z42\doc\web\2000\06\owenb.txt


Gerald, you may have a point that either they've managed to cheat
pretty much every year, or that these kids will probably fail even if
they do have high test scores, it would be interesting if somebody on
this list could actually visit there and figure out why their scores
are so damn high. At the pass rates they're reporting, it's probably
consistent with a 98th percetile score, and yes, I've never seen an
inner city, let alone an affluent school in this or any other state
that scores that high as a school average.


Anybody done research at what happens to kids who test this high
early on? This may be like the claims of Head Start which resulted
relatively high IQs that regressed back to average after kids were
taken off the program. As I recall, a 98th percentile score is
equivalent to something like a 130 IQ, vs. 85-90 typical for
minorities historically.


-----Original Message----- From: Gerald W. Bracey
[mailto:gbracey@EROLS.COM] Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2000 4:38 AM To:
ARN-L@LISTS.CUA.EDU Subject: 




Arthur:


Owen has Metro scores at the 98th percentile.  As I hope you realize
by now NO school does that--unless like TJ here in Fairfax, you start
with a high scoring district and then select only the top 4.5% of
that district--and even then you get only the 91st percentile in
reading.


About Grosse Pointe:


1.  Affluent districts could care less about standardized tests.
They know they're going to be OK and so they go on and actually teach
stuff.  Even within Cherry Creek, the economically poorer schools
were much more up tight about test scores.


2.  MEAP has an opt-out provision and most of the opt-outs are kids
who have done well in school.  For them, MEAP is a lose-only
proposition.  If they do well, ho-hum,, if they do not so well they
get something on their records they don't need.


As I said to Cooper, we know what happens to Grosse Pointe kids--they
all go to college.  What happens to Owen kids?


I'll believe the scores when I can go in with my test and my test
administrators and get the same results.  




Arthur, I don't know that they're cheating, they might just have made
the test the curriculum.  I don't know a lot about MEAP, but the pass
rates you reported here yesterday don't seem commensurate with a 98th
percentile.  
 
I doubt anyone will ever get to do any research in the school.  From
Cooper's article: "Visitors must ring a doorbell to enter the school
because the outside doors are kept locked.  Few outsiders gain
admittance.  The principal rejects most requests to visit."  
 
More successful might be study of the kids once they've left the
school.  Problem there is that many states, only a few individuals
can get access to personally identifiable information.  It might
require the cooperation of the district which could gather the
information and still keep the students unknown to the researcher.
This, too, is unlikely because big city school districts usually have
too many immediately pressing demands.