Analysis of CCSD's Rating Shows How Statistics Can Lie

I haven't always agreed with Jon Butzon, but his analysis of the statistics being touted by the Charleston County School District should be read by all.

Job One: Find the right superintendent
BY JON BUTZON
Nov 19 2014 12:01
An old Navy friend of mine is fond of saying, "Experience is the best teacher. Considering what it costs, it ought to be." Now that there is a big "Help Wanted" sign out at 75 Calhoun Street, I thought it might be useful for the new school board to consider how our most recent experience could inform the search for the next superintendent.

Some great slogans have come out of CCSD. My personal favorites are "All Means All," "The Victory is in the Classroom," and the lesser known "A Tale of Two Districts."

Let's start with "All Means All." Even just a cursory review of student achievement data suggests it's really more like "All Means Some." Here are a few examples.


On the 2014 ACT (unlike school ratings, this is an actual measure of students' college readiness) the five lowest performing high schools in all of South Carolina are in Charleston County. The bottom five in our state!

They are Lincoln (the state's lowest at 12.7), Burke (13.1), North Charleston (13.4), St. Johns (14.0) and Garrett (14.1). The vast majority of students in these schools are economically disadvantaged and minority.

Let's be clear - these embarrassingly low ACT scores aren't the students' fault. They are the result of a systemic achievement gap that still defines CCSD, despite a ton of spending, new ideas and interventions. The ACT folks determine a 21 and above to be "college ready." Last year, the 1,099 white seniors who took the ACT earned an impressive 22.8, compared to the 692 black students whose average score was only 14.9, and the 127 Hispanic students who scored 18.7. Seniors at CCSD's suburban and competitive magnet schools far exceeded national averages. These are the same exact trends we were seeing 10 years ago.

So, we need a superintendent who can accomplish more than great slogans. We need a superintendent who can not only close, but can eliminate the achievement gap.

Let's look at another popular saying: "The Victory is in the Classroom." Unfortunately, over the last six years, this victory has been defined by race and income. The black/white achievement gap on the PASS tests has widened over the last six years in English language arts in grades 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8, and in math in grades 4, 5, 6 and 7. The gap for low-income children as measured by comparing free lunch children with full-pay children has also widened in both English language arts and math in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. The widening gap means the district has lost ground for these, our most vulnerable children.

If the victory is in the classroom, we need a superintendent who can do more than just claim victory. We need a superintendent who will reject the status quo and truly win on behalf of every child.

Which leads us to "A Tale of Two Districts." White middle class and affluent students in Charleston County outperform their white peers across the state. The opposite is true for their black peers. On many measures, black students do better in other S.C. districts. Remember those ACT scores. "The Tale of Two Districts" - the same sad tale told 10 years ago, five years ago, and still today - means that in Charleston County we manage to teach white children better than white children in the rest of S.C., but for some reason we continue to teach black children worse. That sounds closer to the state of education we'd expect to see in 1860 than in 2014.

Over the last 10 years, Charleston County has changed significantly. People are flocking here from all around the country. While the white and comparatively affluent population in CCSD has grown, the black population has shrunk. Improvements hailed by CCSD - for example, the percentage of students attending "excellent" schools - reflect demographic trends and enrollment shifts as much as any improvement to the quality of education. Now there may be fewer buildings labeled "at risk" - easily accomplished by simply turning out the lights and locking the door - but just look at actual measures of learning, and the quality of education has not improved for our children.

Taking all of this into account, we need a superintendent who can do more than add chapters to Charleston's historical inequities and "A Tale of Two Districts." We need someone who can provide real solutions, make excellence a reality for every child, and close this shameful book altogether.

I may be in the minority, but my hat is off to the school board for making a difficult change. The story may be unpopular, but the truth is, progress hasn't been made. We may have new shiny buildings and catchy slogans, but we're failing the same students we have always failed.

To the school board: Take a hard look at the data yourself.

Make this not about watermelons, but about the enduring tragedy of youngsters like Ridge Smith and the thousands of Ridge Smiths remaining in our system. [Editor's note: Ridge Smith, featured in a 2009 Post and Courier series on low literacy rates in the district, was shot to death in North Charleston on Oct. 31.]

Make it about the continued erasing of whole generations of children from the economic map, and the irreducible fact that after ten years of bold promises and new visions, race and income still define the quality of education in CCSD.

