OT education in Mississippi

[615dawg]

I believe the scoring flaw exists within the credit a school gets for improving a student. Improvement is key but lets look at Oxford and Starkville math scores specifically.

Oxford: A School
Math scores 73

Starkville B School
Math 45

Oxford is way better here, but Starkville is getting credit because they moved a **** ton of kids from Level 2 to Level 3. Those improvements don't show up in the raw scores here, but when determining whether a school is A, B. C, etc. they get 150% credit for those kids that they moved up a level. Oxford doesn't have as many opportunities to move kids up from Level 2 to 3 because they have significantly more Level 4 and 5 kids.

Improvement is key and it should be rewarded, but Starkville is scoring like a low C school but getting credit for improvement so they get labeled a B school. Its like we used to do in co-ed flag football when a girl scoring was worth 9 points. We'd exploit it by going out of bounds at the 1 yard line and then letting a girl run it in. Schools are exploiting the improvement metrics to get their letter grade up because that's what the public looks at - they don't look at Oxford having twice the number of students proficient in math, they say Starkville is a B school and thats better than a C school.

The solution is not only a letter grade but a raw score. The raw score will show the improvement metric, but a 70 to a 75 should still be a C, not a B because they improved 10% of their student body.

 

[Villagedawg]

Heck yea grow them. We want that. But a schools performance is still a schools performance. a 5-5 vanderbilt doesnt need to go to the playoffs or be ranked because they got better.

Growing students IS performance. That's the point. Again. This isn't a competition to rank schools for a playoff competition. It is a criteria to get an idea of how schools are performing. If you are growing students toward proficiency, you are performing well. If you are keeping students at proficiency, you are performing well. If you are doing both, you are performing even better.

A school cant even get half their student body to be efficent in math or english isnt a B high school.

It is when they started so far behind. It's damn near working a miracle. It gives an idea of what kind of job the school is doing with the students they have.

It isn't ranking for competition, and it isn't a test to see how many you can get right. It's a measure of how the school is performing its primary function. Getting students as high as possible for those students.

 

[Villagedawg]

I believe the scoring flaw exists within the credit a school gets for improving a student. Improvement is key but lets look at Oxford and Starkville math scores specifically.

Oxford: A School
Math scores 73

Starkville B School
Math 45

Oxford is way better here, but Starkville is getting credit because they moved a **** ton of kids from Level 2 to Level 3. Those improvements don't show up in the raw scores here, but when determining whether a school is A, B. C, etc. they get 150% credit for those kids that they moved up a level. Oxford doesn't have as many opportunities to move kids up from Level 2 to 3 because they have significantly more Level 4 and 5 kids.

Improvement is key and it should be rewarded, but Starkville is scoring like a low C school but getting credit for improvement so they get labeled a B school.

Yall are looking at it as if it's a sport or competition on who gets the most points. That totally misses the point. Growing students IS the point. Not how many affluent families with parent support you can get to come to your school. If you really look at, growth it is the ONLY point for all of us in school no matter how high we eventually went. I couldn't read before first grade, then I could. I couldn't read complex texts, then I could. That is what growth is and it is the ENTIRE point of school. Hopefully you can grow them all to proficient, but we all know that isn't happening. But we can try.

 

[Willow Grove Dawg]

Hillary, bill, or helen?

Helen - would hit it!
Bill - probably has hit it!
Hillary - ain't nobody ever hit it!

 

[615dawg]

Yall are looking at it as if it's a sport or competition on who gets the most points. That totally misses the point. Growing students IS the point. Not how many affluent families with parent support you can get to come to your school. If you really look at, growth it is the ONLY point for all of us in school no matter how high we eventually went. I couldn't read before first grade, then I could. I couldn't read complex texts, then I could. That is what growth is and it is the ENTIRE point of school. Hopefully you can grow them all to proficient, but we all know that isn't happening. But we can try.

Growth is not the only point. I'd argue that it should be way down the list of important things.

Look at the five level system.

Level 1 is terrible
Level 2 is poor
Level 3 is "profiicient"
Level 4 is advanced
Level 5 is exemplary.

I want a school where 80%+ of the students are Level 4 and Level 5. I don't care that the school moved 50 failing students to proficient. That's what our scoring system rewards after the A schools. Its insane. Going from poor to proficient gives you a few more graduates that can barely read.

