Not true that urban schools fail all students: Intown white high school students outperform suburban counterparts.
Jarod Apperson, a Midtown reader, sent me an interesting analysis of Georgia SAT scores, similar to one that I ran a few years ago, showing that white students in metro schools outperform suburban counterparts. Except he went a bit deeper.
Here is why he compiled the data and what he hopes we learn from it:
Since my analysis has some newer data and focuses on specific schools, people might still be interested in it. I think the fact that North Atlanta is the No. 3 public school in the state for white high school students could be a strong talking point for APS school chief Erroll B. Davis trying to get more middle-class families to stay in the public education system.
It’s a narrative that’s not heard enough.
To answer your question about how I came to look at this, I became interested in education reform a few years ago when I read a book by Paul Tough called “Whatever it Takes.” I’ve always felt that excellent public education was the best way to create economic mobility between classes.
Unfortunately, what we’ve seen for years is that schools are as good (or bad) as their inputs. In recent years, a couple of schools have shown capacity to completely alter outcomes and that gets me excited.
And here is his explanation of his chart:
The story of Metro Atlanta’s school quality has followed a consistent beat for the past 40 years. You have no doubt heard that inner-city schools are failing while schools outside the Northern Perimeter (particularly North Fulton, Cobb, and Gwinnett) are excelling. I suspect you will be interested, as I was, to find that data made available by the Governor`s Office does not support this commonly held belief.
Nationwide, there is a significant achievement gap between white/Asian students and their black/Hispanic counterparts. As such, school “quality” measures, without consideration of demographics, can become merely a function of inputs rather than a true measure of a schools’ impact on its students.
One of the less discussed components of President Bush´s controversial No Child Left Behind Act is the requirement that states break out student performance at a demographic level. As a result of the act, a wealth of detailed performance data, including demographics, has become available in recent years.
An analysis of SAT performance for Metro Atlanta´s white, public high school students yields some expected and unexpected results. As you might expect, 16 of the 25 top-performing public high schools are located in North Fulton, Cobb, or Gwinnett.
However, the very top of the list is dominated by schools inside the perimeter. Six of the 7 top performing high schools in Metro Atlanta are located inside the perimeter, with Chamblee Charter, North Atlanta, and Decatur leading the way.
What this table tells us is that Metro Atlanta´s schools are producing outcomes similar to their inputs. Intown schools have not found a way to dramatically improve outcomes for their disadvantaged students, but their wealthier, white students are doing just fine.
In fact, those white students are outperforming their suburban counterparts.
If you and your family have been considering an in-town move, but fears over school performance have held you back, it´s time to take a second look.
–From Maureen Downey for the AJC Get Schooled blog
NOTE: The data used in this analysis comprises Math and Verbal Scores for the SAT in the years 2009 through 2011. This data was retrieved from the Governor´s Office of Student Achievement on June 2, 2012. Data also including writing scores was not available at a demographically distinct level.
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136 comments Add your comment
bootney farnsworth
June 3rd, 2012
7:55 pm
I did a quick google on POSITIVE impact of parental involvement in education
only 3,260,000 hits
parental involvement has no impact my ass
northatlantateacher
June 3rd, 2012
7:57 pm
@another comment: ???? Where do you get your information that “Georgia schools are doing poorly?” Do you really believe that? Did you read the post?
bootney farnsworth
June 3rd, 2012
8:00 pm
the single best thing for a child’s educational prospects?
Mom & Dad, together, at home.
the single worst thing for a child’s educational prospects?
raised in a low income black single mother household.
sorry, but there it is.
Anonmom
June 3rd, 2012
8:00 pm
Honsetly, some of the great SAT score is innate ability — I knew my middle guy was going to score well in 7th grade when he was still in public school– he’s got a high IQ and he’s a gifted test taker. I’m not sure that his SAT score — which is very high — would be any better (when I’m honest about it) if he were in public school vs. our fancy private school — it’s the rest of his education which is much better. The fact that he’s in the National Merit seimfinalist group (probably as commended since we don’t have the cut scores yet) is probably different being private because they handle PSAT testing differently. I also expect that this coming year we will see more private kids hit the cut score mark on the PSAT for National Merit because this group of kids is going through on the “new math” (before it was changed under Dr. Barge) and the private schools really didn’t ever adjust their math curriculum such that the private school kids have had more “consistent” math from the “get go” and the public school kids have had more “tinkering” with math. This is a benefit to private school (this is a double-edged sword — you can be in a bad private school and get bad curriculum — e.g. “earth is flat religious stuf…..” — I”m just saying).
bootney farnsworth
June 3rd, 2012
8:02 pm
@ northatlanta,
do you not read the papers? we annually come in around 47th out the the 50 (or 57 if you
go by Obama’s count) states.
