Mississippi Department of Education employees inflated school ratings, e-mails from within MDE show.
In August 2011, MDE's former director of its Office of Research and Statistics (ORS) told an MDE contract worker via e-mail he arbitrarily changed school ratings to make certain schools look more successful than they actually were. Some ratings alternations were made at the request of superintendents.
MDE now uses a ratings scale of "A-F" to tell parents and students how good their schools are. Previously, schools were rated on a seven-label scale beginning with "Star School" and ending with "Failing." School ratings are determined by the state's "accountability model," a system of complex computations traditionally comprising three parts: Student achievement, growth, and high school completion.
Due to the complexity of this evaluation process, people not intimately involved in deriving the student data or making the calculations cannot understand the accountability model and how the schools are rated.
After writing, "I swear I think someone gave out stupid pills this year by the truck load," Thompson specifically mentions appeals made by Jackson Public Schools, Hinds County schools, and Tupelo schools. Thompson ends the e-mail saying he let some schools have higher ratings than they had earned because changing the ratings made a difference in the school's ultimate rating label. Others he changed because he was "too tired to fight."
On Aug. 18, 2011 at 4:27 p.m. Thompson wrote to Hebbler via e-mail:
"I just finished wading through the appeals. We received 33 appeals but it was mostly garbage. I swear I think someone gave out stupid pills this year by the truck load.
"Jackson Public Schools decided they didn't like the grade-level of 45 students so they want them excluded just because they think they are too old to be in the grade that JPS placed them.
"Hinds County thinks we should apportion proficiency rather than use FAY so they sent pages of students to apportion.
"Tupelo just can't read and sent pages of students that they claimed weren't in the SLAIF.
"And the list goes on...
"Some appeals were close enough to valid that I let them have them since it made a difference in the school. Some I let have them just because I'm too tired to fight. There were several errors by schools miscoding test forms that resulted in Pearson restoring the assessments. Arthur is working on getting those results updated. We will have a few MAAECF scoring appeals to change as well. Arthur is going to get those results from Susan in Student Assessment."DeSoto County School District ratings alteration
One specific alteration that Thompson made was for the DeSoto County School District. Thompson used an incorrect graduation rate to make a school look better.
"I noticed all the graduate rates were different than the Final Results I received. The District's graduation rate is listed at 76.1% and the Final Results said 74.6%. Which one is correct? Also, so I guess we will not have time to get that other student moved from Southaven Intermediate School?"
Thompson replied to Kuykendall later that day:
"Consequently, I used the incorrect (graduation) rate since it was most advantageous to the district."
Smith County request for ratings alteration
One school administrator who specifically requested an inflation of his school's rating is the now-retired principal of Mize Attendance Center within the Smith County School District. Former principal David Burris e-mailed Thompson on Aug. 25, 2011, saying that his school deserved to receive a higher rating than the "Academic Watch" it had earned:
"1. We are a small country school and we work really hard to get high achievement. We push very hard to get into high performing if we can.
"2. We view Star School as an 'A.' We view Higher Performing as an (sic) 'B.' We view Successful as 'C.' We view Academic Watch as a 'D.' Which for us is unsatisfactory in every way.
"3. Regardless of how the numbers are crunched, our performance is right in line between High Performing and Successful. Our students, parents, and teachers do not deserve to be labeled at 'Academic Watch.'
"Again, we thank you for your consideration and hope you will see our request favorably."
This is a sponsored post by Bigger Pie Forum. BPF purchased distribution rights on Jackson Jambalaya.
11 comments:
I figured there was no way Clinton got an "A" rating...
Clinton isn't a part of Hinds. Besides, I don't see an email saying otherwise.
Accurate numbers, transparency, and standards are the basis of good governance. Governor Bryant should take take some kind of action since his accountability initiatives are dependent on proper reporting by agencies.
So MDE is gaming the system to make schools+districts look better than actual performance. Will we get a statement of condemnation out of either Cecil Brown or David Blount? Doubt it.
BPF posted this a week ago. That it's getting no run is appalling.
Achronyms, Schmackronyms. Who is BPF?
You pose a good question 4:42. BPF is "Bigger Pie Forum", a blog site that generally is pretty good and you ought to check out. However, be prepared to have to read one-sided diatribe about Kemper County Plant and MPC every other day or so. Otherwise, has some good stuff there on crap like this that goes on in and around state government.
It's true there is another side to the Kemper story, but no one is talking about it cause would be nonsense, like defending Harvey on the city's debt in the next post. If you can figure out how to spin a plant that's $3B and rising, and its subsequent rate increases as being good for any county other than Kemper, you should contact MPC. They pay well and have money to burn.
But; Back to Miltie Kuykendal. Don't overlook the fact that although someone ELSE fudged the numbers, that other person flat out told Miltie in the email that he did it. Therefore, can we spell *complicit*?
Waiting for KF to publish the shotgun email Milton K. will send to all employees notifying them of the inaccuracy. Surely it's on the way. Well? Surely.
This story made it to the CL today (they did give Bigger Pie credit for getting the emails).
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