Comments for Dec. 3

After wading through the IIRC data looking for meaningful connections between student achievement and their communities, I have a couple of thoughts.
1) I realize Illinois doesn't have any money and that some information is better than no information, but I am wondering if the taxpayers and parents and other members of our community understand the significance of the data they're being given. The report card does a nice job of boiling down the spreadsheets and colorful graphs, but most educators agree (as well as our class discussion showed) that the things that really matter in making a school good or mediocre are things that cannot be readily quantified. The implication to the viewer is that these are meaningful statistics and you might be able to figure out what the problem is with your child's school from trends in budget categories, racial composition, etc. I was especially intrigued by the class room indicator called "Parent Involvement." I read about high schools that have 100 percent involvement and their meet and exceed levels are down in the 30s and 40 percents. How are these schools measuring parent involvement? At the least, these reports need footnotes and hyperlinks that explain financial line items. We teachers at least had the benefit of Dr. C. explaining them. I shudder to consider the misconceptions triggered by poorly documented data. Since there is pretty widespread agreement about what makes one school good and another mediocre, I have to wonder why the ISBE doesn't provide more relevant information. These presentations seem to distract the community from a more productive, relevant discussion about school quality, teacher accountability, and student achievement.
2) The scatter plot data concerns me that Illinois is either failing to educate its high school students, or that the tests it gives them is invalid. When I first looked at the data as a whole, I noticed the two roughly parallel bands, both sloping down when moving from left to right on the horizontal axis. When I analyzed my schools, I was able to exclude the middle and grade schools, which make up most of the schools on the upper (high achieving) band. The vast majority of high schools fall into the bottom band. I was happy to discover at AHS is doing much better compared to other schools in the state. This shows me that while Abingdon has a ways to go, teachers at Abingdon have been doing a great job.
Yes, I know I talk too much.