Clayton, APS, DCSS have all had major SACS issues.
Anonmom
June 3rd, 2012
8:02 pm
I’m thinking my boarding school idea for kids deserted by parents may have some merit…… ?
bootney farnsworth
June 3rd, 2012
8:05 pm
do you want your kids to be successful in school?
A-don’t have kids until married
B-stay married, in the same house
C-turn off the TV
D-be involved, especially the father.
E-stay involved
again, this ain’t rocket science
bootney farnsworth
June 3rd, 2012
8:07 pm
@ anonmon,
flesh it out a bit more.
meantime, what about sterilizing people who abandon their children?
northatlantateacher
June 3rd, 2012
8:15 pm
@bootney: If I hear one more person refer to that completely stupid ranking system, I might scream. It uses SAT scores. Just about every student in GA takes it, whereas in other states (interestingly, the highest ranked ones!) only a small percentage (tends to be top students applying to universities that look for the SAT vs ACT) take it while others take the ACT.
There is currently no valid way to rank states, but that’s all about to change when Common Core gets down to business.
I don’t know why this is, and I don’t really care how it came to be. I only wish people would stop referring to it as some holy gospel of truth. I absolutely agree we have room for improvement in our state, but I’d venture to guess this is true of every state in our fine country. We all have problems and not enough solutions.
Dunwoody Parent
June 3rd, 2012
8:22 pm
I don’t see Dunwoody High School in the top 25? What were their scores?
Jarod Apperson
June 3rd, 2012
8:52 pm
@Dunwoody Parent. Dunwoody High School wasn´t far behind. Their three-year average was 1106.
Attentive Parent
June 3rd, 2012
9:03 pm
I north atlanta teacher you know good and well in the formative assessment world of Common Core, there’s no way to rank states.
Heck I asked Martha Reichrath how you could even measure individual student’s growth and achievement if the assessments were group projects and engaging in the assigned activity.
She said with that annoyed look of hers that “we did say they were PERFORMANCE assessments.”
Cut the talking points garbage. The reason I initially knew common core was a scam was the inability to rank given the subjective based on a rubric assessments.
catlady
June 3rd, 2012
9:11 pm
I think the reason many poor kids don’t see the “connection” between education and earnings is because they know so few people around them who have a college education ( or, sadly, even a high school diploma). They don’t see people “like them” getting ahead due to education. They might get ahead by selling drugs, or being in a gang, but there is a huge lack of “neighborhood people” who have stayed in school and succeeded. Frequently, because of the youthfulness of their “parents”, the parents also haven’t made that connection. When all your family has a baby by the time they are 15, you may not think of any kind of a life but that one.
I still recommend bloggers read, “Promises I can Keep.” It is an ethnographical study of white, black, and Latino women, and why they put motherhood before marriage. In the book, one of the authors notes that she had a baby during the study, while she was in her 30s. The women she was studying immediately assumed that she had “proven the doctor wrong” and FINALLY gotten pregnant. It did not occur to them that she had postponed motherhood ON PURPOSE.
Jerry Eads
June 3rd, 2012
9:12 pm
Just a caution: Remember that SAT-taking is a voluntary “sport.” While I am absolutely certain there are superbly-run schools, fantastic teachers, and strong hard-working students both inside as well as outside the beltway, using the SAT – one of the best-made tests in the world – as the sole benchmark for school performance can be every bit as misleading as using the pass rates on the – low bid – state minimum competency tests, even though the reasons are quite different. In order to compare schools on SAT achievement, one would have to know that roughly the same percentage of students took the test (if only 10% of the students in an innter city school took the test and 50% took the test at the “outer city” school, the average SAT darn well BETTER be higher for the innter city school), and that some effort was made to measure socioeconomic level of the students (a reasonable predictor of how much “value” a school must add to get equivalent output). Without those data, SAT comparisons aren’t very helpful.
