Category Archives: distinguished schools

SIG Schools Part II – What part does student poverty or affluence play in school performance?

This is the second in a multi-part series about the schools eligible to apply for some of the “Race to the Top”/ “School Improvement Grant (SIG)” funding provided through President Obama’s Education program via the Federal Department of Education.  Race to the Top is the key effort by the administration to raise achievement in America ’s underperforming schools.


In California, SIG funding is targeted at the lowest achieving schools identified as Tier I and Tier II schools, those falling into the bottom 5% in terms of achievement.  As mentioned in part I of this series, our company assisted one school district complete and application for the SIG and we helped another district by reviewing their grant before it was submitted.

Because of our work, we are curious about whether Tier I schools have similar characteristics other than low achievement.  We have undertaken this analysis of publicly available data about the Tier I schools first identified by the California Superintendent of Schools in a press release.

There are 136 schools identified in Tier 1.  Our first question is: Where are these schools and is their location predictive of student achievement levels?  Are these schools located in impoverished counties?

If we examine the income levels of the counties where these schools are located, we find that 67 of the Tier 1 schools are in counties with per capita incomes below the state median while 69 of the schools are located in counties where per capita income is above the state median.  When the median household income is examined, a similar picture emerges with 65 of the schools located in counties where household income falls below the state median and 71 schools are located in counties with household incomes above the median. 

If child lives in a wealthy county like Alameda County, which has the highest per capita income in the state at $44,962, and the third highest average household income at $71,306, how is it that some of the schools are ranking within the bottom 5% and why is it that a wealthy county like Alameda requires additional federal funding to raise student achievement?

County wealth does not appear to be predictive of whether a school will be underperforming or not.  Perhaps county income levels are not a fine enough measurement to use, so let’s zoom in on a school-by-school level.

One accessible form of public data on the economic circumstances of families at a school is the percentage of students for qualifying for the Federal free and reduced price lunch program (FRPL).  Families must apply for this program and they qualify by showing evidence of financial need.

We gathered Free/Reduced Price Lunch (FRPL) data on the 136 Tier I schools as well as on 136 of the schools identified by the state in 2010 as “Distinguished Schools”.  The Distinguished schools were selected for comparison in this series were chosen according to several criteria, 1) the school was in a school district that also had Tier I schools, 2) the school was from the same county as some of the Tier 1 schools, 3) where neither condition 1, or 2 could be met, they were randomly chosen from the same region of the state.  Whenever possible, we matched 1:1 using criteria 1 and 2 before using criteria 3.

The results show that on average, 84.1% of students in the SIG Schools qualify for FRPL and in the Distinguished Schools 49.1% of student qualify for FRPL.  This significant discrepancy in the poverty levels between children at Distinguished Schools and those at Tier I schools is striking and may provide one clue to understanding the discrepancy in achievement levels.

What immediate becomes clear, though, is that there are holes in the argument that FRPL is a good indicator for low achievement. Among the group of Distinguished Schools used for comparison, there are 45 schools with significant percentages of students that qualify for FRPL (60%+).  Clearly, there is more to understand than the economic status of the families who send their children to a school.

These are difficult and complicated questions, but the level of investment being made by the taxpayer in these Tier I schools requires that they be asked and answered.  Clearly there is an economic discrepancy between Tier I schools and Distinguished schools.  We will examine other discrepancies in Part III of our SIG series.


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Read all of the first post in this series: Low Performing Schools – SIG Schools Series, Part I



SIG Schools Part II – What part does student poverty or affluence play in school performance?

This is the second in a multi-part series about the schools eligible to apply for some of the “Race to the Top”/ “School Improvement Grant (SIG)” funding provided through President Obama’s Education program via the Federal Department of Education.  Race to the Top is the key effort by the administration to raise achievement in America ’s underperforming schools.


In California, SIG funding is targeted at the lowest achieving schools identified as Tier I and Tier II schools, those falling into the bottom 5% in terms of achievement.  As mentioned in part I of this series, our company assisted one school district complete and application for the SIG and we helped another district by reviewing their grant before it was submitted.

Because of our work, we are curious about whether Tier I schools have similar characteristics other than low achievement.  We have undertaken this analysis of publicly available data about the Tier I schools first identified by the California Superintendent of Schools in a press release.

