I primarily want to point at two posts on local West Hartford blogs that are examining the local Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) and Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) scores. These are the state mandated testing that students in CT have to take. Both of these tests feed into No Child Left Behind requirements for the state.
The first post is at WH Forums: A Closer Look at West Hartford’s 2008 CMT Results: The Problem with DRG. The second post is at Talk of West Hartford: Talk of West Hartford.
Most of you (at least the local folks) know that I tend to (strongly) disagree with the folks behind Talk of West Hartford. They are anti-school spending, anti-union, and anti-teacher. So, it won’t be a surprise that I have some issues with the way the Talk of West Hartford blog frames their response. While the WH Forums post takes some time to pull numbers and actually lay out the data (without drawing strong conclusions), the Talk post says bold, unsubstantiated things like:
Personally, Talk Of West Hartford doesn’t think economic situation should have any bearing on kids in our schools. If the schools are good schools (like West Hartford’s are supposed to be) anyone from any walk of life should have the equal opportunity to learn within the district and excel, and especially in West Hartford where so many intervention programs are available and at their fingertips. Especially in West Hartford where our teachers and PTO’s are supposedly top notch. Poor kids in West Hartford schools should be doing just as well as more affluent kids. They are, after all, in the same school district which offers amazing resources to everyone regardless of demographics.
This paragraph might actually be true. It also could be completely false. And nothing in the paragraph or any subsequent paragraph sheds any light on whether it’s remotely true. (it’s remarkable how long the post is without actually supporting any of the conclusions they draw).
This goes beyond the blog post itself. The quality of the debate in this town over the budget and the school budget itself has been similarly full of garbage assertions, mostly by the anti-tax folks but by both sides. As someone who likes looking at the data, this debate by assertion is tiring and useless.
In the debate over demographics and their influence on education, I believe Talk of West Hartford is glossing over a lot of important details. Parental participation rates would seem to correlate with single parenthood, income, and job flexibility. For example, white collar, higher paying jobs might allow a parent to come to school during the day for a parent/teacher conference. Wealthier students tend to work less, and less as a necessity.
So, more detail is necessary to see if this stuff is true. I would suspect, based on other studies I’ve read and talking to teachers in my wife’s circle of friends (she’s a teacher, too), that income levels tend to correlate well with other factors in a student’s educational success. In other words, having “programs” isn’t the same as knowing whether those programs are appropriate for the student population. PTO organizations, for example, aren’t going to help if an entire group of parents can’t make it. Russian classes won’t help a student who is working a lot of hours and is prioritizing that over homework.
Of course, I don’t know if these things are an issue or whether the studies and anecdotes I’ve mentioned apply to West Hartford because I haven’t seen any data about this. And, judging from the Talk of West Hartford folks, I’m not alone.
More data, less assertions, please.
July 19th, 2008 at 11:21 PM
Hey Sujal, Looks like a lot of your observations are unsubstantiated as well. Where is YOUR data to back up YOUR comments? WHTalk drew its conclusions from the data presented as well as data WHTalk obtained, and WHTalk is are entitled to an opinion just as anyone else is. Feel free to disagree – this is America. But we would like to take the opportunity here for rebuttal.
For the record WHTalk is not anti-school spending (where is YOUR proof that we are?) WHTalk is not anti-union (Where is YOUR proof that we are?)and WHTalk is certainly not anti-teacher (where again is YOUR proof that we are?) Certainly what your own musings on the subject could also be true or false. So far you haven’t substantiated anything other than you don’t agree with WHTalk – which is fine. The truth is WHTalk is anti-town and school waste, (and teachers have even confided that waste does exist). WHTalk is anti-programs that are ineffective, and anti-blind support of budgets. WHTalk is with the people who don’t mind paying taxes – even high taxes – just as long as the money is spent prudently. Don’t you run your own home like that?
Tell us though – your comment:
“Parental participation rates would seem to correlate with single parenthood, income, and job flexibility. For example, white collar, higher paying jobs might allow a parent to come to school during the day for a parent/teacher conference. Wealthier students tend to work less, and less as a necessity.”
So you are saying that kids who have single parents are incapable of succeeding even in a great school district? You are saying that single parents are never available for conferences (we know schools bend over backwards to arrange meetings) Your assumptions are based on what exactly?
So if all of the programs that we offer are of no benefit to the lower income kids who are struggling – what exactly would you suggest we do beyond what we already do to help them achieve? Clearly you believe single parents and lower income families can not achieve in our schools for a number of reasons and excuses, reasons which WHTalk believes all have many ways to be worked around in order to do the best for the kids involved.
