Public School Achievement Gap in South Carolina

The “Achievement Gap” is a name used to describe the persistent and unjust disparity between test scores among different  racial and economic groups enrolled in South Carolina’s government schools.

New data have been released, and some are hoping it constitutes a reversal of this troubling long term trend.

The political publicists at the State Department of Education spun it this way:

South Carolina’s “achievement gap” between white and African-American students mirrors the rest of the nation’s, according to a federal government report released today.  Although mathematics and reading test scores have improved for both ethnic groups, the gap between the two has decreased only in math.

But looking past the soundbites, the data do not seem to mesh with other, independently gauged, indicators.

Ten Years Later: EOC Still Rubber-Stamping SDE Failures

Failure? Nothing! I see NOTHING!!!

Today the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee is scheduled to discuss where South Carolina public schools stand ten years after the institution of the Education Accountability Act.

Unfortunately many South Carolina families already have to see first hand how poorly their local public schools perform when it comes to meeting educational goals. This year, four out of five public schools failed to meet the mark for Adequate Yearly Progress. Equally disheartening were South Carolina SAT results, which showed only 7 of 85 districts with average scores above the national average. Even the SAT scores of the state’s highest performing school district were hundreds of points behind similar districts in North Carolina.

Inadequate achievement test scores are just one aspect of the failed education establishment in the Palmetto State. The number of children dropping out of public school every year is in the tens of thousands, and the problem is not diminishing.

Bureaucrats owe parents honesty

Great guest column from last weeks’ Times Examiner and Greenwood Today:

Honesty is the foundation of improvement

A problem has to be identified before it can be solved.

This bit of common sense wisdom has been lost on the public school establishment.

Last Tuesday, Jim Rex’s State Department of Education announced details of a statewide jump in SAT scores. Rex described a two-point gain by South Carolina students and reiterated the Department’s signature “stay the course” and “sustained improvement” message.

A handful of policy experts, reporters and bloggers were skeptical. By week’s end a clearer picture had emerged: Jim Rex and his communication director Jim Foster had played fast and loose with the numbers. They relied on dramatic private school score gains to hide a drop in public school scores.

Journalists frustrated with public school failures

Across South Carolina, newspaper editors and reporters are voicing their frustration with the sustained failure of SC public schools. Here are a few recent highlights:

“PACT with excuses for sad test scores” by Andrew Dys of the Rock Hill Herald.

…Certainly, when the old [PACT] test was a failure, the best recourse is to change the test. The old name had to go, too. The Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test, the old bugaboo that told us every year our kids weren’t doing as well as they should, was clearly at fault.

Not the schools. Not you. Not me.

PACT was sent packing along with all those bad scores. If you change the name and the test, nobody will ever remember all the times the scores tanked, right?

SAT: But OUR schools did well, right?!

“Success” is relative for York, Anderson, Lexington and Spartanburg.

As reported, release of the SAT scores once again brings bad news for public schools in South Carolina. Average scores are down and gaps between race and income groups continue to widen.

Some parents and lawmakers aren’t concerned, They argue that their public schools in the Upstate and Midlands are bucking the state trend, and earning scores above the national average.

But according to the Department of Education, only seven of eighty five school districts earned average scores above the national average of 1017 points. These are:

YORK 4 – FORT MILL (1,053)
ANDERSON 2 (1,051)
ANDERSON 4 (1,050)
LEXINGTON 1 (1,046)
ANDERSON 1 (1,044)
LEXINGTON/RICHLAND 5 (1,040)
SPARTANBURG 1 (1,038)
ANDERSON 5 (1,019)

That’s great news for white upper middle class parents in York, Anderson, Lexington and Spartanburg, right?

No, actually its not.

SAT: Public Schools Down, Private Schools Up

Where are your kids?

Every year it is the same sad story: SAT tests scores are down, stagnant, or inch forward for some tiny subset of public school students.

Then the PR machine at the State Department of Education works to massage the data into a glimmer of hope, and sends Inez Tenenbaum Jim Rex out to share the “good news” about the “great leap forward.”

Sadly, this year is no different.

Like last week’s ACT scores, the SAT scores show that South Carolina public schools are stagnant.

They also show that low-income and minority children are falling further behind, widening one of the nation’s largest achievement gaps.

But there is good news too: students attending private schools continue to excel.

K-12 Performance Gaps: More Bad News

Despite nationwide improvement, race and wealth correlated achievement gaps continue to widen in SC public schools.

In April, South Carolina’s Education Oversight Committee (EOC) quietly released a report identifying a dramatic growth in the academic performance gap between black and white children attending our public schools. It also pointed to a growing achievement gap between low-income students and their middle class peers.

Now, two additional reports have a similar message: The state of public education is worsening in South Carolina, especially for low income and minority students

The Center on Education Policy (CEP) released a report in late June investigating whether the use of NCLB and other accountability tools correlated with student improvement. The authors concluded that in most states, math and reading scores are up since 2002, but they are uncertain if the new law deserves all the credit. The found that nationwide gaps between black and white students had diminished, but that in South Carolina performance gaps between white students and African-American students actually widened, most notably in 4th and 8th grade math. Similarly, performance gaps between low-income and other students grew in both math and reading.

