“Performance Comparisons for Alabama’s Largest School Systems”
Remarks by Jim Williams
Executive Director, Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama
To Mobile County School System Administrators and Leadership Mobile
January 17, 2008
Title Slide
We talk a lot about school performance, often without being very focused about what the key factors are, or very consistent from year to year so that we can really track improvements. In my judgment, you have to concentrate on a few key goals and then manage – or, better, LEAD – to succeed in any organization. I’m going to focus today on three key areas:
· The first is spending. Spending in any organization ought to be focused on the mission, which in this case is student achievement. I have comparative data from school system financial reports for 2006 to share with you, taking advantage of the standard accounting definitions that Alabama, as well as the rest of the country, follows. Our question will be: How does the Mobile School System compare in its spending focus?
· Area two is state reading and math test results in grades 3 through 8. Not just in terms of overall averages, but rather in terms of the performance of socioeconomic and ethnic subgroups, including those that historically have underperformed the average. You don’t have to buy into the No Child Left Behind law “hook, line, and sinker” to recognize that it is critical to succeed with all types of students. I have comparative data on Alabama Reading and Math Test results from spring 2007 to share with you, and we’ll be looking at poverty and non-poverty subgroup scores, as well at White and Black subgroup scores. Our question will be: How does Mobile compare in terms of the performance of each subgroup against its own statewide average, and then in terms of narrowing the gap between poverty and non-poverty students, and between Black and White students.
· The third key area is preparation for higher education. We’ll look at one measure of the graduation rate, and at how Mobile compares on the ACT college entrance exam score. Here, because of data limitations, we’re just looking at the question of how Mobile compares to the statewide figures.
WHO WE’LL COMPARE MOBILE’S PERFORMANCE AGAINST
Slide 2
Now, comparisons are only valid if you’re comparing “apples to apples.” Mobile is the largest school system in Alabama; it’s also primarily an urban school system. Today I’m going to focus on how Mobile compares with the other large school systems in Alabama. Here are their characteristics: they are the twelve school systems in Alabama with 10,000 or more students. The other 11 systems in this group are more comparable to the Mobile system than, say, the Linden system that has fewer than 1,000 students. Some of these 11 systems are urban and others suburban in character, and I’m going to show you why this distinction is relevant. They are located in 5 metropolitan areas of the state, and we have one urban system for each of the 5, plus one or more suburban systems.
I am about as familiar with the numbers on these school systems as any outsider can be, but I’m no expert on the Mobile system or any of the other 11 in the comparison group. As I go through the slides, I’m going to be joined by Carolyn Akers who will put a Mobile face on the slides from time to time and help me to focus on the aspects that are relevant to you, that I might otherwise miss.
I need to say one more thing about these comparisons: the numbers are indicators, not conclusions. They raise questions, they don’t answer them. They focus our attention on potential issues, but it takes further study to know how important an issue is. There is no such thing as a perfect school system. Every system has issues to deal with; the important thing is to identify them and get to work on them. No bad comparison is permanent, nor can anybody rest on the laurels from a good comparison. We ought to celebrate successes and focus on weaknesses, without casting premature blame. I hope we can take these comparisons in that spirit today.
Slide 3
Here are the 12 systems arranged by the number of students in average daily membership. Mobile is the largest school system in the state, almost twice as large as its 3 closest peers and six times as large as the smallest systems in our comparison group. Nevertheless, at 10,000 students and up these 12 all share characteristics that others in Alabama with fewer than 10,000 students don’t. I’m going to highlight Mobile in red in all of the spending charts to come, for ease of identification.
Slide 4
This chart shows the percentage of students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals in the 12 school systems we are comparing. Note that there are four at the top of the comparison with 65 to 80 percent of students qualifying, including Mobile. These four systems, Birmingham, Mobile County, Montgomery County, and Tuscaloosa City, are clearly what I would call “urban” school systems based on their student characteristics. I’m going to identify the others in green consistently, along with Mobile in red, so we can readily see how Mobile compares with this urban subgroup of large school systems in Alabama. I’m going to add Huntsville to that group, even though its overall free-lunch percentage is lower, because it shares the urban character of the bigger four in many ways; it just happens to be located in a young, relatively high-income, mid-sized metropolitan area. This gives us five urban systems for the five metropolitan areas in our comparison group. The other seven school systems, which I’ll show in gray, are suburban in character, one feature of which is a lower percentage of free and reduced-price lunch students.
