This evening the district's director of Research, Dave Heistad gave a report to the school board about MCA test score results just issued by the State. That report, like a bikini, was designed to hide, or not reveal, what is essential.
The State has been rating school performance with the MCA tests and student performance with the MN Basic Standards Tests. That is about to change. The MCA tests are going to become the high stakes test for both students and schools. That's why the test scores were up so much statewide. Teachers across the state were more focused on preparing their students for the MCA tests. According to the analysis done by Dave Heistad, the district has been making progress toward closing the gap in math and reading proficiency between white and 'minority' students over the past several years, not just last year. However, that gap closing can be explained as an effect of a higher net loss of students who are failing to thrive academically, which tends to raise the curve. That weeding out process includes the administrative transfer of students from district run schools to charter and alternative "contract" schools. In my opinion, the "student achievement gap" is mostly a reflection of differences in access to high quality instruction. For example, schools with high concentrations of African American students tend to have high teacher turnover rates and a high concentration of the district's less experienced teachers. What has the district been doing about the education access gap? Almost nothing to close it, and plenty to perpetuate it. For example, the school board has been laying off large numbers of teachers each year who don't need to be laid off. That drives up district wide turnover rates. And teacher turnover rates tend to be extremely high where the lower seniority teachers are more heavily concentrated (A laid off teacher has the option of getting a job with another school district without resigning before April 1 of each year, as required by the Teacher Tenure Act. -Doug Mann, King Field, 8th ward Minneapolis City Council candidate http://educationright.com/blog - REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
