Re: error, typo?

["Arthur Hu" <arthurhu@attbi.com>]

Remember, 40% scoring below grade level is only 10 points behind
"omigod, 50% of students are scoring below grade level" when grade
level is DEFINED as the level at which the first 50% of students
perform.

I can remember the original CLAS math test, finding it really odd
that not only no schools scored the top "4" score, but zero students,
even in the best examination schools were getting the top math score.

Turns out I heard Maureen DiMarco later tell the WA legislators that
when she was in charge, her people told her that they decided at the
start to not award a "4" to anybody, even if they got all the problems
right, to leave room for "growth" in scores.

Still reminds me of the MIT joke about the test that was so hard
that everybody was below average.

-----Original Message-----
From: arn-l-owner@interversity.org
[mailto:arn-l-owner@interversity.org]On Behalf Of Csubstance@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 7:55 AM
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Subject: Re: [arn-l] error, typo?



In a message dated 6/3/03 5:15:38 PM, gbracey@erols.com writes:

<< I presume by now someone has called attention to an apparent
contradiction
in today's story about reading scores in Chicago.


In the 2nd par., the story says that only 41% of the students were at or
above the national norm.


Four paragraphs later, the story claims that "no student tested in grade
three through eight could hit the national norm."  I presume "school" is the
proper word, not "student."   >>

Jerry, this mystery is typical of the way the Sun-Times does its thing.

You should contact them directly and try to get an answer.

Substance is publishing the school-by-school data for more than 400
elementary schools and charters, and the paper will be mailed to subscribers
tomorrow.
I'm sending you the charts today (19 pages).

The problems are these:

1. The official CPS report renders the data as the "average" of ITBS
"reading" and "math" scores for grades "three through eight."

2. The official CPS report claims that those schools on the lists are those
"serving general populations" when the list combines the magnet schools and
gifted schools with schools serving special populations without making any
note
of those important facts. For example, my son Danny's elementary school
(Beaubien) has roughly 16 classrooms of "non-gifted" and nine classrooms of
"gifted"
kids (who are admitted by IQ test in kindergarten or first grade), yet
nothing
on the charts indicates this to the casual reader.

3. In addition to not indicating special and selective enrollment schools,
the data also leaves off the all-important "N". Nowhere in these numbers
does
the school board tell you how many children were tested this year, last
year, or
any of the years going back to the beginning of the data (which are now
stuck
in 1997 to avoid some things I used to show using the charts that went back
further, like the stuff I showed at AERA before they blacklisted us about
bumps
at certain schools).

I'm hoping this time that more people from outside of Chicago will take a
cold look at the Chicago data, both in the form we present it to you and in
the
form you can get it on the Websites of the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago
Tribune.

Chicago, like Texas, was a model for the nation.

Chicago produced the anecdotals in two State of the Union addresses by Bill
Clinton.

Texas produced the Bush version.

Both are nonsense, and its time to start peeling them off.

Tired after editing and doing production for five days and nights,

George Schmidt
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