Paul Attewell's Winner-Take-All schools in bullet points

here

I don't think the article is available online any more. Let me know if you'd like me to email you a copy.

cijohn @ verizon.net

Scarsdale tutors

I was just talking to a guy who is related to a Scarsdale grade school teacher.

Scarsdale teachers start tutoring Scarsdale students for pay as early as second grade.


Scarsdale tutors, part 1

Challenge Index gives percent passing!

For years, people have been hounding Jay Mathews about his Challenge Index, which measures percent of graduating seniors taking AP tests. Taking, not passing. The Challenge Index measures only percent of graduating seniors taking AP tests. Mathews set the Challenge Index up this way in order to persuade schools to allow disadvantaged students, who had a high likelihood of failing the test, into AP courses.

That tactic succeeded brilliantly, particularly in wealthy suburban schools like mine, which presumably adopted open enrollment sometime after the Challenge Index came into being. In the years that I've been reading the list, Irvington High School has typically ranked amongst the top 200 high schools in the country. Of course, since nobody reads the fine print, people assumed the Challenge Index was actually an Achievement Index: a ranking of how well students do on the test.

Last year Mathews finally bowed to reality:

The minute I saw that Coolidge High School in the District had given a startling 750 Advanced Placement tests last May, and that only 2 percent of those exams had received passing scores, I knew I was in trouble.

[snip]

Some readers have argued that the Challenge Index is an invitation to unscrupulous principals to stuff students into AP and create a false aura of academic success, but I don't think that is possible. Teachers, parents and students have to accept the AP courses as valid, as many of them have at Coolidge. A principal who tried such a scheme without community support would soon be looking for another job.

Why I Changed the Challenge Index
Jay Mathews
Thursday, December 11, 2008; 9:45 AM

That second paragraph doesn't hold for affluent school districts, where you have winner-take-all placement mechanisms (scroll down) that produce an enormous pent-up demand for AP courses in college-bound students who have been tracked out of Honors. In that case, when a principal decides that AP courses will take all comers, the community assumes that pushy parents have pressured the school into letting unprepared students take AP courses they don't belong in.

When students fail the AP test, that is confirmation that pushy parents have had their way with the principal.

This year, the Challenge Index includes a new number for "Equity & Excellence": the percentage of all graduating seniors, including those who never got near an AP course, who had at least one score of 3 or above on at least one AP test sometime in high school. Irvington's Equity & Excellence figure is 58. Our ranking this year is #241. Meanwhile Hastings, two towns over, has 73% of graduating seniors passing at least one AP test in their high school career & a ranking of 353.

More than 90% of Irvington graduating seniors enroll in college; 58% pass one AP test in their high school years.

bonus factoid: Scarsdale has 60% of graduating seniors passing at least one AP test without offering any AP courses for the past two years. I hate to even imagine how much more tutoring those parents are paying for (scroll down).

is there a way out of this box?

eduprobe wrote:

I live in an affluent, high-standardized-test-scoring school district. Some of the observations made here (e.g. pervasive use of private tutoring, learning problems often pushed onto parents) absolutely describe our district. Opposition is likely to be fierce from all sides to any change that might threaten the all-important (for neighborhood reputation and property values) test scores.

As a parent, how can I tell whether the schools are good or the teachers are good? The only measures we have available to us are the standardized test scores, which are high. If we don't have the means to measure the contribution of the school & the teachers to our kids' learning, then it seems unlikely that any significant changes would be introduced in the schools. We'll continue to address concerns about learning by going outside the school system, i.e. more tutoring, more "enrichment", more online supplementation, etc.

Is there a way out of this box?

anonymous wrote:

I'd love to see real data on parent supplementation/outside tutoring, with the reason(s)documented, available on the internet for every school in the country. I know it's a pipe dream, but it would be really useful and easy to do with a well-designed questionaire. It sure would raise a red flag about school quality if a highly-rated (test scores) school had 40% of students receiving regular instruction from parents or other tutoring sources.

I know many parents in affluent, highly-rated districts who have been saying for decades that the schools are riding on the student demographics/parent efforts.

