WESLEY DOES WELL BECAUSE IT HAS HIGH TEST RATE e:\doc\web\99\01\wesley.txt Date sent: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 11:45:21 -0800 To: "ClearingHouse" From: Don Crawford Subject: [education-consumers] Re: di: Wesley and TAAS Scores Copies to: jimmyk5@swbell.net, Rovarose@aol.com, VBaxt@aol.com, brucec76@IX.NETCOM.COM, dkoniecz@gwi.net, mkr@merle.acns.nwu.edu, Redyarrow@aol.com, GscottTRA@aol.com Send reply to: Don Crawford ===================================================================== Dear All, My reading of the snippets below is that Wesley may indeed be the best performing school in the entire state, especially for serving the lowest 20% in low SES communities! I think more choice options would make DI schools popular among low SES populations. -Don At 9:02 PM -0800 1/4/99, bgrossen@oregon.uoregon.edu wrote: >Happy New Year! snip The focus of this grant is to find the schools that do the >best job in Texas in serving the lowest 20% in low SES communities. > snip > Surprise, surprise...some >schools test a remarkably low percentage of their students. For example, >Ysleta SD near El Paso Š tested only 24% of their students in 1997. >Wesley's percentage of students tested was 91%, the >adjusted TAAS scores left Wesley among the top performin schools. > >Then was time for the independent assessment of all 3rd graders in these >6 highest performing schools. Three schools refused to be tested. Of the three schools that were finally >given the independent 3rd grade assessment, the analyses of the lowest >20% indicate that Wesley did far better with this population than the >other 2 schools. ****************** Don Crawford, Ph.D. donc@wce.wwu.edu (360) 650-4992 Fax:650-7516 Western Washington Univ. Spec. Ed.-Mailstop 9090 Bellingham, WA 98225-9090 I am responsible for the content of this message, which does not in any way reflect the position or policy of Western Washington University. ****************** The essence of individualism derives not from accumulating idiosyncratic affectations, but from stripping those affectations away. ===================================================================== EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE networking and information for parents and taxpayers on the internet Subscriptions & Archives: http://education-consumers.com or You are currently subscribed to education-consumers as: arthurhu@halcyon.com TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Send a blank email to leave-education-consumers-989462S@lists.dundee.net ===================================================================== For less mail, click on the following link and choose 1) a daily digest, 2) a daily list of subjects, or 3) no mail (read postings on Web) http://lists.dundee.net/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=education-consumers For more help & info: http://www.lyris.com/help or My reading of the data is that scores in the high 80s puts Wesley comparable to the best districts in WA state like Mercer Island, but that's not good enough to make it among the top schools, you'll need better than 85 or 95 to get that rating. On the other hand, no school or district with high minority populations has scores anywhere close to 80s in WA state. Seattle's African american and Indian heritage schools generally rank at the bottom of the worst 10 schools in greater seattle by any indicator, and breakouts of blacks in even affluent suburbs like Bellevue and Issaquah are no better. It is a huge scandal that black under achievement is blamed on "bad schools" when they do poorly even in the so-called "best" schools. Wesley offers the possibility that even "bad" schools demographically can achieve if they focus on academic achievement, not race and poverty. Conventionally ,race and poverty rank #1 in importance, and achievement is at the bottom. (Incidentally, that's how Asian parents rank achievement at the top, and fighting racism and poverty at the bottom, and look where it gets them?? Asians have the lowest proportinal representtation among teachers, principals, superintendents, and multicultural curriculum, and the lowest per-capita incomes, yet they always get the highest grades, and usually the highest math test scores.) Date sent: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 11:45:21 -0800 To: "ClearingHouse" From: Don Crawford Subject: [education-consumers] Re: di: Wesley and TAAS Scores Copies to: jimmyk5@swbell.net, Rovarose@aol.com, VBaxt@aol.com, brucec76@IX.NETCOM.COM, dkoniecz@gwi.net, mkr@merle.acns.nwu.edu, Redyarrow@aol.com, GscottTRA@aol.com Send reply to: Don Crawford > ===================================================================== > > > Dear All, > My reading of the snippets below is that Wesley may indeed be the > best performing school in the entire state, especially for serving the > lowest 20% in low SES communities! I think more choice options would make > DI schools popular among low SES populations. -Don > > At 9:02 PM -0800 1/4/99, bgrossen@oregon.uoregon.edu wrote: > >Happy New Year! > snip > The focus of this grant is to find the schools that do the > >best job in Texas in serving the lowest 20% in low SES communities. > > > snip