Slide 5
Now I want to run quickly through the 12 to pair them up for you by metropolitan area.
In the Mobile area, we have of course the Mobile County and Baldwin County systems, one urban and the other suburban. While Mobile is much larger, Baldwin County has a sizeable system by Alabama standards.
Slide 6
In the Birmingham area, we have the urban Birmingham City system and three suburban systems, Jefferson County, Shelby County, and Hoover. Two are very close to Birmingham in size; Hoover is smaller but growing fast.
Slide 7
In the Montgomery area, we have the urban Montgomery County system and the suburban Elmore County system, with a substantial size differential.
Slide 8
In the Huntsville area, we have the urban Huntsville City system and the suburban Madison County system, which are very close in the number of students but in the lower half of our size group.
Slide 9
In the Tuscaloosa area, we have the urban Tuscaloosa City system and the suburban Tuscaloosa County system, with the suburban system being the larger of the two.
These are not all of the school systems in the five areas, just the largest. And it is convenient for comparative purposes that they divide so neatly into urban and suburban pairs.
Slide 10
Let me show you the differences in growth characteristics for the urban and suburban pairs in the 5 metropolitan areas, which affects their spending as I’m going to show. I have used two scales on these charts to put the school systems at about the same starting point in 2001, so that you can see directly the variation in growth between the urban systems, which are in red and generally are either stable or declining in the number of students, and the suburban systems, which are in blue and are growing.
A growing school system tends to outrun its costs; it tends to look low-cost when we look at spending per student, because new students are added into the denominator each year. But that also means that it continually needs to add resources – more teachers, more classrooms, etc. On the other hand, a declining school system is always facing the need to cut back, because it needs fewer classrooms, fewer teachers, fewer administrators, etc. Each of these situations has its managerial challenges.
Let’s look at the growth situations of our 12 systems.
Here we see Mobile in red and Baldwin County in blue. The scales are different, Mobile on the left and Baldwin on the right, but you don’t need to focus on that; just look at the apparent difference in growth rates for the two lines. Mobile is relatively stable but Baldwin has been growing.
Slide 11
Here we see Birmingham in red and the three suburban systems in blue, gold, and green. Jefferson County in blue declined because the Trussville system broke off in 2006; and it is the lone system of the group that hasn’t followed the general suburban growth pattern. Hoover and Shelby County follow the general pattern more closely. Unless the trends change, the Shelby system will overtake Birmingham within a few short years.
Slide 12
Here we have Montgomery County in red and the suburban Elmore County system in blue. Montgomery is declining but Elmore is not growing as fast as the other suburban systems we’ve just seen. It is not a well-financed system like many other suburban systems are, and maybe that has something to do with it.
Slide 13
But now, the Madison County system is taking off like a rocket! The Huntsville system in red is stable.
Slide 14
In many ways the most interesting of these size comparisons is the one in the Tuscaloosa area. I have gone back further in time to give you a more complete picture. Like other suburban systems, the Tuscaloosa County system, in blue, has shown steady growth. The Tuscaloosa City system, in red, was losing its student population as recently as the late 1990s, but it has turned that around. It would take more study to dig into how that has occurred and whether it will continue, but my point today is simply that student population trends are not written in stone, and they can be turned around if the schools become more attractive.
Slide 15
Now let’s look at our first indicator, which is spending per student. We want to look at how well these 12 systems focus spending to produce results. Our data come from the FY 2006 financial reports of the various systems, which we obtained from the State Department of Education.
Slide 16
Here’s how we define spending. We include all of what is known as “core” academic expenditures. They are divided into two broad categories:
The first is instruction-related spending, which generally ought to be as high as possible in a school system, to maximize academic results. This includes direct instruction, which goes for teachers, classroom supplies, aides, and so on. It also includes instructional support expenditures -- the principal’s office, the library, instructional technology, counselors, nurses, academic supervisors, and other activities that support the instructional program directly.