Several folks mentioned motivation. I proctor the SAT for a classroom full of kids every now and then. Given I’ve had some 25 years experience in various aspects of measurement, testing and assessment at local, state and national levels, it’s an interesting experience. The most enlightening aspect, though, is that there’s a FULL range of motivation every time – from those who are shooting for a 2400 to those who half-heartedly bubble in some answers for a few minutes and then sleep. THAT reminds me of the folly of using student testing to evaluate schools.
catlady
June 3rd, 2012
9:22 pm
Thank you, Jerry, for your voice of sanity!
Ant
June 3rd, 2012
9:43 pm
Reading the comments brought back memories of my own education in NYC. They realized long ago that all kids are not destined for college and created vocational high schools that teach everything from aviation maintenance,merchant marine skills,Home renovation,etc. These schools require testing to enter and cater to students all over the city like magnet programs.Oh btw,these aren’t high schools teaching these courses as electives..These are high schools with a subject matter focus on the specific careers.Maybe it’s time we provide other avenues here in Atlanta for kids who won’t make it for whatever reason.
another comment
June 3rd, 2012
10:02 pm
The biggest advantage that the White and Asian kids experiance in the Close-in or in-town Schools which are Minority Majority, the kids that are true University Material get to take smaller size AP and Honor Class sizes. The schools basically seperate out into different schools.
The thing that is the real killer is when you are a 5A school, because you have 2,200 students, but you have 40% hispanic and 39% of the Hispanic population do not participate in any sports. So you really should be like a Division III school for supports. You also have virtually no booster clubs. B ecause Less than 15% can not support a school forever.
Ed Johnson
June 3rd, 2012
10:16 pm
@TBTG, no fan of Sowell, here, but this resonates for its applicability to so-called “urban” school systems:
“seldom…has this attention been directed…toward how the less economically successful…might improve themselves by availing themselves of the culture of others around them.”
–Thomas Sowell
A plausible interpretation for APS: Seldom has attention been directed toward how APS might improve itself by availing itself of non-urban, non-predominately “Black” school systems.
Atlanta Mom
June 3rd, 2012
10:16 pm
Anonmom,
You stated that your child has high SAT scores and probably would have in a public school as well. I appreciate that acknowledgement.
Hmmmmm.....
June 3rd, 2012
10:20 pm
Ant……love the concept! Would seem those trades would be infinitely more useful and lucrative than a typical BA degree in History, Psychology, or English at any given Liberal Arts U
Atlanta Mom
June 3rd, 2012
10:25 pm
I’d like some help please. Over the years I’ve spent a good amount of time at the Ga. Doe site, but I don’t recall SAT scores broken out by race. And as I try to find that information, I am unsuccessful. Will some one give me one link that shows one school’s SAT information by race? Thanks.
Hillbilly D
June 3rd, 2012
10:47 pm
One thing I’ve always wondered about SAT scores is how do you compare somebody who takes it once, against somebody who takes it several times? Just for argument’s sake, assuming both students are relatively equal, the one who takes it several times, should have the better score just by having more than one to pick from.
Ant’
That’s a good approach that I think should be tried. They could start on a small scale and see how it works. I know that all those years ago when I was in high school (in GA), everybody was encouraged to take the SAT. All through school, it was assumed everyone should go to college. Remember, colleges and universities are big business. There’s some turf protecting there, in my opinion.
Ron F.