 

[HuntDawg]

Growing students IS performance. That's the point. Again. This isn't a competition to rank schools for a playoff competition. It is a criteria to get an idea of how schools are performing. If you are growing students toward proficiency, you are performing well. If you are keeping students at proficiency, you are performing well. If you are doing both, you are performing even better.

It is when they started so far behind. It's damn near working a miracle. It gives an idea of what kind of job the school is doing with the students they have.

It isn't ranking for competition, and it isn't a test to see how many you can get right. It's a measure of how the school is performing its primary function. Getting students as high as possible for those students.

I get what your saying... I just dont agree with it.

Right now we are rewarding schools for running better than they previously have... and its hard to see if they are really performing better because we continue to change the way we score the schools. Not only that many schools are teaching to that bottom 25% because they know thats whats going to make their scores increase...thus the top half of the school is suffering.

I'm all about patting them on the back for getting the train back on the track. But i'm not going to change the scoreboard to make it seem better than it is.

 

[Willow Grove Dawg]

Honestly.. and no one really wants to hear this.. the state has continued to make the target easier for students/teachers/schools to hit.

The education really hasnt gotten any better, nor have the schools. They've made a system where everything scores higher to make things seem better than they are. Smartly so, they've realized that bad scores give us a black eye, so they've made it easier to attain better scores.

Even the ACT now has a super score, where you take the highest you've scored in each section, add it up, and make that your ACT score.

More kids make 30 plus on the ACT every year at Madison Central High School than made 30 plus statewide any year in the early 80's. You won't make me believe the kids are that much more intelligent or Mississippi's public education system is that much better. They have either dumbed down the test or it is scored differently. Now GET OFF MY 17'ing lawn!

 

[DoggieDaddy13]

here is a prime example of how numbers are decieving:

Oxford: A School
Math scores 73
English 68
History 85
Science 70
College Ready 67
Accelerated 81
Grad 90

Starkville B School
Math 45
English 45
History 64
Science 52
College Ready 50
Accelarated 49
Grad Rate 86

Now how can anyone look at this and think a B school is that far behind an A school? But with the state's score system... thats what you get... better yet when your the average effieceny for your school is right at 50% how do you get away with graduating 86% of the school?

to go a step farther: There are schools with scores in the 30s, in all the categories above (minus grad rate) that have earned C scores. Since when does getting 30% of your school to be efficent in the major 4 subjects warrant a C score

We have basically.. imputted a las vegas type spread into our school grading system that we are now going by instead of going by the scoreboard.... and then patting people on the back for covering the spread instead of winning the game. Instead of us being 1-5 this year, we'd be 4-2... and thats how the state is recongizing these things.

I'm afraid you know too much about our state Department of Ed is operating now...

Shhhhh!

 

[eckie1]

Hillary, bill, or helen?

Socks.****

 

[eckie1]

Honestly.. and no one really wants to hear this.. the state has continued to make the target easier for students/teachers/schools to hit.

The education really hasnt gotten any better, nor have the schools. They've made a system where everything scores higher to make things seem better than they are. Smartly so, they've realized that bad scores give us a black eye, so they've made it easier to attain better scores.

Even the ACT now has a super score, where you take the highest you've scored in each section, add it up, and make that your ACT score.

 

[paindonthurt17]

My wife is a long-time teacher in MS. I wasn't even aware that there was a union. She's not in one.

My source could have been wrong but it stated 42.5% union or some type of group (whatever that meant).

 

[HuntDawg]

My source could have been wrong but it stated 42.5% union or some type of group (whatever that meant).

there isnt a teachers union in mississippi. not one at all. nothing that even resembles one.

 

[paindonthurt17]

there isnt a teachers union in mississippi. not one at all. nothing that even resembles one.

You should be telling Kentucky Dawg this. I responded to his post that stated improvement was bc of teacher and union buy in.

 

[tired]

Carey Wright

 

[615dawg]

there isnt a teachers union in mississippi. not one at all. nothing that even resembles one.

There are actually two. Neither have a lot of pull and both fight a lot of the stuff that has made a difference.

https://www.maetoday.org/ - primarily JPS and Delta teachers and is your typical union

https://www.mpe.org/ - others who want the benefit of a union, but they oppose strikes and work stoppages of all kinds.

