13% black, 11% white and almost 20% Hispanic with about 64% F/RL.
So why do I think the South Shore scores odd? (R stands for reading and the number after it is the grade level). Look at these scores.
2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013
R3 - 68.8% R3 - 76% R3 - 65% R3 - 83%
R4 - 50.6% R4 - 57% R4 - 70% R4 - 55%
R5 - 57% R5 - 55% R5 - 56% R5 - 67%
It's the same for math in the variation from 3rd to 5th grades (BUT SS does have higher math scores than Roxhill by far but Maple bests them both in reading and math scores across the three grades.)
How is it that their students do so well in 3rd grade and then have between 20-30 point drops in 4th grade and then that score stays nearly the same or slightly higher in 5th?
How did Roxhill and Maple do?
Roxhill
2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013
R3 -35% R3 - 35% R3 - 53% R3 - 61%
R4 - 56% R4 - 56% R4 - 63% R4 - 63%
R5 - 60% R5 - 60% R5 - 71% R5 - 65%
Maple
2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013
R3 - 67% R3 - 70% R3 - 68% R3 - 85%
R4 - 64% R4 - 83% R4 - 74% R4 - 84%
R5 - 64% R5 - 63% R5 - 78% R5 - 74%
You can see the difference. And, neither has the money or programs of SS and Roxhill has a much higher F/RL population.
As well, for 7th grade, I compared SS to Mercer and Aki Kurose. Mercer, as you might expect, came out on top across all the years for both math and reading (low 70's to 80%) with SS second (low 50s to near 70%) and Aki coming in lowest (between 30-near 60%). But Mercer isn't getting $1M per year more into their building.
(Interestingly, I happened to check TOPS for 2012-2013 and that was odd as well. SS easily bested TOPS most 7/8th grade reading and math scores. I would not have expected that.)
Because I call out South Shore - both for their funding and their building - it might seem I'm picking on them. I'm not. It's kind of like TFA - like the participants, don't like/trust the program.
I got to thinking about this as we are having these on-going discussions of capacity management because South Shore is not full. And no school is an island in this current capacity crunch. The money they get from the New School Foundation (via LEV) pays for lower class sizes. So you have a brand-new building that is not full.
Something of a bitter pill for other schools to swallow.
So I did a comparison today with South Shore, Roxhill and Maple from 2009 to today and there seems to be two issues.
One, something seems amiss from 3rd to 4th grade at South Shore. The children in third grade do really well only to see those scores drop (and I mean drop) by 4th and into 5th.
Two, there is a bit of a mystery about South Shore. No one mentions the long-time partnership that started South Shore (with the New School Foundation and now LEV). Not at their school website and barely in the district's own pages. You'd think this would be some shining example of (1) what you can do with smaller class sizes and (2) public/private partnerships. Why doesn't the district talk about SS more when confronting legislators over funding? I note the district did honor South Shore this past Feb at a Board meeting and Director Martin-Morris held them up as role models to other parts of the country.
They do have two tutoring programs, their own school nurse, two kinds of empathy/behavior programs and literacy coaches. I'm thinking between that - and the ability to buy down class sizes per their MOU - that's where the nearly $1M per year that New School kicks in must go. About 25% of their school budget is grant funds. (I'd venture that that may be the largest in the district.)
Here's what I found when I examined the data at OSPI:
- South Shore's black population has gone down from about 50% (that was at least 5 years ago) to just about 40%. As that has happened the Latino population has gone up slightly (about 9%) with the rest mostly Asian/Pacific Islander and 11% being white. It is 63% F/RL.
- Roxhill is about 36% Latino, 25% black, 31% Asian/Pacific Islander and 13% white with 81% F/RL.
- Maple is about 49% Asian/Pacific Islander, 13% black, 11% white and almost 20% Hispanic with about 64% F/RL.
So why do I think the South Shore scores odd? (R stands for reading and the number after it is the grade level). Look at these scores.
2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013
R3 - 68.8% R3 - 76% R3 - 65% R3 - 83%
R4 - 50.6% R4 - 57% R4 - 70% R4 - 55%
R5 - 57% R5 - 55% R5 - 56% R5 - 67%
It's the same for math in the variation from 3rd to 5th grades (BUT SS does have higher math scores than Roxhill by far but Maple bests them both in reading and math scores across the three grades.)
How is it that their students do so well in 3rd grade and then have between 20-30 point drops in 4th grade and then that score stays nearly the same or slightly higher in 5th?
How did Roxhill and Maple do?
Roxhill
2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013
R3 -35% R3 - 35% R3 - 53% R3 - 61%
R4 - 56% R4 - 56% R4 - 63% R4 - 63%
R5 - 60% R5 - 60% R5 - 71% R5 - 65%
Maple
2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013
R3 - 67% R3 - 70% R3 - 68% R3 - 85%
R4 - 64% R4 - 83% R4 - 74% R4 - 84%
R5 - 64% R5 - 63% R5 - 78% R5 - 74%
You can see the difference. And, neither has the money or programs of SS and Roxhill has a much higher F/RL population.
As well, for 7th grade, I compared SS to Mercer and Aki Kurose. Mercer, as you might expect, came out on top across all the years for both math and reading (low 70's to 80%) with SS second (low 50s to near 70%) and Aki coming in lowest (between 30-near 60%). But Mercer isn't getting $1M per year more into their building.
(Interestingly, I happened to check TOPS for 2012-2013 and that was odd as well. SS easily bested TOPS most 7/8th grade reading and math scores. I would not have expected that.)
Because I call out South Shore - both for their funding and their building - it might seem I'm picking on them. I'm not. It's kind of like TFA - like the participants, don't like/trust the program.
I got to thinking about this as we are having these on-going discussions of capacity management because South Shore is not full. And no school is an island in this current capacity crunch. The money they get from the New School Foundation (via LEV) pays for lower class sizes. So you have a brand-new building that is not full.
Something of a bitter pill for other schools to swallow.
Comments
SolvayGirl
It is a great thread, and a true mystery to be solved.
SolvayGirl
Speddite
I'll note that Roxhill is much higher free and reduced lunch and that I included Maple.
I don't believe this is all about Sped (and if you really want the emphasis on that issue do consider, as time goes by and we have charters, that's why they do better as well).
speddite
2009-2010 62.9% 61.5%
2010-2011 60.6% 81.3%
2011-2012 62.1% 75.8%
2012-2013 70.3% 63.4%
speddite
speddite
ReportCard
Good to know my kids are people too! That'll change the way I look at them. Wait - are adults with disabilities people too? Best day ever!!
I also remind readers to not toss out wild allegations without backup confirmation.
Thank you for pointing out the way our special needs students just don't count! The Fed thought it was totally hunky-dory that our state's NCLB waiver explicitly exclude special ed student outcomes. This, despite the fact that the vast majority of students in special education have minor learning disabilities.
It's maddening!
I hope I didn't offend you - can't tell from your comment. Someone earlier implied that a high number of students receiving special ed services was an excuse for SS's test scores. I was curious about whether that was true. I don't think everyone realizes how much information is available in the School Report Card. I know plenty of bright kids who qualify for special ed services.