The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) also found that South Carolina is failing to improve. Their annual Challenge to Lead Goals Report of public school indicators in 16 states identified a growth in the already staggering performance gap between racial/ethnic groups in South Carolina. This despite a total reduction of the gap in the region. Among their conclusions: In South Carolina “the average composite SAT score increased more for white students than for black students from 1997 to 2007.” Economically-correlated gaps are growing too. SREB found that: SC fourth graders from low-income families widened gaps with peers in reading.

These gaps are NOT the result of improvement at the “best” public schools or by the wealthiest students. SREB went on to identify all South Carolina’s students as trailing both regional and national peers in reading, SAT scores, SAT participation, AP scores, AP participation, and average graduation rate. This despite the fact that “SC’s funding for K-12 students outpaced enrollment and inflation from 2000 to 2005.”

In fact, it has been shown that middle class and wealthy suburban public schools are the furtherest behind their national and regional socio-economc peers. This despite the national trend, identified by Fordham and Brookings scholars, of greater recent gains for low-income and minority students in most states. Only in South Carolina, where public school failure is so widespread, has both the gap widened and total average performance dropped.

Carl Gullick: Perception is Reality

Carl Gullick takes time away from googling his own name for a few moments of well-deserved self-reflection.

One of the most outspoken and arrogant defenders of South Carolina’s failed public schools is Carl Gullick. so-called “Republican” House member from York.

Gullick, a career politician, is convinced that his public schools in York are great. He has no interest in extending equality to those people in other parts of the state that might not enjoy the social economic privileges found in the suburban Upstate of South Carolina.

Of course, the facts are clear: South Carolina’s best public schools (like those in York) are only good in a relative sense. Compared to rural schools on the I-95 “Corridor of Shame” York Districts 1 through 4 are like the Lyceum and Symposium of modern day South Carolina. But a comparison with middle class suburban school districts in neighboring Georgia and North Carolina shows that South Carolina’s “best” schools are totally uncompetitive.

For example, in 2007 the four York school districts had an average SAT score of 1002. This was 260 points above the scores in Allendale and Hampton. Gullick doesn’t care much for Allendale, since those folks don’t vote in his District 48 primary, and the gap reinforces the belief that York is the pride of South Carolina.

That same year the entire state of North Carolina had an average score of 1004, two points above York. And public school students in Moore, Orange and Wake Counties (the heart of the Research Triangle) in North Carolina averaged 1050! These three counties have the same social and economic demographics as York, but their public schools students outperformed their York SC peers by fifty points.

Carl Gullick doesn’t concern himself with hard facts. He is a big picture strategist. As long his people in York think their public schools are good, and ought to be protected from achievement facilitating competition, Gullick can narrowly fight off primary challengers for his House seat.

Gullick’s smoke and mirrors are not limited to his calculated defense of failing public schools. Among Gullick’s legislative highlights this year was a controversial bill that would guarantee property taxes automatically rise, and never decline, even if population and income levels drop.

Gullick’s no-competition, no-transparency, anti-choice vision for big government reaches wherever his big dollar corporate donors steer him. In just the first few months of 2008, Gullick took over $8,000 in donations from rent-seeking and incumbent-protecting Political Action Committees (PACs). Then, with corporate checks in hand, Gullick actually went on to criticize his opponent for taking support from political philanthropists!

The people of York need to wake up and smell the stale Carl Gullick coffee. The Philosopher King’s just-good-enough style of local government schools, scorched earth for the rest of the state attitude, and deep pocketed special interests make him a sad caricature of the noxious narcissism and condescension that permeates the Statehouse corridors.

The Rex/Walker Plan to Strip Standards

South Carolina’s Education Accountability Act (EAA) and the national No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law are examples of standards-based accountability. Lawmakers want to ensure that schools are focused on outcomes, or individual student achievement, so they set benchmarks for performance. The schools measure student performance against these benchmarks, and inform parents and policymakers on the results.

The philosophy behind standards-based reform is that public and uniform performance targets are the best way to foster good instruction. Good instruction is of course the real key to student learning. While some parents and teachers have voiced frustration with the specific tests or funding mechanisms associated with NCLB and EAA, all agree that the basic emphasis on absolute performance and outcomes is sound.

But now, some education administrators and Columbia politicians want to start stripping the accountability. Their plan is subtle: they want to provide parents with information on a student or school’s “growth” (once called “improvement”) rather than just an absolute grade. This movement is being spearhead by two men: Jim Rex and Bob Walker.

Rex wants to wants to use differential accountability for his low-performing schools so that he can avoid the federal support and oversight mechanisms designed to transform failing schools.

Rex’s partner Bob Walker is sponsoring a bill (a watered down version of his initial proposal) that will try to confuse parents by using “growth” ratings on school report cards. This re-worked EAA will also allow failing schools to receive Palmetto Gold and Silver Awards for “growth” and “improvement” even if they don’t meet state or federal performance standards.

The inclusion of “growth” ratings on accountability report cards is disingenuous, and leads to lowered expectations. South Carolina’s public schools have the nation’s lowest graduation rate and the second lowest SAT scores. South Carolina’s economic competitiveness is a function of the total quality of our workers and companies, not merely their relative “growth.”

Weakening our standards and reporting practices will not resolve the problems in South Carolina’s public schools. Providing all parents with accurate information and real options (including access to independent and private schools) will.