School Board Vice Chair compares apples to oranges

This is a problem the school district has. They cherry pick stats that support their points, they disregard stats when they don’t report what they want (this past years FCAT for example) and then they make stuff up, discipline problems are not way down, instead teachers ignoring bad behavior and enduring toxic learning environments is way up. The district does all this why Rome is burning down around them. -cpg

From the Florida Times Union

I am writing in response to Betty Burney's guest column in which she suggests that students at Raines, Ribault and Jackson high schools may be achieving better than tests are indicating.

The basis of Burney's argument is that the postsecondary reading readiness rates reported for these schools under the state's high school grading rule are substantially higher than the reading performance reported based on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

What Burney fails to report is that the two tests measure different groups of students:

- The FCAT reading performance is based on all students in these schools.

- The postsecondary reading readiness standard is based on a very small number of the students in these schools.

It is commendable that the small number of students in these schools who score at level 3 or above in FCAT reading and math and graduate on time perform comparably with their peers around the state in terms of postsecondary reading readiness rates.

However, it is a gross misrepresentation to suggest that the performance of this small number of students is indicative of the performance of these schools.

The unfortunate truth is that these schools are not adequately serving the vast majority of their students.

As a service to readers, an "apples to apples" comparison of the FCAT reading performance and the college readiness rate for the entire cohort of students who entered the ninth grade in fall 2007 is attached.

These three high schools - Jackson, Raines and Ribault - are included among a group of 12 public schools around the state that have been identified as critically low performing based on requirements of Florida statutes.

This represents 12 schools out of over 4,000 public schools in the state.

A student entering one of these three high schools between 1999 and 2006 had on average less than a 50 percent chance of graduating on time, if at all.

Misrepresenting the facts to defend the status quo is a disservice to the students, families and surrounding communities these schools serve.

T. Willard Fair is chairman of the Florida Board of Education

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters-readers/2011-02-16/story/guest-column-state-tests-high-schools-are-consistent-and#ixzz1EEZk3exj

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters-readers/2011-02-16/story/guest-column-state-tests-high-schools-are-consistent-and