The second type of spending is for facilities and administration. Facility operation and maintenance covers custodians, maintenance, utilities, security, and other activities that create a clean and safe learning environment. General administration includes the school board and central office that exist to manage the system well. Generally we want these facility and administrative activities to be adequately resourced, but minimized so that all the so-called “fat” is squeezed out.
Both of these types of core activities need to be done well; the objective is not to be low on one and high on the other, but rather efficient and effective in both.
I have excluded food service and transportation because they would distort the academic comparisons we want to focus on. It is important to transport students to school and feed them, but these are not part of the academic core of a school system. They should be evaluated, but on their own merits as auxiliary enterprises. Rural school systems, for example, spend a lot on transportation; urban systems often don’t. Mixing these variations with the academic data just muddies the water; they need to be done separately.
Slide 17
A typical Alabama school system that spends $7,000 per student on core academic activities is what we might call an “84 / 16” system, which is explained in this pie chart. Look at the two blue sections: the system spends 66% on instruction and 18% on instructional support, for a total of 84%. Now look at the yellow sections: the system spends 11% on facility operations and 5% on central administration, for a total of 16% on non-instructional activities. This gives it a “tooth to tail” ratio of 84 to 16, which is an indicator of spending focus.
Slide 18
Mobile’s tooth to tail ratio is “80 / 20,” based on the 2006 financial data: in the blue, instruction at 60% and instructional support at 20%, for a total of 80%. That is 4 points below the statewide instruction-related figure. And in the yellow, facilities at 13% and administration at 7%, for a total of 20%, which is 4 points above the statewide figure. This is just an indicator, remember, but it suggests that we look at the non-instructional numbers and see if they can’t be moved toward the statewide average for a system with the same spending level as Mobile.
Slide 19
Let’s look in more detail at how Mobile’s core expenditures compare with the 11 other large systems in Alabama, which is shown in the bars of the next few charts, and with all 130 of the other school systems in the state, which is shown by the numbers over here on the right of the chart. This chart shows core expenditures per student. Mobile is right in the middle of the 12 large systems, at just under $7,000 per student; it ranks 42nd overall among the 131 school systems in Alabama. Two other large urban systems spend a lot more per student – Birmingham and Huntsville. Baldwin County ranks fourth among the large systems and 16th overall within the state. Montgomery County, just below Mobile, is right at the middle of all Alabama school systems. So Mobile does not spend a lot of money per student in total.
Slide 20
Now we look just at the instruction-related expenditures per student, instruction on the left and instructional support on the right. Do you notice that Mobile ranks lower here? All four of the other large urban systems spend more, and Mobile ranks 84th among the 131 systems statewide – a slippage of 42 spots. Baldwin County spends $675 per student more on instruction; Birmingham and Huntsville are about $1,000 per student ahead in this category. So, Mobile doesn’t spend high overall, and when we look at instruction-related spending, the rankings slip further.
Slide 21
Here we look at percentages of core spending that go to instruction-related activities, and Mobile slips all the way to the bottom of the ranking for the 12 large systems in Alabama. Note that all of the large urban systems rank in the bottom half of the 12, and of the 131 systems statewide; but Mobile ranks especially low, putting only 80% into instruction-related activities. Looking within this at the direct instructional percentage of 60 on the left, only Birmingham has a lower percentage among the 12. Baldwin County also is relatively low in the instruction-related percentage. Again, this is only an indicator, but it suggests looking for ways to increase the money allocated for instructional activities within the Mobile system.
Slide 22
Now, if we turn to the facility and administrative side of the ledger, we find that on a per-student basis Mobile ranks third among the 12, and 18th within the state. Birmingham and Huntsville, which are the highest-spending large urban systems, rank even higher than Mobile in the non-instructional area. Baldwin County is only marginally lower than Mobile, but the pattern is different. Mobile is particularly high in the administrative area, Baldwin in the facility operations area.
Slide 23
Percentagewise, Mobile ranks first among the 12 in the non-instructional category, at just over 20%. Its percentages for both facilities and administration are high, and the overall rank is 6th statewide. Birmingham and Huntsville are not far behind. Baldwin County is high on the facility percentage but not the administrative percentage.
