I was poking around the Michigan Department of Education site recently and decided to examine the data on students eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch in greater detail (http://www.michigan.gov/cepi/0,1607,7-113-21423_30451_36965—,00.html).

As your analysis and discussion have already indicated, the percentage of Grosse Pointe Public School District students Eligible for Free or Reduced Lunch (FRLE) increased between Fall 2006 (6.4%) and Fall 2009 (10.5%). However, it is worth examining these increases relative to increases in percentages of FRLE students in other Michigan public school districts.

I calculated the percentage of FRLE students in each Michigan public school district and then ranked the districts from the lowest percentage to the highest percentage. Grosse Pointe ranks #10 out of all Michigan public school districts with at least 10 students. Thus, only nine Michigan public school districts have a lower percentage of FRLE students than Grosse Pointe. However, Grosse Pointe ranked #11 in Fall 2008 and #17 in both Fall 2007 and Fall 2006. Therefore, the increase in percentage of Grosse Pointe FRLE students is relatively lower than the increase in percentages of FRLE students in other Michigan public school districts.

To illustrate this point, I determined there is only one Michigan public school district, Forest Hills, with a higher percentage of FRLE students than Grosse Pointe in Fall 2006 (9.2%) that had a lower percentage of FRLE students than Grosse Pointe in Fall 2009 (9.4%). However, there are eight Michigan public school districts with lower percentages of FRLE students than Grosse Pointe in Fall 2006 that had higher percentages of FRLE students than Grosse Pointe in Fall 2009:

Troy (4.3% in 2006; 11.4% in 2009)
Okemos (0.0% in 2006; 15.9% in 2009)
Grand Ledge (0.0% in 2006; 25.0% in 2009)
Dansville (2.1% in 2006; 28.9% in 2009)
Glenn (0.0% in 2006; 34.1% in 2009)
Beaver Island (0.0% in 2006; 36.6% in 2009)
Lakewood (0.5% in 2006; 37.8% in 2009)
Wayland Union (0.1% in 2006; 40.6% in 2009)

This data suggests that perhaps Grosse Pointe has been a bit more “recession-resilient” than some other districts in Michigan, reflecting the stability of the community even in the face of challenging economic conditions.

I support all the efforts of the Grosse Pointe Public School District to serve its students and the community.

It amazes me that many untruths have become the conventional wisdom about public education and teachers. An assumption I find particularly annoying is that teachers’ unions prevent termination of ineffective teachers. I was a social worker for 24 years for a large suburban district where I encountered mostly excellent public educators. My observation which is of course anecdotal is that the institutional culture of public education prevents firing poor employees. The union ensures due process but often it is administrators who can’t or don’t make the final decision. Also, public school administrators supervise a large number of people adding to the weakness of supervision and evaluation. Unless we understand the cause of the problem it can’t be fixed.

The bashing of teachers and public education is harmful. Criticism is necessary but it needs to be relevant and rational.

Brendan

Here are some details for one of the schools that I referenced. A traditional public school does not have these requirements. I used the term magent school as well to distinguish from commenting specifically about charter schools. The pre-qualifications below are from a selective magnet school.

Brendan

• Recommendation of high school counselor or principal
• Application essay written at the testing session
• Take and pass math placement test, diagnostic test and a foreign language placement test
• Have completed Algebra I and Geometry with a B or better and the 2nd level of a 2nd Language
(Qualification diagnostic testing is required)
• Students must maintain good academic standing to remain

Whether ACT, MME, MEAP, SAT, or any other standardized test the same argument really remains the same. The issue is the Achievement Gap manifests itself most clearly on standardized test performance. I don’t think I’d draw any different conclusions from based on ACT results. If anything, it re-inforces the same point.

Nevertheless, to the extent we’re putting credence into standardized tests, even at a #56 ranking North would be considered an outstanding school. Thanks for your kinds words and your analysis.

Brendan

Thank you for your perspective! Another measure of a school’s performance that has been created fairly recently is the use of performance on the American College Test (ACT) to determine “college readiness” (http://www.act.org/standard/). Essentially, mininum thresholds have been determined by ACT educational professionals in each of the four sections of the ACT. Students who score at or above these thresholds are deemed to be “college-ready” in that particular area. Students who score at or below these thresholds are deemed not to be “college-ready” in that particular area. While I am not taking a position regarding the merits of ACT’s “college-ready” construct and their operationalization of this construct, I do think the findings of the past three years are worth consideration.

According to the Michigan Department of Education, 43.9% of the 392 juniors (172) who took the ACT at Grosse Pointe South qualify as “college-ready” on all four sections of the ACT in Spring 2010. Of the 337 juniors who simultaneously took the ACT at Grosse Pointe North, 26.7% (90) qualify as “college-ready” on all four sections of the ACT. When non-magnet public high schools in Michigan are ranked based on the “college-ready” metric, Grosse Pointe South ranks #7 in Michigan (tied with Ann Arbor Pioneer) while Grosse Pointe North ranks #56 in Michigan. Here are the 10 highest-ranking non-magnet public high schools in Michigan for 2010 based on the “college-ready” metric defined by the ACT:

1. Birmingham Seaholm – 48.8%
2. Bloomfield Hills Andover – 47.6%
3. Houghton Central – 47.4%
4. Rochester Adams – 46.1%
5. Okemos – 45.2%
6. Midland Dow – 44.3%
7. Grosse Pointe South – 43.9%
7. Ann Arbor Pioneer – 43.9%
9. Troy – 43.3%
10. Northville – 43.2%

According to the Michigan Department of Education, 37.8% of the 394 juniors (149) who took the ACT at Grosse Pointe South qualified as “college-ready” on all four sections of the ACT in Spring 2009. Of the 348 juniors who simultaneously took the ACT at Grosse Pointe North, 27.3% (95) qualified as “college-ready” on all four sections of the ACT. Among non-magnet public high schools in Michigan, South ranked #13 and North ranked #45.

I support all the efforts of the Grosse Pointe Public School District to provide the best learning environment and suite of educational opportunities for the students it serves.

For a more affective commentary, please read my dissertation entitled “Creating Hopeful Learning Environments: Collisions in Practice,” at MSU. I will post my response to a recent published letter to the editor of the GPNews on the gpeablogs at blogspot.com if it does not get published in this week’s issue. It presents an overly simple analogy of the practice of teaching in present day context. Thanks for the good work that you do for the boys and girls of Grosse Pointe, for the community as a whole, and by osmosis, we hope, for all of the world’s children.

Can you imagine reducing the complexity of what it is that our organization does to that of one score?

Here are some flaws in the gems of R3T and NCLB you didn’t even mention: that when you are as high-achieving as we are, the likelihood of a larger delta decreases exponentially-hence top to bottom ranking on the delta is biased against high achieving entities; that the bottom five per cent drop out of the ranking each year, so there is a perpetual new pool of the bottom five per cent that will fall into the restructuring format each year; that the smaller the group of the sample, the larger difference an outlier can make on impacting the average, published scores; that our highest performing schools today will likely be our lowest performing schools another time because of these effects.

It is ILLEGAL to make any “selection” of students for a charter school…PERIOD. Only siblings have a preference. Otherwise if is FIRST-COME-FIRST-SERVED!