school choice

probinson said:

Of course no one says that. But there is no evidence that if one state scores an average a few points higher or lower than another state on a standardized test that they're getting a "better" or "worse" education.

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Well first off, you parsed it down to one subject (Math). Second, if it goes across multiple subject disciplines, obviously it is more meaningful.
Third, it should NOT be surprised that states that invest LESS money into education, underperform compared to their peers.
And last, imagine if I said that to my students: "Listen Jim, even though your score on this test was higher than your peers, it doesn't mean that you learned more". YOu'll be hardpressed to find a teacher that thinks that standardized tests are a good thing but if you are going to compare performances across a wide area, there's not much else that can be used.
You are suggesting a difference of almost 10% is meaningless and I disagree with that assessment.

I replied in response to the original claim that states in the south have "awful" education rankings by showing that Florida, which is pretty darn far south, is number one in education. You replied by posting where Florida ranks in standardized test scores, for some reason. So, I posted why the standardized test score rankings really aren't that great of an indicator of how the state is performing in education when taken alone, which is certainly why US News and World Report used multiple metrics to arrive at their education ranking.

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And with the exception of Florida, they all do.

And note, rankings doesn't necessarily refer to their score or performance. Nobody is arguing that folks in Missouri are receiving a third world education. But their national ranking IS poor. If you are performing the worst in your country, you should be dealing with that reality head on and not trying to make excuses for it. At least where I live, there is an expectation that teachers are ALWAYS learning (soooooo many PDs and expectations around growth). IF you expect your employers to always reflect to improve, there's no reason why adminstrators, legislators and officials shouldn't be doing the same. But maybe southern states have a different ethos (Because PDs cost money).

probinson said:

which is certainly why US News and World Report used multiple metrics to arrive at their education ranking.

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Isn't USN&WR precisely the definition of what you derided as "These kinds of comparisons always amuse me. "My state is the BEST in X!""

dogs4thewin said:

The issue is with standardized tests that teachers end up teaching for the test nd not much else. As to growth the hard thing there is that really teachers can only be expected to so much. You cannot make a student learn you cannot make students listen in class. There is also the issue of different classes having different students ability wise. My sister for example has two goups of kids. She teaches ELA and science at a public school here in GA. She has a group of kds that have her before lunch and a different group that have her after lunch. One of those groups is made up mostly of low students. The other is made up of students that are largely at or above grade leavel (6th grade) S cannot be expected to have the same amount of growth in the kids that are already there and the kids that are low ( particularly if the kid being low is their own fault low because they do not care as opposed to low even doing their best. A teacher should NOT be judged on the students who are not putting in equal effort Now, really the best way to judge a teacher would be to compare apples to apples in as far as have two classes taught by different teachers of kids who start out at the same level and then you could say it is the teacher if one group preforms much better than the other.

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You're not saying anything I don't already know here. And to be clear, I am CERTAINLY NOT desparaging or suggesting that teachers are doing a poor job in the south. But to be clear, the struggles described are everywhere.

But that's why you have to look at system wide performance. My current working theory is that when you see higher performing jurisdictions, they perform that way because they work SO HARD at bringing the VERY LOWEST scores up. You can't INCREASE the higher scores by much but if you can take a 45% student and support him to a 70%, THAT is impactful and if that happens a lot, it would be reflected in a system. Systems that invest more money into education put money into things that make teachers work more impact: More educational assistance in the classroom, more counsellors, more targetted resources, more PD. All things that cost money are things that increase scores.

I have SEEN the impact those things have. Education is an investment and I would imagine that if you compare how much each state spends on education, there would likely be a pretty decent correlation with performance.

rambot said:

Well first off, you parsed it down to one subject (Math).

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I posted the link to the source data so that anyone who is so inclined can perform their own analysis on any subject.

rambot said:

Third, it should NOT be surprised that states that invest LESS money into education, underperform compared to their peers.
And last, imagine if I said that to my students: "Listen Jim, even though your score on this test was higher than your peers, it doesn't mean that you learned more". YOu'll be hardpressed to find a teacher that thinks that standardized tests are a good thing but if you are going to compare performances across a wide area, there's not much else that can be used.
You are suggesting a difference of almost 10% is meaningless and I disagree with that assessment.

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And that's certainly your prerogative.

IMHO, looking at a state's performance in education is not nearly as important as looking at the school where your children attend.

Averages are a funny thing. You can have a spectacular school, best in the nation, in one part of your state and one of the worst schools in another. A state average of those two schools would then place you in the middle of the rankings. I suspect all states have great schools and not-so-great schools. I suspect even the states that perform "awful" in the education rankings have some amazing schools.

rambot said:

And note, rankings doesn't necessarily refer to their score or performance. Nobody is arguing that folks in Missouri are receiving a third world education. But their national ranking IS poor.

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You know whose ranking is REALLY low? Almost dead last in every grade and every subject in every year? The District of Columbia.

rambot said:

If you are performing the worst in your country, you should be dealing with that reality head on and not trying to make excuses for it.

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That's a big "if". Again, with such a small difference in standardized test scores, there are multiple states that end up ranked lower because they were outperformed by another state by a fraction of a single point.

Just look at these numbers.



There are 4 schools that performed 8 points above the national average. One of them is ranked 5th, the other is ranked 8th. Still 4 more schools ranked a full point or two below the 5th place state. Yet one of those schools is ranked 5th while the other is ranked 12th for what is likely less than a 2 point difference in test scores.

I'm simply trying to show people how to look at the data rather than simply accepting that New Jersey is ranked lower than South Dakota because it's further down the list.

rambot said:

At least where I live, there is an expectation that teachers are ALWAYS learning (soooooo many PDs and expectations around growth).

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Everyone should always be learning, not just teachers.

essentialsaltes said:

Isn't USN&WR precisely the definition of what you derided as "These kinds of comparisons always amuse me. "My state is the BEST in X!""

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Yes. Declaring something the "best" is almost always entirely subjective. I suspect many of the people who live in the "worst" states would disagree with that sentiment.

dogs4thewin said:

The other issue is that often the districts have rules about WHAT you can give a student grade wise. When my sister taught at an elementary in the same district ( There it is pre-k through 5tth grade is elementary school 6th to 8th is middle and 9th-12th is high school. She literally was forbidden to give a student less than a 60 on an assgnment even if he or she turned nothing in. To the point that she had two grades for a lot of students the grade they earned and the Ms. P. grade because she said I am NOT giving a student that got 60% of an assignment right the same grade I am forced to give a student who turned in NOTHING. When she moved to middle school in the same district it got a little better, but they still must accept work that is turned in VERY late. This year it is a semester long grade book Aug. trough Dec January through May, Until this year it was a year-long graebook where she HAD to accept and grade work she assigned in August in May. This year students literally have from Augest till Christmas andd from January till May to turn in assignments. What i the point of due dates? Which they do " give", by the way Now you tell me how those things ( particularly the first one) are actuate measures of how students OR teachers are preforming.

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Yes. This happens.
I hate it. EVERY teacher does.

Changes like what we'd want have to come from school boards pressuring admin.