Slide 24
If we home in on administrative expenditures directly, Mobile and Birmingham spend over $450 per student, which far exceeds the other large systems. Note, however, that all of the large urban systems are at the top of the rankings. Administrative spending tends to accumulate, particularly where there is no student growth to ‘’outrun” it. The upshot of this is that the administrative area appears to offer the best opportunity for savings that might result in increased instructional spending in the Mobile system. Again, this is only an indicator, and there may be good explanations; but the data point in that direction for starters. Since Mobile does not spend as much per student on core activities as its neighbor in Baldwin County or large urban systems like Birmingham and Huntsville, it is particularly important to focus the dollars available on instruction-related activities.
Slide 25
One area where Mobile has done much better than the other four large urban systems in the state is in right-sizing its facilities. This is a particularly difficult issue for urban systems, where student decline may create the need to close facilities that are no longer viable; Birmingham and Huntsville are facing such issues right now. This chart shows the number of schools for every 1,000 students. Mobile is at 1.44 schools per 1,000 students, or an average school size of just under 700. The four other urban systems are up at the top, and Birmingham and Huntsville have average school sizes around 500.
SUCCESS WITH ALL TYPES OF STUDENTS
Slide 26
Now, let’s turn to the second indicator area, statewide test scores in reading and math.
Here we’re going to find that Mobile does substantially better than the other large urban systems in Alabama. Alabama tests reading and math in grades 3 through 8, and we’re going to look at them all in a focused way.
Slide 27
Here’s how we measure success on those tests. We look at the percentage of students performing at Level IV on a test. The state grades student performance in four levels: students scoring at Level I do not meet the grade-level standard, at Level II they partially meet the standard, at Level III they meet the standard, and at Level IV they exceed the standard. However, these are accountability tests and large majorities score at Levels III and IV. The percentages scoring at Level IV tend to be closer to what we find on the national tests known as “NAEP” and better represent the excellence we seek. So we focus on Level IV results within and across student subgroups, particularly the major ones shown here – poverty and non-poverty students, and White and Black students.
Slide 28
Let me describe the data tables for you, and then show how the Mobile County School
System compares with the other large school systems on the test results from this past
spring. I think you’ll like what you see.
We’re going to look at two tables for each school system. One shows White students and Black students, like this example here. It has test scores for grades 3 through 8 in both Math (the “M”) and Reading (the “R”), for both subgroups. There’s a parallel table that shows Poverty and Non-Poverty students side by side, just like this table.
Slide 29
Each one of the tables shows the percent of test-takers in each grade who were from the subgroup. Here, for example, 72.5% of the test-takers in 3rd grade math were White students, and 22.8 % were Black students. The remaining 4.7% were from other ethnic subgroups. Looking at these percentages tells us something about the diversity of the school system.
Slide 30
Each table is specific to a particular school system. The table has test results from that system as well as the statewide average for the particular groups of students covered by the table. So in this case, there would be system results for White students in all of the grades for Math and Reading, and beside that, there would be statewide results for White students on the same tests. And then there would be system results for Black students in all of the grades, and statewide results for Black students right beside them. We color-code the system results to show whether they beat the statewide average for that group of students, which is a green result, or fall below the statewide average, which is a red result. Over on the right, we measure the gap between groups, White and Black in this case, which we want to close. And we’re looking to see if the system has a smaller gap than the state as a whole. There is a similar table for Poverty and Non-Poverty students.
Slide 31
The scores we are looking at in the tables are the percent of students in the subgroup scoring at Level IV on each of the tests, and the percentage-point gap between the subgroups at the system and state levels. The color-coding works like this: if the system’s percent at Level IV is 10 or more points above the state percentage for that subgroup, the cell is colored dark green. It’s light green if the system is from 1 to 9.9 points above the state average. A gray color is too close to call – within plus or minus one point of the state average. Then light red is 1 to 9.9 points below the state average, and dark red is 10 or more points below the state average. On the gaps, if a system beats the state average for both subgroups AND has a smaller gap than the state, it gets a gold-star background identifier over on the right. What we are looking for is green in both columns of system-level test scores and gold in the gap column on the right.
Slide 32
Here’s an example. This unidentified system does very well with its White students. In all but one comparison with the state average for White students, the system is 10 points or more above the statewide figure. You can see that by comparing these two sets of figures. But this system doesn’t do very well with its Black students, which make up about three-fourths of its student body. In every comparison but one, the system’s Black students are below the state average for Black students; and that one is too close to call. There are no gold stars because the system has gaps larger than the state average in every case.
