Fudging Numbers
Every time South Carolina’s God-awful test scores come out, our public school system receives a glowing report card from the state Ministry of Failure and Non-Competition.
And why not? If you can’t actually improve academic achievement in this state, why not cook the books and pretend you did?
Two weeks ago, for example, the Ministry put out a press release praising South Carolina’s modest gain in SAT scores, except they left out one relevant detail – the gain was provided exclusively by the private schools they’re trying to run out of business.
The public schools (which the Ministry runs) actually dropped points.
This charade was in full swing once again yesterday, as our state’s exorbitantly-expensive, woefully-inaccurate and easily-manipulated Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test (PACT) concluded a decade of fudging our state’s academic failure (the PACT is being replaced next year by the PASS test, which we have no doubt will be a similarly worthless assessment).
Anyway, the Ministry’s final response to the PACT report was, predictably, sunshine and dandelions.
“South Carolina students rode a wave of progress,” Superintendent Jim Rex beamed.
Not so fast.
According to our friends at The Voice (i.e. only place in this state other than the Policy Council where you can get accurate education data), the numbers don’t add up.
From their analysis of the scores, we learn the disturbing truth behind the spin:
Of the 51, 252 third graders taking the PACT in 2008, only 56.6 percent scored “Proficient†or “Advanced†in English Language Arts. For eighth graders, the percentage of students meeting the standard is even lower, with only 27.9% scoring “Proficient†or “Advanced†on the reading and writing portion of the test.
Math scores are even more troubling.
Proficiency in Math for 3rd grade test takers is only 33%, which drops all the way to 20.8% of eighth graders who scored “Proficient†or “Advanced.†For eighth graders this represents only a 1.1% increase in math proficiency from 2007; hardly the “wave of progress†praised by the State Department of Education.
Furthermore, scores for eighth grade test takers average 15 points behind that of third graders. This trend suggests that students are routinely moved up to the next grade level, whether they are prepared or not.
Here’s the other interesting thing – PACT administrators count kids at “proficient” and “advanced” levels even if they only earned “basic” proficiency. So much for all that talk of South Carolina having the “toughest standards in the nation.”
Yet even “fudging” these numbers, Columbia bureaucrats still couldn’t do anything about a gaping (and growing) 20 percent achievement gap between white and black students.
Hopefully, African-American lawmakers will grow a set of balls sometime this millennium and demand better for their kids.
Comments
By BIN News on September 11th, 2008 at 1:11 am
So, sic(k) willie? What’s your solution? You and the voucher vulchers want a voucher scam which will abandon those students who need help the most.
You know the real issues facing education in S.C., and you know your voucher scam would do nothing to address those issues. Vouchers would do nothing to address poverty, latent racism, funding flaws and the host of social ills you can’t understand because of the silver spoon projecting from your hind end. Besides that, our state standard is “minimally adequate.” What a joke.
Remember what Jake said? Vouchers are dead in S.C. Just like your career.
BIN News Editorial Staff
Flair and Balanced
By Scared of the System on September 11th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
BIN- Why not at least offer vouchers with an income cap. Right now those in poverty are the only one’s left out. In areas that have failing schools, people that have the means, move, go to private school, or get into one of the publicly funded private magnet schools. Vouchers would at least level give them an option.
I pay a lot of property tax into a system that provides 3 failing public schools in my district. I have no choice but to struggle to pay private school tution at a school of lower middle class families. We work hard to keep tuition low, but I know a number of students that had to drop out because they couldn’t afford it anymore. They always end up at the failing local high school and drop out before they graduate.
By baker on September 11th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Will — On the matter of counting “basic” scores with “proficient” and “advanced” scores, my understanding is that this only counts on NCLB measures. In other words, I do not think that the “proficient” and “advanced” data cited in your post (or in the SCRG article) reflects scores that were actually in the “basic” range. Not that it’s right or wrong for the state to approach NCLB this way — though my understanding is that SC’s “basic” is roughly the same as what most states count “proficient” — just thinking this might be a clarification….admittedly, it’s all a tad confusing.