 

[HuntDawg]

There are actually two. Neither have a lot of pull.

https://www.maetoday.org/ - primarily JPS and Delta teachers and is your typical union

https://www.mpe.org/ - others who want the benefit of a union, but they oppose strikes and work stoppages of all kinds.

oh i meant state wide. many other states have state wide teachers unions, where 98% or better of all the teachers are part of. And use that to get pay raises and rights.

 

[615dawg]

oh i meant state wide. many other states have state wide teachers unions, where 98% or better of all the teachers are part of. And use that to get pay raises and rights.

I get it. And technically any teacher in the state can be a member, but its just not pushed like our neighbors to the East. AEA (Alabama Education Association) takes dues out of paychecks. Spring Break is called AEA Holiday in Alabama because they pushed for it back in the day.

 

[Duke Humphrey]

I honestly have no idea. I suspect that at a minimum, Tate signed something somewhere along the way that helped something in education. However, the Governor/President are not dissimilar to QBs: too much credit, too much blame; limited real contribution/impact.

He was Lt. Governor and was the one who pushed for most of the reforms in 2012-14, using Jeb Bush's policies in Florida as a model.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

He was Lt. Governor and was the one who pushed for most of the reforms in 2012-14, using Jeb Bush's policies in Florida as a model.

So Jeb gets full credit.***

 

[Duke Humphrey]

So Jeb gets full credit.***

No need to re-invent the wheel every time.

 

[L4Dawg]

What it boils down to is that the "top" schools want to be the ONLY "top" schools. They can't stand it that a poor disadvantaged school may have the same grade as THEM. They are supposed to be the elite. If you don't believe them, just ask them. Even though the model through what yall are calling "improvement" is easier for them to achieve than it is for the school with loads of students who are behind. They only have to grow their proficient students the equivalent of one school year where schools with students who are behind have to grow the students more than one year to get the same growth point. They even added acceleration to the model because those schools wanted points for simply having higher achievers attend there. Still not good enough. They have to be "seen" as elite. That's why the adjusted the cut scores a year after announcing them as soon as one of the elites didn't make an A. Not only that, the legislature has written it into the law that the cuts will be adjusted once a certain number of schools become rated A or B. That is in their effort to make those "elites" continue to look like they are elite. You can rest assured that if any of those schools don't meet the new cuts, they will readjust the cuts to make those schools As.

Whatever. What we are doing is working in a lot more places than what we were doing did. To me that's a good thing.

 

[L4Dawg]

Growing students IS performance. That's the point. Again. This isn't a competition to rank schools for a playoff competition. It is a criteria to get an idea of how schools are performing. If you are growing students toward proficiency, you are performing well. If you are keeping students at proficiency, you are performing well. If you are doing both, you are performing even better.

It is when they started so far behind. It's damn near working a miracle. It gives an idea of what kind of job the school is doing with the students they have.

It isn't ranking for competition, and it isn't a test to see how many you can get right. It's a measure of how the school is performing its primary function. Getting students as high as possible for those students.

THIS

 

[Beretta.sixpack]

What is starting teacher pay in MS now?

I considered going the non-traditional route to getting a teaching cert. after I graduated but starting pay was $17k. Even back then, that was crap.

it was brought to the national average

 

[L4Dawg]

There was a privately funded reading initiative that made a big difference, among other things.

 

[Villagedawg]

Growth is not the only point. I'd argue that it should be way down the list of important things.

Look at the five level system.

Level 1 is terrible
Level 2 is poor
Level 3 is "profiicient"
Level 4 is advanced
Level 5 is exemplary.

I want a school where 80%+ of the students are Level 4 and Level 5. I don't care that the school moved 50 failing students to proficient. That's what our scoring system rewards after the A schools. Its insane. Going from poor to proficient gives you a few more graduates that can barely read.

Your model is not correct. 3 is pass. 4 is proficient. 5 is advanced. Proficient is just that proficient. I would bet about half this board would struggle to reach 4. Schools only get proficiency points for 4 and 5. And that is not able to “barely read.”

 

[Villagedawg]

there isnt a teachers union in mississippi. not one at all. nothing that even resembles one.