I trust you'll see that CCSD needs a leader who will bring a new set of skills and a true sense of urgency and humility to this work. At the end of the day, the buck stops with you, and this is the most important task you will undertake.

Get it right!

Jon Butzon is the former executive director of the Charleston Education Network.

CCSD Teacher Buy-Ins to Value-Added Measures Need Critical Thinking

Two Charleston County fifth-grade teachers heading up a teacher "workgroup" of introducing the BRIDGE program district wide had their say earlier this week on the paper's op-ed page. Here's part of what Samantha Blake and Erin Cymrot had to say:

"Perhaps the most controversial component of BRIDGE is the use of value-added measures (VAM).

Many media outlets contend that VAM is unreliable and demand that it be removed.
Currently when school report cards are published, the public gets a limited view of a school's achievement. This is based largely on the percentage of how many students passed or failed a standardized test.

What's missing is that, by evaluating achievement as pass or fail, we are not recognizing the hard work of students who make growth. VAM focuses on measuring student growth from one year to the next, no matter where that student starts academically at the beginning of the year.

The unique component of VAM is that it also accounts for factors affecting student learning, such as attendance, poverty or learning disabilities."

Really?

If VAM accounts for "factors affecting student learning" such as poverty, it's unlikely to expect more learning by poor students; rather it will expect less.

FYI: this idea used to be called the "soft racism of lowered expectations."

Despite these teachers' saying that "media outlets" are the negative influences on VAM, the really negative comments have come from academics and districts that have actually implemented the program. The idea of VAM comes from economic production. Students are not mindless products.

CCSD comes late to the party, late enough that results have already shown the uselessness of this fix-all.

CCSD's McGinley Attempts to Straddle BRIDGE She Created

Slick. That's the apposite adjective for Charleston County School District's Superintendent McGinley. No wonder she's in the running for CCSD's longest-serving top administrator.

Allegations regarding the district's BRIDGE program are flying fast and furious. Teachers are outraged. Well-known education experts such as Ravitch are taking pot shots on the national stage. Time to call a meeting.

According to McGinley's latest insights, "there might be another way" to assess good work by students. There might be an "adjustment period." There might be uncertainty over results from a new statewide test. McGinley needs a "better confidence level" than what she has now.

These statements follow upon the heels of a surprise pay raise for a top administrator who attended the Broad Institute just to learn how to implement the BRIDGE. After implementing a pilot program in CCSD to reassure teachers that the following year their objections would have been dealt with. Of supreme confidence that BRIDGE was the way to go. After all, McGinley in her quest for Race to the Top funds has guaranteed the feds that the district would use such a program. She never hinted that she had any idea of the mounting evidence that value-added scores were bogus. After all, CCSD's paying Mathematica more than a million for its take on the formula. That's OPM.

Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst is the only local group vocally supporting BRIDGE. So you're not going to be surprised to find that Eli Broad gave that group half a million dollars in start up funds.

Your edublob at work. Now CCSD begs the feds to postpone what it asked for in the first place.

Ravitch's Blog Tears into Broad-Trained McGinley

I couldn't have said it better myself. In her blog criticizing the Charleston County School District's new BRIDGE program to use value-added scores to evaluate teaching, Diane Ravitch tells us what she really thinks:

"Surprise! The school leadership of Charleston, South Carolina, has come up with some stale ideas and branded them as “reform.”

"Nothing like copying what was tried and failed everywhere else!

"The district calls it a “new” program of teacher evaluation, pay for performance, and reconfigured salary structure BRIDGE but in fact it is the status quo demanded by the U.S. Department of Education.

"Every Broad-trained superintendent has the same ideas but is tasked with calling them “new” (when they are not), “evidence-based” (when they are not), and “reform” (when they are the status quo, paid for and sanctified by the U.S. Department of Education).

"Patrick Hayes, a teacher in Charleston, has launched a campaign to expose the destructive plan of the district leaders, whose primary outcome will be to demoralize and drive away good teachers."  [italics mine]

Funnily enough,  in this December 9th posting, Ravitch makes precisely the same points as I have in the last few months.

Too bad the CCSD School Board listens only to the Superintendent. When is it going to figure out that teachers are not the problem?

