The State Department of Education has published the 2011-12 accreditation data (based on 2010-11 testing) on its web site.
As a reminder: There are four stages of
accreditation. The official definitions are
here.
In short, "Warning" means the school flunked but for fewer than
four years
running.
"Denied" means the school flunked for at least four years running.
"Conditional" indicates a new school (in Richmond, Patrick Henry
last year) or a school
that is being "reconstituted." The Ed. Dept's
FAQ page tells us that a school being reconstituted is one for
which accreditation has been denied, i.e., a school with a history of
at least four years of flunking, and whose School Board has applied to VDOE
to reconstitute the school.
Richmond Sags
Last year, the Richmond Richmond schools were fully accredited (the "conditional" was the new Patrick Henry, for which there were no data):
| State | Richmond | |
| Accreditation Denied | 4 | |
| Accredited with Warning | 15 | |
| Conditionally Accredited | 17 | 1 |
| Fully Accredited | 1814 | 45 |
| Grand Total | 1850 | 46 |
This year, Patrick Henry did just fine.
Richmond, in contrast, took a nosedive.
| State | Richmond | |
| Accreditation Denied | 2 | |
| Accredited with Warning | 30 | 5 |
| Conditionally Accredited | 5 | |
| Fully Accredited | 1768 | 41 |
| Provisionally Accredited - Graduation Rate | 30 | |
| To Be Determined | 3 | |
| Grand Total | 1838 | 46 |
How did 11% of Richmond schools go from full accreditation to warning? Easy: Last year the General Assembly passed HB304, which forced the Superintendent to pull her head out of the sand and become "concerned" about the large numbers of students taking the VGLA. The Superintendent then required "training" in divisions with VGLA populations of 25% or more. HB304, in contrast, required an annual justification that includes evidence that every student considered for the VGLA meets the criteria for inclusion. The effect was dramatic: With the cheating curtailed, the VGLA scores dropped, dragging the overall state scores down a point on both the reading and math tests. Richmond, which had been a leader in abusing the VGLA, dropped three points on the reading test and six points on the math test.
There also is a new requirement this year: Full accreditation requires an 85 on the "graduate completer index." Armstrong, Marshall, and Wythe bombed this requirement with scores of 65, 72, and 70, respectively.
In fact, the Richmond situation is even worse than the accreditation numbers might suggest. The state cooks the numbers. In one instance they turned a 76.3 and 73.7 into "perfect scores" and embarrassed the Governor.
There is something else going on here. School-wide Title I eligibility starts at 40% poverty, usually measured by the free + reduced lunch program in the school. Carol Wolf points out that, by that standard, all of the Richmond standard high schools qualify for Title I funding but only John Marshall is Title I, and Armstrong is only targeted assistance, not school wide. Wythe, Huguenot, and TJ are not Title I.
| School | F/R % | TITLE I |
| GEORGE W. CARVER ELEM. | 99.41% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| FAIRFIELD COURT ELEM. | 98.54% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| GEORGE MASON ELEM. | 97.29% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| WOODVILLE ELEM. | 96.39% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| OAK GROVE/BELLEMEADE ELEM. | 94.40% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| SUMMER HILL/RUFFIN ROAD ELEM. | 93.20% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| OAK GROVE/BELLEMEADE ANNEX | 92.02% | |
| MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. MIDDLE | 90.62% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| OVERBY-SHEPPARD ELEM. | 90.29% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| BLACKWELL ELEM. | 89.75% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| WESTOVER HILLS ELEM. | 88.54% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| HENDERSON MIDDLE | 88.44% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| CLARK SPRINGS ELEM. | 88.27% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| CHIMBORAZO ELEM. | 87.91% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| MILES JONES ELEM. | 87.29% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| THOMAS C. BOUSHALL MIDDLE | 87.14% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| SWANSBORO ELEM. | 84.01% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| BROAD ROCK ELEM. | 83.67% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| J.E.B. STUART ELEM. | 83.50% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| G.H. REID ELEM. | 83.39% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| GINTER PARK ELEM. | 83.21% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| E.S.H. GREENE ELEM. | 82.11% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| J.L. FRANCIS ELEM. | 81.69% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| BELLEVUE ELEM. | 81.39% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| ELKHARDT MIDDLE | 80.46% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| FRED D. THOMPSON MIDDLE | 79.61% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| ELIZABETH D. REDD ELEM. | 75.24% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| RICHMOND ALTERNATIVE | 73.96% | Title I - Targeted Assistance |
| BINFORD MIDDLE | 69.23% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| FRANKLIN MILITARY ACADEMY | 68.72% | Title I - Targeted Assistance |
| JOHN MARSHALL HIGH | 67.79% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| SOUTHAMPTON ELEM. | 67.32% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| ARMSTRONG HIGH | 66.49% | Title I - Targeted Assistance |
| GEORGE WYTHE HIGH | 66.07% | Not Title I |
| AMELIA STREET SP. ED. | 60.71% | Title I - Targeted Assistance |
| LUCILLE M. BROWN MIDDLE | 60.53% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| ALBERT HILL MIDDLE | 54.95% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| HUGUENOT HIGH | 53.63% | Not Title I |
| JOHN B. CARY ELEM. | 53.27% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| MAYMONT PRE-K CENTER | 51.04% | |
| THOMAS JEFFERSON HIGH | 50.00% | Not Title I |
| LINWOOD HOLTON ELEM. | 45.52% | Title I - School Wide Program |
| J.B. FISHER ELEM. | 42.07% | Not Title I |
| OPEN HIGH | 38.22% | Not Title I |
| RICHMOND COMMUNITY HIGH | 34.81% | Not Title I |
| ADULT CAREER DEV. CTR. | 26.09% | |
| WILLIAM FOX ELEM. | 21.64% | Not Title I |
| MARY MUNFORD ELEM. | 11.95% | Not Title I |
| Patrick Henry School Of Science And Arts | Not Title I |
Why is Richmond foregoing federal money for its high schools? Is this a crude plot to avoid the sanctions of the No Child Left Behind Act? Is this a calculation that many of the poor performers will drop out anyhow so Richmond will put the money where it might do more good? Stay tuned.
Dropouts Keep the Numbers From Being Worse
Richmond saves itself from doing worse only by driving out a third of the kids who enter the ninth grade:
Note: The reports for Richmond, Hampton, and Newport News show "<" for the number of Advanced Studies diplomas for students with disabilities, indicating fewer than ten in each case. I used nine, just to have something to graph. The numbers for students with disabilities in the graph for those divisions thus could be high as much as 4% (the disability populations in the cohorts for the three schools range from 200 to 253). That is, awful as the numbers are for those divisions, especially Richmond, the actual numbers probably are worse.
Notice those are old data. I write this on 10/2/11 but VDOE has not yet bothered to post the 2011 data.
These data, juxtaposed with the awful dropout rate, emphasize (again) the magnitude of our very expensive failure.