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New and Interesting . . . .

This website uses the term "neighborhood school" rather than the terms  "not-charter school" or "not-a-charter school" or "regular school" or "traditional  school" for comparative data analyses and reports.

The content and format of this website are "under construction." Please be patient!

School Reform . . . .

new file icon"A Close Look at Don't Fail Idaho's Student Achievement Message." 
PowerPoint Show (950kb) or PDF (500kb)

 

Current notes about school reform in Idaho:
p1304o71  Idaho Education Field Guide confuses the issue by using NAEP Proficient
p1304051 Histograms and percentile ranks for Idaho's White students vs. national peers
p1304181  No difference in NAEP Proficiency for Idaho charter vs. neighborhood schools

NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) Notes . . . .

Misuse of NAEP results promotes wariness of American public schools!

Much of the dissatisfaction with student achievement in public schools springs from the improper use of results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to compare states or to "confirm" state testing results. The two most frequent abuses are (1) using NAEP scores based on student samples to rank order the fifty states and (2) comparing NAEP's 1990 definition of above-grade-level proficient with a state's 2001 "NCLB required" definition of at-grade-level proficient. To better understand these unfortunate errors, browse through two short,  peer-reviewed papers available online at http://pareonline.net/genpare.asp?wh=4&abt=stoneberg

This problem is illustrated in Idaho In Focus: The School Choice and Digital Learning Landscape, released in 2013 by the Albertson Foundation.  NAEP results were used in this report to "rank order" Idaho's charter and neighborhood schools without regard to the uncertainty in NAEP data that is inherent in sampling procedures.  Click here for evidence and comments regarding how NAEP scores were misused in the report.

A non-statistical way to understand NAEP achievement levels.

The English language descriptors in the table below were gleaned from various NAEP publications that used them to describe and clarify the meaning of the NAEP achievement levels. The descriptors seem also to relate to grades students might receive for their classroom performance.

Achievement Levels  English Language Descriptors Used to Explain the NAEP Achievement Levels Classroom Grades
Advanced   A to A+
Proficient Some of the best students you know
Many words and terms above grade level
Mastery of complex material
Higher than grade-level performance
B+ to A
Basic Proficiency in subject (common language meaning)
Overall understanding of grade-appropriate text
More than minimal competency
C- to B
Below Basic Minimal competency F to D+

Source: Stoneberg (2007), p.4.  See also Ravitch blog (2012).


Data Display(s) of Interest . . . .

per-pupil spending 2009-2010

School Improvement Surveys . . . .

The K-12 survey instruments for students, staff and parent offered here were developed, adapted, and/or revised by Oregon classroom teachers in the Albany and Ontario school districts in the mid-1980s and 1990s. They are not intended for commercial use. They are made available here for free use by educators who want to assemble "quick and dirty" data to support their school improvement decisions and activities. No scoring service is currently available, but model printouts are provided to guide self-scoring.

Click here for the K-12 "quick and dirty" surveys:
• Opinion Survey for Students (OSS, Grades 6-12)
• Opinion Survey for Parents (OSP, Grades 6-12)
• Instructional Quality Survey (IQS, All Staff, K-12)
• Student Opinion Questionnaire (SOQ, Grades 1-9)
• Parent Opinion Questionnaires (POQ, Grades 1-9