By BIN News on September 12th, 2008 at 1:42 am
Dear “Scared,”
You voucher vulchers keep putting fresh lipstick on the voucher pig, but voters and elected officials in SC know a voucher pig when they see it.
The only “fudge” is in sic(k) willie’s shorts as he recognizes the voucher scam is dead. No responsible member of the Legislature will touch it. Howie and his carpetbuggers at SCRG have been exposed for what they really are.
First, fix public education. Fix the shameful “minimally adequate” standard. Fix the funding problems. Fix the latent racism that so many turn a blind eye to. Fix the host of social issues that go along with the poverty that is so widespread in SC. Do you even know we have poverty in SC? Yea, you know!
Check this site out:
http://www.goodbyeminimallyadequate.com/
BIN News
Always Flair and Balanced
By Girl Sailor on September 12th, 2008 at 7:58 am
“though my understanding is that SC’s “basic†is roughly the same as what most states count “proficientâ€Â
Exactly the point. Parents in SC have no way in hell of really understanding how their kids match up to other students around the nation. We pretty much have to depend on what the Ministry of Failure and Non Competition ( as Will so appropriately calls it) tells us is the case. What we can all know is that public schools here have half their students drop out before graduating, and that by and large the students enrolled in them do not do as well on college entrance tests as their peers in other states.This new test is going to be hand-crafted by Rex and his pals to get the maximum number of students into some kind of low expectation “passing” category, and we will still not have a good idea of how they are really objectively doing.
By Nick on September 12th, 2008 at 10:44 am
BIN News,
Simply put, that state education system takes money from both the poor and wealthy for funding its failed education system. From my perspective it hurts the poor more…because they have less money to give and the funding/taxation sources are regressive in nature. Unfortunately, your comments about Sic Willie having a silver spoon protruding from his rear promote a class warfare mentality about the whole thing….even if it’s true he has such a utensile problem.
There is a good case to be made the current system hurts the poor people far more than those who can already afford to put their kids into a private school. Hence the incredible hypocrisy of the good Mr. Smith in regard to his stance in The State/Socialista. Basically saying, “yes we need public schools….I just won’t be sending my kids to them”.
By virtue of your own comments, and those of an actual teacher in the system under the fitnews article “Mr. Smith vs The Media” comment section there is acknowledgment that the system is not working. I don’t beleive that is in much dispute by anyone here.
That being said, the real question is what to do to fix it. So you either give the failed system MORE money, which itself is a source of debate morally speaking-(when you take from others to give to other people for whatever reason…sometimes referred to as “theft”) and hasn’t worked in the past…or you do something different.
(notwithstanding the fact that when you rate what taxpayers pay for the system based on SC average income we come in at #15 in the US….versus #37 in actual score acheivement)
Let’s look at a SC private school specifically:
http://richardwinn.org/winnsite/?page_id=391
Notice that the annual tuition for a K5 to Senoir is $4668. (It’s less for lower grade or multiple students/same family attending)
Does that number not astound you? Let me be generous and say the state is spending $8000/year per student(we all know it’s more). That represents a difference of 42%….for a better education none the less.
The potential savings for SC taxpayers when you factor in family discounts is simply incredible. Additionally if the free markets were allowed to exist you can bet private schools would get even less expensive as the laws of supply and demand take over. Remember free markets? Something the US used to beleive in before 1913….
Even further…if we had a “voucher” sytem that gave a credit of say $4500/year per student…and you didn’t like what was happening in the school your child was attending…YOU WOULD HAVE A CHOICE and be able to switch schools with minimum of hassle.
I truly don’t even understand how this even is an argument to anyone….
By baker on September 12th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Here’s something fascinating. The other day, Will touted the conservative editorializing of Mike Smith at the Spartanburg Herald-Journal. Will in fact described the Herald-Journal as having the “one mainstream media editorial board in South Carolina that has consistently advanced common sense reforms over the past decade.”
