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Community Forum on Job Shadowing in
St. Paul High Schools May 17 - 28
http://www.stpauljobshadow.org
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On Tue, 25 May 2004, M Charles Swope wrote:
> Not to be misunderstood, let me say again, it's
> disturbing enough to see such a high percentage of
> students testing poorly in 2004. We just need to be
> careful about concluding what those figures say about
> whether students are progressing or regressing.
These tests are designed to tell you a lot about what a student knows, and
from that you can make decisions as to how they need to be taught or
whether they should pass.
These tests ARE NOT designed to make conclusions about how a school is
performing. To do that, you would need to have a more consistent measure
of progress over time. That can be extrapolated from what we have here,
but as Charlie says it's difficult.
Take my daughter's school, Expo. Their Free and Reduced Lunch percentage
has increased every year for a long time. But their scores on the 3rd and
5th grade tests are increasing. From what I've seen, the F&RL number is
an excellen predictor of how a school will do, all things being equal.
That Expo is a huge outlier on that line, to the positive side, shows they
are doing something right.
So while I'm fairly confident an outlier on a tight correlation is either
very good or very bad, the large clump in the middle says nothing. And,
indeed, most schools do about as well with the kids they have as the next
one.
Incidentally, the subject of this thread, "Do SPPS suck?" is quite
annoying. When someone like Dick Day says, "You suck!" the only valid
response is, "Naw-haw, YOU suck!". If they come back with, "Naw-haw, YOU
suck!" again, you go to "Yo momma suck!" and escalate it from there.
Anything else runs the risk of giving Dick Day the impression that his
comments really did pass for some kind of debate worthy of a minority
leader.
Erik Hare [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.comcast.net/~wabbitoid/
Irvine Park, West End, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA, North America, Earth
Fine Amish furniture, cedar chests, and crafts http://www.harmonycedar.com
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