This.

 

[Villagedawg]

There are actually two. Neither have a lot of pull and both fight a lot of the stuff that has made a difference.

https://www.maetoday.org/ - primarily JPS and Delta teachers and is your typical union

https://www.mpe.org/ - others who want the benefit of a union, but they oppose strikes and work stoppages of all kinds.

MPE is not a union at all. It’s a professional organization that does not take a political stance. Teachers as well as management are members. Don’t know anything about the other one.

 

[Villagedawg]

Whatever. What we are doing is working in a lot more places than what we were doing did. To me that's a good thing.

I think we agree. The above was my explanation of why they don’t like the model.

 

[615dawg]

I think this rating system has a negative impact on the good schools as well. My kids have been in Madison Schools (Madison Central). A schools, 80 percent Level 4 and 5 - that's all good, but they sell themselves short. If the leadership would get serious, Madison schools could be absolutely world class. For some reason they don't want to go from Good to Great. They are happy being one of the top schools in Mississippi and they could be one of the top in the nation.

All the ingredients are there. Great facilities. Great teachers. Great parents. Students who care. They are selling themselves short. I see it in a lot of decisions. For example, they offer 10 or 11 AP courses depending on the year, one of the top in Mississippi. Average schools in Alabama and Tennessee offer 15+. There are only four classes (College Algebra, Art Appreciation, English Comp I and II) for dual enrollment. Top schools in Dallas metro offer 64 hours of dual enrollment.

 

[HuntDawg]

Again when you are rewarding schools for teaching to 25% of the school it’s not a good thing.

but schools are forced to do this to attempt to attain a score on a scoreboard…… and please don’t be naive enough to think schools aren’t giving that bottom 25 percent all the extra attention at the expense of the other 75 percent of the school

 

[PooPopsBaldHead]

Your model is not correct. 3 is pass. 4 is proficient. 5 is advanced. Proficient is just that proficient. I would bet about half this board would struggle to reach 4. Schools only get proficiency points for 4 and 5. And that is not able to “barely read.”

Well that's not fair... Half this board would drag MIT down to a level 1 elementary school. 70% of SPSers have CPAPs. 20% are for sleep apnea and the other 50% are too dumb to breathe on their own.

 

[ChE1997]

What fixes education? Schools with families of educated people with good incomes. Education is tied to socioeconomic drivers. It really is that simple. There are few exceptions too. Doesn't mean there aren't intelligent kids in bad schools, just the overall school isn't strong without a positive socioeconomic driver. They can keep throwing standardized tests and manipulating models but that's what makes good schools.

Early childhood education helps A LOT, too.

Getting kids learning at as young as 18 months, and keeping them in pre school improves learning scores for kids.

The "educated parents, with good income" know this. It's why the suburbs have "Mothers day out" and JA has a k3 program.

It also pays for itself in increased tax revenue ( as it allows more workers in the labor force) and in increased incomes from the kids long term.

Early Childhood Spending Benefits Don't Fade Away, NC Study Finds | Duke Today

today.duke.edu

 

[ChE1997]

I think this rating system has a negative impact on the good schools as well. My kids have been in Madison Schools (Madison Central). A schools, 80 percent Level 4 and 5 - that's all good, but they sell themselves short. If the leadership would get serious, Madison schools could be absolutely world class. For some reason they don't want to go from Good to Great. They are happy being one of the top schools in Mississippi and they could be one of the top in the nation.

All the ingredients are there. Great facilities. Great teachers. Great parents. Students who care. They are selling themselves short. I see it in a lot of decisions. For example, they offer 10 or 11 AP courses depending on the year, one of the top in Mississippi. Average schools in Alabama and Tennessee offer 15+. There are only four classes (College Algebra, Art Appreciation, English Comp I and II) for dual enrollment. Top schools in Dallas metro offer 64 hours of dual enrollment.

You think having a "bad" school improving to the level of Madison Central might motivate Madison Central leadership to do things to make it better?

Or do you want to keep bitching about how the poors are making your "good" school look worse by getting better?

 

[mstateglfr]

So adequate funding in 2008 and 2009 is paying off in 2023 and 2024! Nice!

Also less than 45% of the teachers in mississippi are union. Im willing to bet most of the non union teachers are in school districts performing better.

