{"id":31511,"date":"2017-01-03T05:00:25","date_gmt":"2017-01-03T09:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=31511"},"modified":"2017-01-02T17:49:51","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T21:49:51","slug":"test-scores-not-predictive-school-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2017\/01\/test-scores-not-predictive-school-quality.html","title":{"rendered":"Test Scores Are Not Predictive of School Quality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019ve written about\u00a0this before<\/a>, but I apparently need to do it again. I just read a rather terrifying article<\/a>\u00a0published by Michigan\u2019s Bridge Magazine about the results of the school choice programs Betsy DeVos and others have pushed in Michigan.<\/p>\n

For more than a decade,\u00a0Holland Public Schools<\/a>\u00a0has watched its enrollment fall, prompting the closure \u2013 and demolition \u2013 of multiple schools.<\/p>\n

The decline is not the result of an aging community with fewer, school-age children. Rather, it\u2019s largely a reflection of Michigan\u2019s generous school choice policies. Choice has, consciously or not, left districts like Holland not only scrambling for students, but more racially segregated as its white students leave, often for districts that are less diverse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m beyond angered by this. I\u2019ve often seen it claimed that increased school choice has the potential to benefit poor minority children attending\u00a0failing inner city schools, but that\u2019s not how it typically plays out. Instead, increased school choice leads to\u00a0white middle class families taking their children out of majority-minority\u00a0public schools to enroll\u00a0them in majority-white schools, deepening segregation.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s where it gets personal:\u00a0My daughter attends a majority-minority public school. It has the lowest test scores in the district.\u00a0As a result, it doesn\u2019t have the greatest\u00a0reputation within the community at large. In fact, I\u2019ve had people respond in surprise when they learn that we moved into its zoned area\u00a0on purpose, knowing the quality of the school. But that\u2019s just the issue\u2014the school\u2019s quality is wonderful<\/em>. We literally could not ask for a better school. The administration is caring, the teachers are dedicated, the school culture is\u00a0amazing and supportive. This school is a gift.<\/p>\n

Back\u00a0to the article quoted above for a moment:<\/p>\n

\u2026\u00a0across the state, thousands of parents are \u2026\u00a0using choice to direct their children to less diverse traditional public or charter school districts.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u00a0Advocates say parents are simply choosing schools that are better for the needs of their children, and deny that racial animus drives the majority of school choice decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cParents are making choice not on that issue (race),\u201d said Dan Quisenberry, president of\u00a0Michigan Association of Public School Academies<\/a>, or MAPSA, the state\u2019s largest charter school advocacy group. \u201cThey\u2019re making choice based on, \u2018How does this fit? Is it going to work\u2019\u201d for their child?<\/p>\n

If all schools were equally successful, Quisenberry said, more families would likely choose a diverse school. But academic quality is the most important reason parents choose another school, he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This makes\u00a0me want to wring my hands and yell. How do you think parents assess schools\u2019 academic quality? Test scores. They look at test scores. But test scores are\u00a0an utterly bullshit way to asses school qualities. As I mentioned above, my daughter\u2019s school has the lowest test scores in the district.\u00a0But that does not mean the school\u2019s academic quality is not good<\/em>. I\u2019ll tell you what it means: It means that the school has a significant number of underprivileged minority students. That is literally it.<\/p>\n

Back to the Bridge Magazine article:<\/p>\n

Indeed, [neighboring majority white school district] Black River [has] test scores [that] are among the highest in the state. It\u2019s [sic] high school\u00a0scored well<\/a>\u00a0even when those scores are adjusted for poverty levels, which are less than half those at Holland High School. But it\u2019s also true that Holland High\u00a0performed well<\/a>, when adjusted for poverty, on Bridge Magazine\u2019s 2015 Academic State Champs.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, [neighboring majority white school district] Zeeland\u2019s two high schools,\u00a0West<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0East<\/a>, had higher overall scores than Holland but, when adjusted for poverty levels, one of the best predictors of academic success, Zeeland schools were about average.<\/p>\n