June 3rd, 2012
10:58 pm
bootney: not to nitpick, but I am a full-time single dad raising two boys completely by myself. Long story, but they’re my nephews and I’ve had them since they were early toddlers. They’re both honors level students and have all the educational aspirations anyone could hope for a kid to have. They’ve been raised in a home focused on them, to the exclusion of all else, and it shows. They’re happy, well-adjusted kids who are fully aware of what they came from and what they have. Now, while I agree that it’s better for kids to have two stable, devoted parents, I happen to know for a fact that parental devotion, even if it’s from one parent, can produce incredibly successful people. I get a little irked by the assumption many have here that single parents are inherently bad for kids. I teach a lot of kids from single-mother, single-father, extended relative guardian households who are actually growing up to be pretty darn good people. It’s not the number or gender of parents that determines success, it’s the commitment of whatever parenting figure along with involvement in the child’s life both in and out of school that ultimately determines success.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
June 4th, 2012
3:00 am
KUDOS to the students at these and all other GA high schools whose Reading and Math skills propelled them to high scores on the SAT.
Lee
June 4th, 2012
6:24 am
Another “Well, doh” topic.
It is really a numbers game in play here. Mom and Dad of a rural area have a child who has an above average IQ. That child grows up and goes off to attend the University, where he/she meets other above average IQ people and eventually marries one. The newlyweds do not go back to Rural, GA to raise a family but instead settle where the jobs are that they can use their education. They have a child who most likely also has an above average IQ. That child grows up to take the SAT and the metro area schools pat themselves on the back for doing such a good job.
These urban white students are concentrated in a few areas exclusive to above average IQ parents who have the financial means to live there whereas the outlying schools have a greater cross section of the IQ normal distribution.
Be interesting to post the black SAT scores from these same schools. Any takers on what would be the outcome?
mountain man
June 4th, 2012
7:05 am
Maureen, you tread on dangerous ground here. The racists could take your data and say that it proves that blacks are racially inferior to whites in the intelligence area.
What it really proves is what I have been saying all along – schools don’t affect the outcomes – students and parents do.
And finally, using SAT scores doesn’t give a good picture of a school because all students are not required to take the SAT.
Dunwoody Mom
June 4th, 2012
8:01 am
@Atlanta Mom. Go tot he following link:
http://archives.gadoe.org/ReportingFW.aspx?PageReq=211&PID=61&PTID=67&CTID=217&SchoolId=ALL&T=0&FY=2011&key=D
Choose a school.
Click on “Report Card” on the left-hand side of the screen.
Click on the “National Tests” Tab
Click on the “SAT Recent” Tab – this gives the scores of first-time test takers.
You will see the scores broken down by subgroup.
Anonmom
June 4th, 2012
10:57 am
The National Merit competition actually has some “side” competition for black and hispanic kids … there is a way to search for the cut scores going back 3-5 years and you can see the range — the national merit cut scores (all races) are significantly higher than the black/hispanic cut scores. Just fyi — the GA cut score for National Merit last year was a 218 which was much higher than “normal” — in prior years it has hovered around a 214 — NY, NJ and Mass are north of a 222 in most years and some states dip as low as a 208 (for what this means, add a 0 to the score for the 3 part SAT score). The minority scores are south of 200.
Atlanta Mom
June 4th, 2012
12:55 pm
Thanks Dunwoody Mom,
I had looked under “highest scores” and that information is not available, but sure enough, it was under “recent”.
Tom Bop
June 4th, 2012
1:34 pm
The racial aspects of these stories/studies really bothers me. There is no difference caused by race in the academic performance- kids who come from a culture that stresses academic performance who receive the structure and support they need do well, whether white, black, yellow, or green! Beyond that, some kids care and will do well no matter what, others don’t, and won’t work no matter how much they get. It doesn’t cost a cent, or require a government program for parents to start asking their kids everyday about school & make sure they are doing what they need to do to get where they want to go in life. All this race classification does is fuel the “race industry” and hold the kids back with low expectations.
William Casey
June 4th, 2012
2:46 pm
PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT is the obvious lynchpin of a child’s academic success. My son’s Mom was a superior Language Arts teacher at St. Pius for a decade. I was a superior history teacher in Fulton for two decades. We both have Master’s degrees. Most importantly, our TOP PRIORITY was our son’s development. He grew up competing with US in a myriad of activities….. board games, intricate puzzles, Trivial Pursuit, card games. Does anyone believe that there is anything a school can do to “level the playing field” for kids who don’t have that advantage? Race and even income pale in comparison as factors.