Teacher Sycophants on CCSD's BRIDGE

Who could blame them?

The only way to job security in the Charleston County School District is through bootlicking for Superintendent McGinley. Thus we have the pedestrian summation and defense of the BRIDGE program of value-added evaluation and compensation based on test scores by two ambitious CCSD teachers as an op-ed in Monday's paper.

Don't be fooled by propaganda. BRIDGE is a train wreck in slow motion.

EdFirstSC Finally Comes to Its Senses over CCSD's BRIDGE

Blame Bill Gates and the Obama administration.

Even though EdFirstSC finally sees the train headed for the wreck, its spokesman tries to blame SC Education Superintendent Mick Zais for the genesis of value-added teacher compensation. Zais visited the Charleston County School District to discuss Superintendent Nancy McGinley's plan to change the way teachers are compensated. EdFirstSC's members must lean heavily towards teachers who are Democrats. Yes, Republicans want teachers to be accountable, but the machinations behind BRIDGE must be laid squarely on the shoulders of the edublob and the Obama administration, especially U.S. Education Department head, Arne Duncan. They're all liberal Democrats.

Blame McGinley for applying for Race to the Top funds and accepting them. Federal money always comes with strings attached, and she knew full well what they would be. As a result of winning the grant, the district must follow Common Core standards AND implement a teacher evaluation system based on the fatally-flawed value-added model pushed by the Gates Foundation and Arne Duncan. In preparation McGinley sent Audrey Lane to the Broad Institute just to learn all about the new teacher-evaluation system and then rewarded her with a nice fat retroactive raise. And the edublob, in the form of Mathematica, got a nice $2 million (of Other People's Money) contract to figure out how to make the system fair, a goal that even those mathematicians must know is impossible.

This new system will never be fair to teachers or students. Look at the abundance of research on just this topic that Duncan, and McGinley, choose to ignore. Going after these funds and implementing the value-added compensation system in CCSD is McGinley's personal effort at her own "race to the top."

If you think testing is overrated and too important now, wait till teachers' jobs hang on these unfair results.

In CCSD, Broad Graduates Take Care of Their Own Audrey Lane

It couldn't wait. 

It was so important to reward Audrey Lane for her attendance at the Broad Institute, where she learned all about the components of BRIDGE, that fellow Broad-graduate Nancy McGinley insured an almost 19 percent raise for her prior to the district's own salary study report. And the raise is retroactive for 10 months.

Well, what can we expect in a district where at least 30 employees rack up more than $100,000 each and when the superintendent says "Jump" the Board of Trustees say "How high"? Needless to say, none of the most highly paid are teachers, who everyone agrees are the most important component in educating any child.

BROAD "a non-profit" = edublob at work 

CCSD Goes a Bridge Too Far

At least Saturday's puff piece did mention some parents' concerns over the new teacher evaluation scheme that the Charleston County School District avidly races to pursue, thanks to a grant from the Education Department's Race to the Top. No CCSD teacher would dare criticize the district's plans to a reporter, and none did so. Don't assume that silence means consent here; it means intimidation.

Here's a lucid explanation of Common Core's problematic genesis and flaws from a Tennessee senior in high school: 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PprP5TCZBRI 

CCSD's Stacking the Deck Decoded by BRIDGE Opponents

BRIDGE--another program introduced by the Charleston County School District that is directly encouraged and funded by federal grants in the Race to the Top national competition.

Whether you agree or not with Sarah Shad Johnson's opposition to standardized testing, her Letter to the Editor published Saturday shows she understands how Superintendent Nancy McGinley guarantees her intended outcomes in CCSD. Long-time watchers know how she has stacked community committees for her entire tenure.

Johnson's analysis shows that the Bridge steering committee deliberately omits "parents who are not CCSD employees" and "independent community members," while including only four teachers, one of whom represents StudentsFirst. The rest are administrators, and we all know whom they answer to in fear of their jobs.

CCSD claims to "'welcome input of our teachers, principals, parents, and community partners.'"

BRIDGE's goal is to replace current salary structures for teachers with value-added merit pay based on standardized test scores. In other words, each child is a product on the assembly line of schooling, and each teacher adds value until the student reaches the end of the assembly line, or graduates. Furthermore, that value can be measured from year to year.

What's wrong with this picture?