Slide 33
Here’s another example. In this system, non-poverty students don’t do very well compared with their peers across the state. Poverty students do well in Reading compared to their peers, but not in Math.
Had enough examples? Let’s get to the real data, starting with Mobile County.
Slide 34
Here are the results for poverty and non-poverty students. Mobile is a high-poverty system, as shown in these two columns; but remember, we’re comparing each subgroup against its own statewide average. The Mobile non-poverty students out-perform their non-poverty peers statewide in 7 of 12 comparisons; 3 comparisons are red because they’re negative, but only by small percentages, and all of them in the middle grades. Two comparisons are gray because they’re too close to call. The poverty students beat the statewide average for poverty students in every one of the 12 comparisons.
I want to re-emphasize that these results compare non-poverty students to the non-poverty statewide average, and poverty students to the statewide poverty average. You can see that the state averages vary in the two sets of results. The gap between these two subgroup averages is measured over on the right. And since there are 7 comparisons where both the poverty and the non-poverty students in Mobile did better than their statewide subgroup average, we give the system credit where the gap between the two subgroup percentages is below the statewide gap for those subgroups. In all 7 cases, Mobile had a smaller gap than the state, bringing these two student subgroups closer together while getting high performance in both. This is what we’re after.
Slide 35
Here you see the results for the White and Black students in Mobile as compared to their peers, and the gaps between these two groups. The results are very similar to the ones we just saw. There are only 2 red comparison cells among the 24 in this table, neither of them far below the state average, and both in the middle school grades. And there are 7 gold cells for gap-closing in this table just as there were in the prior table, indicating a narrower gap between Black and White students than the statewide gap.
Mobile’s performance is better than that of any of the other four large urban school systems in Alabama, by far. That includes Birmingham and Huntsville, which are substantially better funded. And it is better than that of all but one of the large suburban systems as well.
Slide 36
Here I have created a scorecard to demonstrate what I have just said. You see the large urban and suburban systems down the left side. For each system I have counted the number of green comparison cells, which are favorable to the system; the number of gray cells, which are too close to call; the number of red cells, in which the system underperforms the statewide average for a subgroup; and the number of gold cells, where there is a narrow gap and high performance for a pair of student subgroups. I have added together the results for all four student subgroups, to get a summary. Mobile has the second-highest number of green cells for any of the 12 large school systems in the state. It is much higher than any other large urban system, and trails only Hoover among the suburban systems. Baldwin, Madison, and Shelby are all close to Mobile, but trail by a few green cells. Mobile also has the second lowest number of red cells in the comparison; look at the size of the negative comparisons in the other urban systems, for example. Again Mobile trails only Hoover in this column. And in terms of closing the gap between student subgroups, Mobile ranks first among all of the large school systems in the state in the gold-cell comparisons. These are truly results to celebrate!\
Slide 37
Now I’m going to take you quickly through the other large systems’ results. First, let’s look at the other urban systems. Here is Birmingham’s Poverty versus Non-poverty table: all red in the non-poverty column, indicating below-average results for that subgroup. And 7 of 12 red cells for the poverty group. The gaps between subgroups are often small, but they occur because both sets of results are below average.
Slide 38
The White-Black table for Birmingham shows much better results, particularly for Black students, who beat the state average for that student subgroup in every grade on the math tests, and are either above the state average or very close in all of the reading comparisons. There are small numbers of White students, and this is probably the cause of the large swings, from very positive to very negative, in the results for that subgroup.
Altogether, there were 12 green comparison cells and 30 red comparison cells in the two Birmingham tables, versus 36 and 5 in Mobile. And Birmingham had one gold gap-closing cell versus Mobile’s 14.
Slide 39
Montgomery County’s poverty group results are generally below average. The non-poverty results are better, but there are only 3 green comparison cells in this table.
Slide 40
Montgomery’s White student subgroup has good results in every grade on both tests, and the Black student subgroup at the elementary level also is uniformly green, but not the 7th and 8th grade results. None of the gaps where there is high performance are small enough to get the gold color.