However, there’s more to it than that. Education’s “dirty-little-secret is that WHO your classmates are is of vital importance. As my son approached high school, it became obvious that his academic strength and interest was mathematics (go figure.) I also learned that the then newly opening Northview HS was going to have a large Asian population. I immediately transferred there for the express purpose of taking him with me and getting him in all those AP classes with Asian kids. It worked. He will graduate university in 2013 with dual degrees in math and philosophy. He has worked for the university as a math tutor since the beginning of his soph year. That’s how schools work.
Lee
June 4th, 2012
7:19 pm
So, @Wm Casey posts the following: “I also learned that the then newly opening Northview HS was going to have a large Asian population. I immediately transferred there for the express purpose of taking him with me and getting him in all those AP classes with Asian kids.”
Not one peep in nearly five hours decrying the racial aspect of it. But let someone post that blacks have a lower IQ than the other races and the politically correct pathogens fall over themselves calling you a racist.
Fifty years of politically correct indoctrination has done it’s job.
Interesting….
bootney farnsworth
June 4th, 2012
9:41 pm
@ Ron
I have no doubt you’re a good parent. and I know of several instances where single parents have done great work under bad circumstances.
there are exceptions to every rule.
but on the whole I stand by my comments.
Anonmom
June 4th, 2012
10:00 pm
Just fyi — My 2 older sons have gone through college testing — my oldest is going to be a college junior — my middle guy a high school senior and appears to have made the first cut for National Merit, at least for commended status. We have a younger son as well. 3 boys. Same parents. Same house — different educational expeiences because it turns out the oldest was our guinea pig. Different IQs but all 3 tested into the DCSS Gifted program — oldest in 3rd grade, middle in kindergarten and youngest in 1st grade. The middle one is highly” gifted — the others just smart. The oldest could not break a 600 on any part of the SAT — the PSAT — the SAT2s if his life depended on it. He had tutors. He took the blasted tests a number of times. He just wasn’t good at them (in his defense, neither are his parents). He finally cracked a 27 on the ACT. He’s lucky because his parents know how to get tutors and can figure out that if the SAT isn’t working — dump it and shift to the ACT — schools don’t need SAT scores. His brother was shooting for a 2400 and almost got it — he’s a very gifted test taker. He’s also very smart. I think I’ll have the youngest skip the SAT altogether and go straight to the ACT…. I’m not sure how much the “home environment” has to do with this…. it helps but it isn’t everything. My youngest has a good friend who scored an 800 on math in 7th grade — he’s very smart, Asian, and a good test taker. Some kids just get it.
School quality and "inputs"
June 5th, 2012
12:34 am
This is the pretty close to being the same Get Schooled blog post published 1.5 years ago, but it’s more misleading.
The first one, at least, had this very important caveat by the reader who compiled the statistics:
“Now, this data certainly do not prove that APS, Decatur and DeKalb are doing a ‘better job’ or providing a ‘better education’ to their white students than every other district in the state — far from it. What is equally or more likely is that other critical demographic factors at play (especially parent education and income levels) are more favorable for white students in those districts than in most others.”
This time around, though, caution is thrown to the wind, with Mr. Apperson writing:
“What this table tells us is that Metro Atlanta´s schools are producing outcomes similar to their inputs.”
It does not tell us this at all, for the reason that the earlier data compiler stated. Mr. Apperson wants to judge school quality by what school do with like “inputs”, but the only “input” characteristic he controls for is race, meaning that he treats all whites as alike, with no regard for the economic status or educational levels of the parents (or anything else). I understand that that data may not be available to him, but that doesn’t mean it’s less needed in order to make the claim he wishes to make.
Now, as the first data compiler pointed out, if the claim is more modest, if it’s simply a rejoinder to a claim, based *only* on average SAT scores, that intown schools are worse than suburban schools, then that’s more supportable.
Ron F.
June 5th, 2012
3:55 pm
“I know of several instances where single parents have done great work under bad circumstances.”
While I respect your opinion and wholeheartedly appreciate your demeanor in general, I think you need to get to know more kids from alternate parental settings. You’d be surprised how many “exceptions” there are out there and how well-adjusted and intelligent those kids are. It truly is about the devotion to the children, and that can come from a variety of settings and be successful. You’d probably be surprised by many of these kids and the number of them that exist.