And yes, in the end you have absolutely no data and yet you will scold us even though we have presented our conclusions based on test scores and the programs which our fine schools offer to ALL students and their families.
Sujal, it is very nice that you visit our website, and thanks for the plug whether you agree or not.
July 19th, 2008 at 11:55 PM
Hey, WHTalk. Welcome to FM.
I apologize for not linking more things up in this post to your previous postings to back up my summary of your positions. Your enthusiastic backing of Visconti, who btw, is all of the things I mentioned, along with the snark in most of your postings have led me to conclude the anti-teacher, anti-union positions.
As for the rest of your comment, you’re making my point. I pointed out that I can’t say that any of what I claimed was true. That’s exactly what I’m getting at. I’ve “heard” things and “read” things but it’s not enough for our debate on this stuff to be limited to that. Otherwise, we end up with dishonest ads in the penny flyer from the WH Taxpayer associations. Low information…
The numbers that WHForums brought up actually add some signal to the debate vs. the noise you put out in your blog and the comment above. I never said that “all” low income families can or can’t do anything. Your language is black-and-white. I don’t see the world that way, and don’t see this issue that way. All I said was that not all programs benefit all parents and children the same. You’re asserting they do. I disagree, and neither of us have provided any data for this.
If you’re going to criticize the school system (the entire point of your post), then you shoudl back that up with more than “we know”… That was the point of my post.
July 20th, 2008 at 2:44 PM
Gee, after all the nice things WHTalk said about the quality of our teachers, that’s funny you’d think we were somehow anti-teacher. Let the record be clear that WHTalk recognizes that we have some pretty great teachers in our schools. It could very well be that our administrators are not allowing them to do a better job. The scores themselves aslong with an examination of our programs might just back up that opinion.
Did we endorse Visconti anywhere? WHTalk must have missed that.
So your conclusion is that anyone else drawing a conclusion that doesn’t agree with your conclusion is “noise”. OK – that’s your prerogative. Everyone with an opinion can be then be just “noise”, no matter how they arrived at their opinion.
And no, criticizing our schools was not the entire point of the WHTalk post – Did WHTalk say that our schools suck? No – in fact WHTalk said that we had great teachers and superb resources available to All kids. The point was in fact to say that WHTalk used published test scores and the post by WHForums to come to a conclusion that the other schools in our DRG that we are being compared to seems appropriate, and WHTalk’s stance is that changing the DRG that we are in is not the solution to why we are at the bottom of our DRG.
Guess WHTalk will have to dig up a study to prove that.
July 20th, 2008 at 3:35 PM
Let’s get real here.
You don’t need to “dig up a study” but offer some explanation for your positions. Saying we have great programs isn’t enough. It’s glossing over detail and feel-good pablum. that’s the noise.
Let’s take a look at the post I linked to. You wrote an entire post which said, “We have great teachers (so we’re told), great programs. We believe economic situation has no bearing on school performance. Therefore, the test scores indicate “serious curriculum issues” and ‘administrative problem[s]‘.”
That’s all it said. What did I miss in your post? And how is that not critical of the school system? You don’t have to say “they suck” to be critical… simply saying there are problems is, by definition, a critique.
You don’t need to have a study, but it would be nice to have something to connect your belief with the conclusion you draw from it.
This ties into the larger debate in town. We have endless complaining about town manager salaries and the salaries of administrators and teachers without any data getting pulled. What do similar towns pay their administrators, their teachers, their town managers, police chief, etc. I’d love to see more of that stuff and less of this “OMG, look at the [test scores, police chief salary, vacation policy!]“
That was my ultimate point. I didn’t write this post to criticize what you wrote specifically. Your post isn’t the issue as much as a symptom of the problems I see with the budget debate in town.
The other point I’d raise is that you often put words into the mouths of people that disagree with you. Considering whether our programs properly address the needs of lower income students doesn’t mean that we’re “merely saying that poor and troubled kids cannot be taught as well as affluent kids.” I’m simply asking whether our school system needs to adapt to changing demographics in town. It sounds like something you’re also trying to ask, so you’d think this is a place we could work together, if you would get over the need to insult people you disagree with.
As for Visconti, this post and the comments were a pretty favorable writeup: http://whtalk.blogspot.com/2008/05/joe-visconti-announces-his.html . Perhaps not a formal endorsement, but it’s pretty clear how you vote.
And, finally, for your love of teachers, statements like this cast serious doubt on your sincerity (quoted from the same post linked in the original post above):
“as we are continually told?” So, do you believe it or not?