Altogether, Montgomery had 23 green and 18 red comparison cells, better than all of the other large urban systems except Mobile, which again was 36 and 5.
Slide 41
Huntsville has a consistent pattern in both tables. The performance of non-poverty students is generally very good, except in 3rd grade math; but the poverty students are below their statewide subgroup average in every cell of the table. This means that Huntsville’s poverty students are underperforming in comparison to their poverty-level peers across the state, despite the relatively high funding, the generally low level of poverty for an urban system, and the high performance of non-poverty students, that this system enjoys.
Slide 42
Huntsville’s White students perform very well indeed, particularly in the 6th through 8th grades where many other systems have issues. But again, the Black students get predominantly red results, just as the poverty students did in the last table.
Overall, Huntsville had 22 green and 22 red comparison cells compared with Mobile’s 36 and 5, and Huntsville had no gold gap-closing cells.
Slide 43
Tuscaloosa City is the final large urban system to be compared. The results for poverty students are especially poor, all red and a majority more than 10 points below the statewide average for poverty students.
Slide 44
Tuscaloosa’s White students were stellar performers, exceeding their statewide subgroup average by 10 points or more in every comparison but one. However, the performance of Black students was below the statewide subgroup average in every case but one. The Tuscaloosa pattern in both tables is very similar to what we saw in Huntsville.
The total results from Tuscaloosa showed 15 green and 31 red comparison cells compared to Mobile’s 36 and 5.
Slide 45
Now, let’s look at the large suburban systems. First, the one you’re all interested in: Baldwin County. Here are the results for the poverty and non-poverty subgroups, and they are very good, with only one red comparison cell, and particularly good for 5th grade math. There are 5 gold cells on the right to indicate relatively narrow gaps.
Slide 46
However, in the White-Black table, the results for Black students are generally below the statewide average for that subgroup, even though the White students do very well compared to their peers across the state. This is similar to Tuscaloosa and Huntsville.
Altogether, Baldwin County has 35 green and 11 red comparison cells, compared with Mobile’s 36 and 5. And Baldwin has five gold gap-closing cells compared with Mobile’s 14.
Slide 47
Jefferson County’s performance was the second-worst among the large systems. Here the non-poverty and poverty students underperformed their statewide peer groups in every case except for one gray cell.
Slide 48
The Jefferson County White student subgroup also underperformed in every cell. For Black students, math results were below par, but they did better on the reading tests, particularly in the middle grades.
Overall, Jefferson County had only 3 green comparison cells and 42 red comparison cells.
Slide 49
Shelby County’s poverty vs. non-poverty results indicate weak performance in math for the elementary grades, but a majority of the comparison cells are green thereafter.
Slide 50
Shelby County’s White-student results are strong, as are the results for Black students with two fifth-grade exceptions.
Altogether, Shelby County had 32 green and only 8 red comparison cells, close to Mobile County’s 36 and 5.
Slide 51
Hoover had the best results of all the large systems except for the gap-closing comparisons. Here the results for non-poverty students are a majority of dark green comparisons, and all green for poverty students with one exception. There were 3 gold gap-closing cells.
Slide 52
Hoover’s results for White and Black students were pretty spectacular, with 20 out of 24 comparisons being dark green.
Overall, Hoover had 44 green comparisons, the highest number, and only 1 red comparison. It trailed Mobile in terms of gold gap-closing cells, however, 14 to 6.
Slide 53
Elmore County’s poverty and non-poverty results included 6 green cells, 11 red cells, and 7 gray cells indicating they are getting close to positive in those grades.
Slide 54
The White-Black results for Elmore County were similar to the poverty-non-poverty results, with an even larger number of gray comparison cells.
Overall, there were 11 green and 21 red comparison cells, with 16 gray.
Slide 55
Madison County’s performance was strong, with 34 green comparison cells overall and only 7 red comparison cells. This was close to Mobile’s 36 and 5. Madison also had the second-highest number of gold gap-closing cells, 11 compared to Mobile’s 14. Here you see the non-poverty and poverty subgroups. The reading results are better than the math.
Slide 56
And here you see the White and Black results. Again the reading results are better, and this system is particularly outstanding in its reading results with Black students, which are all more than 10 points better than the state average for that subgroup. Obviously that creates a stellar gap-closing performance as well.
