We had statisticians at work who said we could not ask a grantee to explain racial differences if the number for the group was less than 30. That was a rule of thumb. I noticed, however, that our statisticians did not always follow their own rules.
I don’t know about Compton and Inglewood but in SF teachers are prevented or discouraged from disciplining students. Called racists if they do. Part of the popularity of charters in the Black community is that charters will suspend or expel students.
I found most of this article very interesting and helpful but you loose me when you speak about genetic variants and education. There is no logic in saying that a Latino couple who grew up in poverty and had no access to high school let alone college, no parents or other educated figures in their lives, didn’t achieve many educational years due to their lack of good genetic variants and so didn’t pass them on to their kids. Logic suggests other lacks were more important in their lack of education. Nor do we have as clear an understanding of genes and their roles as your imply. It’s also puzzling that you leave out even the possibility of racism. It’s one thing to say there are these other plausible possibilities etc. (helpful!) and another to cover various possibilities without once mentioning that studies find that we all still hold stereotypes and assumptions and it’s inevitable that many teachers and school staff might hold strong negative views towards certain races.
There is one data point that shows how well a school is doing educating it's students (and possibly this data can also be used to compare districts.) Core Growth Data (see link below) compares how much students grow on SBAC from year to year, while controlling for student demographics (such as ESL and SED as referenced in your article but unfortunately not parent education level.) Before the pandemic, many large CA districts participated including Oakland (my district,) SFUSD and Los Angeles.
Oakland made their Core Growth data public (see link below.) It showed some interesting and unexpected results. For example, my kids school (low-ESL, low-SED) showed high proficiency rates on SBAC, but low Core Growth. This means that compared to other non-ESL, non-SED students, our student grew less each year. Additionally, you can find high-ESL, high-SED schools showed low proficiency rates on SBAC, but high Core Growth. This school was able to move their students further in one year (and in some cases year after year) than schools serving similar populations.
I'm not sure if SFUSD still participates in Core Districts, and I don't know if they ever made their data public, but it would be interesting to see. (Let me know if you want to talk further about this data.)
I agree with cheesemonkey. Add to that disciplinary polices that allow disruptive students to remain in the classroom. If you remove a smart Black child from bad classroom learning environment they would perform at much higher levels. Do Black students that addend schools with more White students perform better?
Thanks for another great analysis, Paul. One factor you didn't mention that I've been investigating is the role of chronic absenteeism. I'm wondering if there could also be some correlations between proficiency levels and chronic absenteeism. I wonder what the data show about this.
We had statisticians at work who said we could not ask a grantee to explain racial differences if the number for the group was less than 30. That was a rule of thumb. I noticed, however, that our statisticians did not always follow their own rules.
I don’t know about Compton and Inglewood but in SF teachers are prevented or discouraged from disciplining students. Called racists if they do. Part of the popularity of charters in the Black community is that charters will suspend or expel students.
I found most of this article very interesting and helpful but you loose me when you speak about genetic variants and education. There is no logic in saying that a Latino couple who grew up in poverty and had no access to high school let alone college, no parents or other educated figures in their lives, didn’t achieve many educational years due to their lack of good genetic variants and so didn’t pass them on to their kids. Logic suggests other lacks were more important in their lack of education. Nor do we have as clear an understanding of genes and their roles as your imply. It’s also puzzling that you leave out even the possibility of racism. It’s one thing to say there are these other plausible possibilities etc. (helpful!) and another to cover various possibilities without once mentioning that studies find that we all still hold stereotypes and assumptions and it’s inevitable that many teachers and school staff might hold strong negative views towards certain races.
There is one data point that shows how well a school is doing educating it's students (and possibly this data can also be used to compare districts.) Core Growth Data (see link below) compares how much students grow on SBAC from year to year, while controlling for student demographics (such as ESL and SED as referenced in your article but unfortunately not parent education level.) Before the pandemic, many large CA districts participated including Oakland (my district,) SFUSD and Los Angeles.
Oakland made their Core Growth data public (see link below.) It showed some interesting and unexpected results. For example, my kids school (low-ESL, low-SED) showed high proficiency rates on SBAC, but low Core Growth. This means that compared to other non-ESL, non-SED students, our student grew less each year. Additionally, you can find high-ESL, high-SED schools showed low proficiency rates on SBAC, but high Core Growth. This school was able to move their students further in one year (and in some cases year after year) than schools serving similar populations.
I'm not sure if SFUSD still participates in Core Districts, and I don't know if they ever made their data public, but it would be interesting to see. (Let me know if you want to talk further about this data.)
https://edsource.org/2019/how-california-measures-academic-success-is-changing-at-some-of-the-states-largest-districts/620361
https://dashboards.ousd.org/views/COREGrowth_15676333862790/Summary?iframeSizedToWindow=true&%3Aembed=y&%3AshowAppBanner=false&%3Adisplay_count=no&%3AshowVizHome=no&%3Aorigin=viz_share_link
I agree with cheesemonkey. Add to that disciplinary polices that allow disruptive students to remain in the classroom. If you remove a smart Black child from bad classroom learning environment they would perform at much higher levels. Do Black students that addend schools with more White students perform better?
Thanks for another great analysis, Paul. One factor you didn't mention that I've been investigating is the role of chronic absenteeism. I'm wondering if there could also be some correlations between proficiency levels and chronic absenteeism. I wonder what the data show about this.