Digging deeper into the data, white students who remained in Holland schools performed higher in some grades than white students in Zeeland and Black River and at other times lower, but often comparable, according to the\u00a0recent M-STEP scores<\/a>\u00a0released by the state.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, it\u2019s not actually about academic quality<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Looking at a school\u2019s test scores will not tell you how your<\/em> child will perform, because children\u2019s academic achievement is substantially affected by things like income and level of parental education. An\u00a0upper middle class white child with two college educated parents will perform well academically in essentially any school. Test scores are reflective of a school\u2019s demographics, not its academic quality.<\/p>\n

What role does race play in white parents\u2019 decisions to flee majority-minority schools? The question, I suppose, is this\u2014do these\u00a0parents know that test scores are a reflection of school demographics rather than of school quality? Are they making their decisions based on a mistaken belief that schools\u2019 overall test scores are predictive of their individual students\u2019 academic progress? Or is there something more insidious going on here\u2014an assumption that a school with a high percentage of underprivileged minority students must of necessity\u00a0be a \u201cfailing school\u201d?<\/p>\n

We need to come to terms with the reality that increased school choice allows white parents to flee to more heavily segregated schools. If these parents\u2019 choices really are solely\u00a0about academic quality\u2014and I very much suspect that there is more than that going on here\u2014educators and reformers alike\u00a0need to inform these parents\u00a0of\u00a0the limits of test scores to tell us\u00a0much beyond a school\u2019s demographics. Consider my daughter\u2019s school\u2014if I had made my decision based on test scores, we would have avoided a vibrant, challenging school.<\/p>\n

Yes, there are a number of\u00a0high-performing majority-minority charter schools, including all-black charter programs\u00a0frequently touted as proof that school choice benefits underprivileged students. I\u2019m not suggesting that only white parents avail themselves of school choice. But let me ask you a question: Why are these schools\u00a0all-black? If these schools are successful (and by all accounts they are) and school choice is only about school quality and not about race, why aren\u2019t white parents looking at the high quality of these schools and enrolling their children in them?<\/p>\n

Consider this: If school choice were only about academic quality and not also about race or related factors, we\u00a0would expect charter schools and permissive transfers\u00a0to leave the underlying level of school segregation unchanged. And yet they do not<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve often seen it claimed that increased school choice has the potential to benefit poor minority children attending failing inner city schools, but that’s not how it typically plays out. Instead, increased school choice leads to white middle class families taking their children out of majority-minority public schools to enroll them in majority-white schools, deepening segregation.<\/p>\n

Click through to read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":31518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[618,208],"class_list":["post-31511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-charter-schools","tag-race"],"yoast_head":"\nTest Scores Are Not Predictive of School Quality<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"White parents availing themselves of school choice typically move their children from majority-minority schools to majority-white schools.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2017\/01\/test-scores-not-predictive-school-quality.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Test Scores Are Not Predictive of School Quality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"White parents availing themselves of school choice typically move their children from majority-minority schools to majority-white schools.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2017\/01\/test-scores-not-predictive-school-quality.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Love, Joy, Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-01-03T09:00:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-01-02T21:49:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2017\/01\/school-supplies-1695564_1920.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"512\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2017\/01\/test-scores-not-predictive-school-quality.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2017\/01\/test-scores-not-predictive-school-quality.html\",\"name\":\"Test Scores Are Not Predictive of School Quality\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-01-03T09:00:25+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-01-02T21:49:51+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\"},\"description\":\"White parents availing themselves of school choice typically move their children from majority-minority schools to majority-white schools.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2017\/01\/test-scores-not-predictive-school-quality.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2017\/01\/test-scores-not-predictive-school-quality.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2017\/01\/test-scores-not-predictive-school-quality.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Test Scores Are Not Predictive of School Quality\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/\",\"name\":\"Love, Joy, Feminism\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\",\"name\":\"Libby Anne\",\"description\":\"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. 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