Slide 57
Tuscaloosa County had the lowest results in the comparison group. There were no green comparison cells in either table, and 43 red comparison cells out of 48.
Slide 58
Slide 59
Now I want to turn to the third area of comparison, preparing students for higher education.
Slide 60
We have looked at two indicators. First, the graduation rate, and second, scores on the ACT college entrance exam. If they were available, we would want to look at advanced placement results as well.
Measuring the graduation rate is a controversial thing, in large part because of the lack of detailed student-level data, but obviously no one can go on to higher education without graduating. So we have looked at a practical way of developing an indicator with the data available.
Slide 61
Here’s our method, which seems to work pretty well unless there is a large influx or out-migration of students in the system. This is a statewide chart for Alabama, looking at the graduating class of 2006. Using data from the State Department of Education web site, we look at the number of graduates, counting all diplomas. Then we look back at each grade level, year by year, for the number of students in that class as it moved through the system. What we have found over the years is that grades 1 through 8 provide a good base figure for the size of the class. The ninth grade, which some analysts use, is in my opinion an overstatement of the base because students are often held back in that grade, and you can see the effect in the chart. The average of the number of students from these years provides the universe from which graduates are drawn, and thus an expected number of graduates. In this chart, there were a little over 40,000 graduates from a cohort that numbered about 58,000, which is about a 69 percent graduation rate.
These numbers have been very stable over a period of years. Of course, we have to make the assumption that movements in and out statewide offset each other, but that seems reasonable since the Alabama student count has only changed by about 1% over the last ten years or so. This give us a base against which to gauge local system graduation rates. Is Mobile’s rate better than, or not as good as the statewide rate, calculated in this way?
Slide 62
The answer, using the same methodology, is that Mobile’s rate for the class of 2006 was about 63%, which was lower than the statewide average of 69%. Obviously it is important for the students, the system, and the economy of the metropolitan area to increase the graduation rate and get above the state benchmark.
Slide 63
The second indicator in this area is the average ACT college entrance exam score. Here you see the 2006 scores for the 12 large school systems. Huntsville and Tuscaloosa among the urban systems are high performers, as are several of the suburban systems. Mobile along with two other of the urban systems are at the bottom. The same three have the highest percentages of free and reduced-lunch students among the 12 systems compared.
Slide 64
Here is a look at the data that takes into account the free and reduced lunch percentages – basically the poverty rates – of the various systems. This is not to suggest that all poverty-level students are low performers on this or any other test, or that they can’t do as well as their non-poverty peers. But it does recognize statistical relationships that have existed in the test scores and that we want to overcome. It helps us to consider benchmarks for improvement by starting from where we are with as much accuracy as possible.
Each of the dots in this chart is a school system in Alabama. The average ACT score is shown in the vertical margin on the left. The free and reduced lunch percentage is shown in the horizontal scale across the bottom. There is a strong relationship as you can easily see: the lower the free and reduced lunch percentage, the higher the ACT score in general. But let’s emphasize, there are exceptions. And that’s what we want to focus on. The orange line shows what is in effect the average or expected score at each level of free and reduced lunch percentages. What every school system should want is to be to the right or upper side of that orange line, which is where the higher-performing systems are. I’ve identified our 12 systems in green, and by name.
For example, Baldwin County is right on the line where you’d expect. So is Tuscaloosa county. But Elmore County has a lower ACT average even though its free and reduced lunch percentage is the same as Tuscaloosa County’s. Jefferson County and Madison County are also below where you’d expect them to be, given the level of free and reduced lunch students. Huntsville and Tuscaloosa are well above where you’d expect. Mobile is also above the line, but possibly not as far above as one would hope.
My vote for the stellar performer in this chart is Florence, which is this gray dot ‘way above the line. That’s a system with almost 60% free and reduced lunch students and an ACT average over 22, nipping at the heels of Huntsville and Hoover. Given what Mobile has done on the math and reading tests, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t set yourself a stretch goal to get as high above the statewide regression line as Florence has done. Become the leader in this area, and in terms of the graduation rate as well as the spending focus we discussed earlier – just as you have done in the statewide reading and math tests. I for one have every confidence that you could do it if you set yourselves to the task.