Don’t try to associate school success measurements with union membership.
Those are way too complex to actually analyze properly and if you do try, then just as many examples will be easily provided to counter.

 

[mstateglfr]

Even the ACT now has a super score, where you take the highest you've scored in each section, add it up, and make that your ACT score.

Hey ACT super score is not really a great example to support your point.
An ACT super score shows that the individual was able to score those numbers on each section of the test. So they know that material and have shown that level of proficiency.

 

[HuntDawg]

Hey ACT super score is not really a great example to support your point.
An ACT super score shows that the individual was able to score those numbers on each section of the test. So they know that material and have shown that level of proficiency.

No its not. Its a great example to support my point.

That we are making it easier for students to get scores needed for things to look good. Back in the day, youd take the test once and that was your score. Now some people take it 8-10 times. Sometimes sleeping thru parts of the test, as to only focus all their energy on one part of the test... then combine the high scores to get a super score.

In terms of proficiency. The fact there are schools that are below 50 percent profiencet in 4 core subjects and scoring B's on the accountability scores.. and scoring into the 30s and scoring Cs... is the issue.

You are also making the assumption that the people taking the tests are still scoring high enough on these sections to be proficient. Plenty of people take the ACT many times in attempts to make a 16 or 18 and never achieve such.

 

[WilCoDawg]

Helen - would hit it!
Bill - probably has hit it!
Hillary - would put a hit out on it!

FIFY

 

[mstateglfr]

No its not. Its a great example to support my point.

That we are making it easier for students to get scores needed for things to look good. Back in the day, youd take the test once and that was your score. Now some people take it 8-10 times. Sometimes sleeping thru parts of the test, as to only focus all their energy on one part of the test... then combine the high scores to get a super score.

In terms of proficiency. The fact there are schools that are below 50 percent profiencet in 4 core subjects and scoring B's on the accountability scores.. and scoring into the 30s and scoring Cs... is the issue.

You are also making the assumption that the people taking the tests are still scoring high enough on these sections to be proficient. Plenty of people take the ACT many times in attempts to make a 16 or 18 and never achieve such.

Back in the day?
I took the ACT over a quarter century ago and it was common to take it multiple times even back then. I actually fought my parents hard to NOT take it again because I scored high enough. It was commonplace to take it multiple times- Spring Jr year, Fall Sr year, and even Winter Sr year if needed.

Also, schools can choose whether or not to accept a superscore. If a university thinks it is helpful to accept superscores when considering applicants, then they can accept em. If a university thinks superscores are BS, then they can stick to only accepting the full test score.
Point being, schools account for this and it really isnt a big deal or evidence of the watering down of education standards.

If you score a 30 on a section, take it again and get a 33, and they take it once more and get a 31...you really dont think the person has demonstrated that they know enough to earn a 33? I mean, they did it so its sorta tough to claim they didnt.

Almost nobody takes the test 8-10 times because the average for those who take the ACT is about 1.5 tests per person(projection based on changes between 2009 and 2015). But go ahead and use the extreme rare example to support your argument.

Lastly, I am not assuming people are scoring high enough on the sections to be proficient. If my comments eluded to that, my bad I guess, but it definitely wasnt something I was basing my comments on.

 

[VegasDawg13]

A coach can take a bad team and turn it from 2-8 to 5-5... but that school that is 9-1, is still the better team. Our school ratings will tell us that 5-5 team is just as good if not better than that 9-1 team.. and as you said, that simply isnt the case.

It's also possible the 9-1 team just has better players and that the coaches at the 5-5 school are, in fact, doing a better job than the coaches at the 9-1 school. We can't really control the quality of players in this case, at least not in the short or medium term

 

[VegasDawg13]

Growth is not the only point. I'd argue that it should be way down the list of important things.

Look at the five level system.

Level 1 is terrible
Level 2 is poor
Level 3 is "profiicient"
Level 4 is advanced
Level 5 is exemplary.

I want a school where 80%+ of the students are Level 4 and Level 5. I don't care that the school moved 50 failing students to proficient. That's what our scoring system rewards after the A schools. Its insane. Going from poor to proficient gives you a few more graduates that can barely read.

How in God's name is growing students "way down the list of important things" a school should be doing?