I think there is a way out, and that way is the path taken by Richard DuFour at Adlai Stevenson High School 25 years ago, when he developed professional learning communities.

I've also come to think that the core feature that makes professional learning communities work, the one characteristic without which you have no chance of success, is a school-wide commitment to the individual student.

I realize that you have an entire school system to worry about and that I am focused only on one child. However, after many years of experience with education, I have become convinced that a large percentage of children with real potential are brushed aside and discouraged by education systems that concentrate on the system rather than the needs of each child. The converse is also true. Where the needs of each child are understood and accommodated, schools succeed. I have experienced it personally.

a grandfather takes a stand

wealthy schools & the decline at the top

A terrific discussion thread follows "cranberry on wealthy schools and the sorting machine."

I see the issues raised here as fundamental, and have raised them with my school board here -- which is taking them very seriously. 

Attewell's article (pdf file) was a revelation to me. I had experienced everything he describes, but hadn't put it together and certainly had no idea someone had "done the math."  (I've still not read the article closely; if I see things differently once I do, I'll revise this.) In any event, I've been planning to write a series of posts about Attewell. 

For now, here is a passage that is true of the situation in my own district:

Academic Tracking Among Strong Students

[snip]

This article considers tracking in its newer form, especially the role of AP and honors math and science.

[snip]

[I]n the first model, the odds of a student from a nonexam public star school taking one or more AP examinations is 1.375 times as high as a student of a similar gender, race, and parental education who is enrolled in a nonstar public school (the reference category or yardstick). In the second model, after controlling for SAT scores, the odds of a student in an affluent star school taking an AP examination is .823, or only 82 percent as high as the odds of a demographically similar student with an equal SAT score who is enrolled in a nonstar public school.

[snip]

In some star public schools, access to the honors track has become limited to the cream of the cream. Accomplished through advising and tough grading policies, this new form of tracking leads to a steady attrition out of advanced math and science courses, causing experts to wonder why talented young Americans avoid these subjects.

This is exactly what we've experienced in a wealthy suburban school district. 

A capable student whose area of strength is math/science takes Honors everything (math, science, social studies, foreign language, ELA); a capable student whose area of strength is verbal takes Honors ELA/social studies/ELA but is likely to be "washed out" of Honors math and some of the Honors science courses via "tough grading." 

Honors math and some Honors science courses are viewed as courses for the mathematically gifted; Honors ELA/social studies/foreign language are viewed as courses for the capable and industrious.

Add weighted grading into the mix and the result is that math/science students dominate the top 10% of the class regardless of SAT scores, IQ, or native ability and effort.

[T]his new form of tracking leads to a steady attrition out of advanced math and science courses, causing experts to wonder why talented young Americans avoid these subjects.

More later.

cranberry on wealthy schools & the sorting machine

The tracking and sorting process goes on, while the administration denies its long-term effects on the students. Placement into high school courses is decided on the basis of teacher recommendations, not grades, strangely enough.

In our affluent high school, we're told, "all the students who remain in the top math track, who take AP BC calc, receive 5s." As a parent, I feel that this means that they are too restrictive in placement, and encourage too many children to drop out of the most demanding track. 3 is passing. Our society does not need to save tuition for 6% of the graduating class. Our society needs as many children as possible to take challenging math classes.

I took AP BC calc in my day, and received a 5. Frankly, it's not that challenging a course. More than 6% of the school population should be prepared to take the test. If the top 20% were encouraged to remain on track for BC Calc, or even the top 15%, I'd find it much more equitable.

I do feel the pressure of, "your kid's not that special, you know," in the insistence that the academic load is challenging, while seeing how restrictive placement is.

Same here.

Attewell's study (pdf file) is a revelation:

The odds of a student in an affluent star public school taking AP math or AP science are 71 -76 percent of the odds of a student of the same demographics and SAT who attends a nonstar public school.

The Winner-Take-All High School: Organizational Adaptations to Educational
Stratification
by Paul Attewell
p. 286

That's what we pay the big bucks for.