There are 136 schools identified in Tier 1.  Our first question is: Where are these schools and is their location predictive of student achievement levels?  Are these schools located in impoverished counties?

If we examine the income levels of the counties where these schools are located, we find that 67 of the Tier 1 schools are in counties with per capita incomes below the state median while 69 of the schools are located in counties where per capita income is above the state median.  When the median household income is examined, a similar picture emerges with 65 of the schools located in counties where household income falls below the state median and 71 schools are located in counties with household incomes above the median. 

If child lives in a wealthy county like Alameda County, which has the highest per capita income in the state at $44,962, and the third highest average household income at $71,306, how is it that some of the schools are ranking within the bottom 5% and why is it that a wealthy county like Alameda requires additional federal funding to raise student achievement?

County wealth does not appear to be predictive of whether a school will be underperforming or not.  Perhaps county income levels are not a fine enough measurement to use, so let’s zoom in on a school-by-school level.

One accessible form of public data on the economic circumstances of families at a school is the percentage of students for qualifying for the Federal free and reduced price lunch program (FRPL).  Families must apply for this program and they qualify by showing evidence of financial need.

We gathered Free/Reduced Price Lunch (FRPL) data on the 136 Tier I schools as well as on 136 of the schools identified by the state in 2010 as “Distinguished Schools”.  The Distinguished schools were selected for comparison in this series were chosen according to several criteria, 1) the school was in a school district that also had Tier I schools, 2) the school was from the same county as some of the Tier 1 schools, 3) where neither condition 1, or 2 could be met, they were randomly chosen from the same region of the state.  Whenever possible, we matched 1:1 using criteria 1 and 2 before using criteria 3.

The results show that on average, 84.1% of students in the SIG Schools qualify for FRPL and in the Distinguished Schools 49.1% of student qualify for FRPL.  This significant discrepancy in the poverty levels between children at Distinguished Schools and those at Tier I schools is striking and may provide one clue to understanding the discrepancy in achievement levels.

What immediate becomes clear, though, is that there are holes in the argument that FRPL is a good indicator for low achievement. Among the group of Distinguished Schools used for comparison, there are 45 schools with significant percentages of students that qualify for FRPL (60%+).  Clearly, there is more to understand than the economic status of the families who send their children to a school.

These are difficult and complicated questions, but the level of investment being made by the taxpayer in these Tier I schools requires that they be asked and answered.  Clearly there is an economic discrepancy between Tier I schools and Distinguished schools.  We will examine other discrepancies in Part III of our SIG series.


————————–


Read all of the first post in this series: Low Performing Schools – SIG Schools Series, Part I
Published by Creative Resources & Research http://grantgoddess.com

Low Performing Schools – SIG School Series, Part I

Something important is happening in education and you’re paying a lot of for it. A brand new school reform program is about to commence and $416 million of your tax money is footing the bill in California alone.

This new Educational Reform Effort is entitled the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program authorized under Section 1003(g)  of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the money is allocated from the United States Department of Education to state departments of education throughout the country. Because most of our work is in California, we’ll be talking about how it plays out in California. The California Department of Education (CDE) administers the grant competition in California and makes a final allocation of the funding.

On June 24, 2010, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell  announced in a news release  that the Federal Government had approved California’s application for SIG funding to reform 188 of the persistently lowest achieving schools in the state. These schools are to be reformed using one of four models:

  • Turnaround Model: The LEA undertakes a series of major school improvement actions, including replacing the principal and rehiring no more than 50 percent of the school’s staff; adopting a new governance structure; and implementing an instructional program that is research-based and vertically aligned from one grade to the next, as well as aligned with California’s adopted content standards.
  • Restart Model: The LEA converts a school or closes and reopens a school under a charter school operator; a charter management organization; or an education management organization that has been selected through a locally determined, rigorous review process, using state educational agency provided guidance. A restart model school must enroll, within the grades it serves, any former student who wishes to attend the school.
  • School Closure Model: The LEA closes a school and enrolls the students who attended that school in other schools in the LEA that are higher achieving. These other schools should be within reasonable proximity to the closed school and may include charter schools or new schools for which achievement data are not yet available.
  • Transformation Model: The LEA implements a series of required school improvement strategies, including replacing the principal who led the school prior to implementation of the transformation model, and increasing instructional time.