Today, the Herald-Journal had this to say about PACT scores and Will’s good friends at SCRG:
http://www.goupstate.com/article/20080912/NEWS/809120310/1128/opinion&title=Belittling_progress
Belittling progress
Higher test scores are good, no matter how you view them
It’s become a regular pattern over the past few years: The state Department of Education releases a set of test scores – ACT, SAT, PACT – that shows improvement by South Carolina students, and South Carolinians for Responsible Government follows with a news release that attempts to turn the good news bad.
It happened again this week. State education officials reported that the state showed marked improvement in proficient and advanced scoring across the board in 2008, the final year of PACT administration in the state’s public schools.
South Carolina students scored higher on the tests. More of them met the proficient standard and more met the advanced standard. The numbers of students meeting those standards aren’t as high as we’d like, but the movement is in the right direction.
It’s still not good enough for those pushing to use taxpayers’ funds to send kids to private schools. SCRG, which refuses to let South Carolinians know who funds its efforts, sent out its news release explaining why the improvement was actually a failure.
The group’s thinking is that since the scores of eighth-graders aren’t as high as third-graders, “social promotion of unqualified students remains a major problem in public schools.” Of course, that conclusion is unwarranted. There could be a host of reasons why eighth-grade scores are lower than third-grade scores, but the group isn’t really interested in the reasons. It’s interested in running down the state’s public schools, no matter what the results show.
SCRG says it is targeting the state-run public school system, the bureaucracy. But it’s belittling and denigrating the success of students in public schools. It continually demeans the job done by the teachers in those schools.
The group is pushing for school choice. Fine. But does that have to mean continually finding nothing to praise in our public schools, even when test scores rise?
The group can use all its money – wherever it comes from – to push for voucher programs for private schools. But it doesn’t have to continually undermine the morale of and confidence in the state’s public schools.
There is a lot of work to be done in our schools. Graduation rates are too low and dropout rates too high. Too many scores don’t compare well with levels in other states.
But when scores are rising and progress is being made, it isn’t helpful to anyone to deny that progress or reject it as insignificant “incremental” progress.
Give students and their teachers some credit for the success they’ve achieved.
By fitsnews on September 12th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Baker,
The link would have sufficed, dude. You don’t have to clutter our comment page with copying and pasting.
We stand by what we said about Mike, but obviously nobody gets it 100% right 100% of the time – well except for Sic Willie.
Look, even a rare voice of common sense on fiscal issues can have his head up his ass on education policy, and based on Mike’s interpretation of the PACT results, that’s obviously the case here.
-FITSNews
By Scared of the System on September 12th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
BIN-
They have been saying, lets just fix the system since I was in high school and it has gotten considerably worse here. Now my kids are school age, do you suggest I put them in a school that no SC elected official would put their child in and give the state another 12 years to try “improve” the system? Sorry I don’t have the confidence in the system to sacrifice the education of my children.
Meanwhile there are good schools within 30 minutes my kids don’t have the right to go to. This is all because we can’t afford to live across an abitrary boarder line drawn to ensure that a majority of folks will be content and our rural minority can be ignored. You seriously think this helps the poor and minorities? The only people that want to keep status quo are the teachers union, the rich that want to be in exclusive private schools and the people that already have adequate schools. That leaves me in a sad minority that will never be given any choice.
By baker on September 12th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Ooops. Sorry about that, Will.
I suppose it isn’t likely for folks to agree all the time on everything. I think reasonable people — even those in public education — would agree that the PACT results are a mixed bag….we’re happy to see improvement, but NO ONE is claiming we’re where we need to be.
I know you and SCRG won’t agree with that, but one thing I find interesting in this editorial is the HJ’s general stance on SCRG and its whole deal — pretty scathing.
By baker on September 12th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Scared wrote this: “Meanwhile there are good schools within 30 minutes my kids don’t have the right to go to.”
Scared — If I’m not mistaken, Jim Rex pushed for the sort of choice you’re complaining that you don’t have.
I think Mark Sanford vetoed it.
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