(Source – California Department of Education: News Release, “State Schools Chief Jack O’Connell Announces California Wins Federal Funding to Turn Around Persistently Lowest-Achieving Schools”, 6/24/10)

In the interest of full disclosure, we at Creative Resources and Research worked with one school district to develop its grant application and we helped another school district by reviewing its application for them to fine-tune it.

Over the years, after working with hundreds of schools attempting to complete school improvement and reform processes, we have been fascinated (and often frustrated) at the frightening level of dysfunction within low performing schools and districts. Working closely with a couple of districts applying for SIG funds, we started wondering about the other eligible schools.

Where are these schools? Do all of the schools share common characteristics? These questions led to more interesting questions such as, are there factors revealed in non-academic data that might have important implications for school reform? How do these lowest performing schools compare with schools at the other end of the performance spectrum? How different are the lowest performing schools from those 450 or so “Distinguished”  schools? What are the similarities and differences between these two groups and what might those differences tell us is important in terms of reforming California schools? What needs to change at the lowest performing schools to turn the Persistently Lowest Performing Schools into “Distinguished” schools?

This series of posts about SIG will seek answers to some of these questions or at least to pose new questions that require further research and examination. Our next post in the series will be “Who Are the Lowest Performing Schools?”

———————————-

Improve your grant writing skills.  Become a member of GrantGoddess.com!

Low Performing Schools – SIG School Series, Part I

Something important is happening in education and you’re paying a lot of for it. A brand new school reform program is about to commence and $416 million of your tax money is footing the bill in California alone.

This new Educational Reform Effort is entitled the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program authorized under Section 1003(g)  of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the money is allocated from the United States Department of Education to state departments of education throughout the country. Because most of our work is in California, we’ll be talking about how it plays out in California. The California Department of Education (CDE) administers the grant competition in California and makes a final allocation of the funding.

On June 24, 2010, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell  announced in a news release  that the Federal Government had approved California’s application for SIG funding to reform 188 of the persistently lowest achieving schools in the state. These schools are to be reformed using one of four models:

  • Turnaround Model: The LEA undertakes a series of major school improvement actions, including replacing the principal and rehiring no more than 50 percent of the school’s staff; adopting a new governance structure; and implementing an instructional program that is research-based and vertically aligned from one grade to the next, as well as aligned with California’s adopted content standards.
  • Restart Model: The LEA converts a school or closes and reopens a school under a charter school operator; a charter management organization; or an education management organization that has been selected through a locally determined, rigorous review process, using state educational agency provided guidance. A restart model school must enroll, within the grades it serves, any former student who wishes to attend the school.
  • School Closure Model: The LEA closes a school and enrolls the students who attended that school in other schools in the LEA that are higher achieving. These other schools should be within reasonable proximity to the closed school and may include charter schools or new schools for which achievement data are not yet available.
  • Transformation Model: The LEA implements a series of required school improvement strategies, including replacing the principal who led the school prior to implementation of the transformation model, and increasing instructional time.

(Source – California Department of Education: News Release, “State Schools Chief Jack O’Connell Announces California Wins Federal Funding to Turn Around Persistently Lowest-Achieving Schools”, 6/24/10)

In the interest of full disclosure, we at Creative Resources and Research worked with one school district to develop its grant application and we helped another school district by reviewing its application for them to fine-tune it.

Over the years, after working with hundreds of schools attempting to complete school improvement and reform processes, we have been fascinated (and often frustrated) at the frightening level of dysfunction within low performing schools and districts. Working closely with a couple of districts applying for SIG funds, we started wondering about the other eligible schools.

Where are these schools? Do all of the schools share common characteristics? These questions led to more interesting questions such as, are there factors revealed in non-academic data that might have important implications for school reform? How do these lowest performing schools compare with schools at the other end of the performance spectrum? How different are the lowest performing schools from those 450 or so “Distinguished”  schools? What are the similarities and differences between these two groups and what might those differences tell us is important in terms of reforming California schools? What needs to change at the lowest performing schools to turn the Persistently Lowest Performing Schools into “Distinguished” schools?

This series of posts about SIG will seek answers to some of these questions or at least to pose new questions that require further research and examination. Our next post in the series will be “Who Are the Lowest Performing Schools?”

———————————-

Improve your grant writing skills.  Become a member of GrantGoddess.com!

Published by Creative Resources & Research http://grantgoddess.com