We
learned six years ago that the
Virginia Department of Education (aka VDOE)
was cooking the numbers in the accreditation process.
The manipulation was so blatant that in 2005 it converted a 73.7 math score
at a Covington elementary school into a "perfect
score."
Some of us thought that the federal supervision would reduce the temptation to cook the underlying SOL scores and the No Child Left Behind process.
Some of us
were wrong.
That's
right: VDOE is manipulating the data (and the
AYP and accreditation processes) by
giving the SOL scores of full time students at Governor's Schools to the schools in those students home districts.
As Carol put it, the State is "rewarding the
Superintendents for letting some of their smart kids get a decent education."
In the process VDOE is deceiving the public and the federal
government. It also is
violating Virginia law.
Unearthing the Deception
The
trail starts at the SOL data
on the Web.
Look there for any of the academic-year
Governor's Schools and,
with one exception, you will
be frustrated. I asked the
Education Department about this and their spokesman replied:
Governor’s Schools are regional centers or programs and do not report
membership [what you and I would call
enrollment] to the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE). Students who
attend these programs are included in the average daily membership (ADM) of
the schools they otherwise would have attended in their home division. Only
schools that report membership to VDOE are assigned a school number.
The
assessments of students attending regional centers and programs are coded
with the school numbers of the schools where these students are included in
membership. This is a long-standing practice that pre-dates the Standards of
Learning (SOL) program.
In short, for counting students and reporting
SOL scores, VDOE defines the
Governor's Schools out of existence and
pretends the students there are attending the high schools in their home
districts.
Thus, Sally Student is not counted as a student at the Governor's school where she is a full-time student. But they have to count her somewhere so they count her at the high school in her home district, even though she doesn't attend that school. If you can swallow that, the rest comes easily: Because Sally is not counted at the Governor's School, her SOL scores for the tests she took at the Governor's School get reported at the high school from her home district, even though Sally has never set foot in that school.
We
can expect that Sally tested well on the SOL: Newsweek lists Maggie Walker among
the Public Elites as
too good to compete
for the Top High Schools list.
(Also see data here and
here). Thus,
for sure, the
immediate effect of this VDOE manipulation is to boost the scores of the home
district high schools.
| You might wonder how Maggie Walker Governor's
School for Government and
International Studies, which educates students in
grades 9 through 12, issues diplomas to its
graduates, is governed by a
School Board comprised of representatives from twelve local
school systems, and has been recognized by the
General Assembly "for significant contributions made to
school choice in public
education," might not be a "school." It's particularly hard to see how Maggie Walker is not a school while the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax (actually in Alexandria), also a Governor's School, is a school, not a "center" or "program." The only difference between the two seems to be that the Fairfax school is a County school while Maggie Walker is governed by a regional School Board. Yet you'll find the Fairfax Governor's School scores on the State Web site (its SOL scores are splendid: 100% pass rates on both the English and math tests) but you will look in vain for Maggie Walker. As far as the accreditation process is concerned, 8 VAC 20-131-5 tells us that |
|
"School" means a publicly funded institution where students are
enrolled for all or a majority of the instructional day and: |
There's not much question that Maggie Walker is publicly funded and has its students enrolled for most of the instructional day. The preaccreditation requirements of 8 VAC 20-131-280.F are routine stuff such as appropriate promotion policies and courses that allow students to meet graduation requirements. So it seems that Maggie Walker is not a "school" solely because VDOE doesn't choose to count the Maggie Walker students as students at Maggie Walker. |
|
My Freedom of Information Act request to the VDOE asked for
"[a]ll regulations, policies, or other public records that require
or permit Standards of Learning test scores of students of [Maggie
Walker] to be reported for any other school." They produced
some interesting documents from down in the bureaucracy, but no regulations or policies.
Not even a Superintendent's Memo. That
absence of authority confirms my suspicion that Maggie Walker is
not a "school" solely because VDOE bureaucrats have elected,
in a fully nontransparent manner, to
spread the SOL wealth by not counting the
Maggie Walker students "at the institution." As well, none of the paperwork explains how Maggie Walker got to be a program while the Fairfax Governor's School is a school. Whatever the basis for that decision, it appears they didn't write it down. |
|
The remarks that follow relate to Maggie Walker and any of the other the other sixteen academic-year Governor's Schools (i.e., excluding the Fairfax Governor's School) that offer more than supplementary education to the local districts. |
Mendacity
and
Violations of the Law
This
reporting of SOL scores at a school the student does not attend can
hardly be said to serve the
policy of the Commonwealth to promote transparency in government. Moreover, it
probably is unlawful.
The
Virginia regulation at
8
VAC 20-131-300.C.1.b says that
"Eligible students" means the total number of students of school age
enrolled in the school at a grade or course for which a Standards of
Learning test is required unless excluded under the provisions of
8VAC20-131-30 F and 8VAC20-131-280 D relative to limited English proficient
(LEP) students.
Unless
the State uses a different kind of English than the rest of us, "enrolled in
the school" means enrolled in that high school, not off at the Governor's
School. Thus,
using scores of students not "enrolled in the school" to boost the high
schools' scores is flatly unlawful.
Not to
mention that it also is a bald lie.
The
Tangled Web of Official Deceit
We saw above that VDOE says that miscoding of test scores is a long-standing practice that predates the SOL program. The VDOE employee who told me that is a decent fellow, so I am certain he did not know the statement is not quite true.
A Google
search turns up a
1998-99
report card (link now broken) for a Governors School in Richmond.
Indeed, the address (4100 W. Grace St.) is the address of
TJ, which
until 2001 housed
the
Governor's School
for Government and International Studies (that became Maggie Walker when it moved into the
current building in 2001).
The excellent performance of this Maggie Walker precursor further illuminates one motive for
the deceptive manipulation of the SOL scores:
|
Who
wouldn't want to claim those kids!
More to the point, there we have VDOE accrediting a Governor's School, based on SOL scores, at a time that manifestly did not pre-date the SOL program. Thus, either VDOE counted the Governor's School students at the Governor's School that year or it ignored its alleged practice of letting the scores follow the count. In either case we see their current excuse is founded on a falsehood.
Still more to the point, so what if they have a long-standing practice of cooking the numbers? A history of telling lies about the performance of our high schools does not provide any reason to continue telling such lies.
Note added on April 15, 2009:
The folks at VDOE have remained cordial, despite the disruption and extra work I have visited upon them. They also remain unapologetic for manipulating the data.
Shortly after I posted this page and sent the link to VDOE, I received this email, setting out in greater detail the history of the transformation of Maggie Walker from a "school" to a "center." The interesting information in the note is that, even back when this school was a "school," VDOE counted the non-Richmond students among the membership of their home divisions and reported those students' SOL scores to the home divisions. But the Richmond students counted at the "school."
So it appears that the school can be a "school" for some students and a "center" for others, as suits VDOE's preferences of the moment. And it seems that their story about a long-standing practice is true for the non-Richmond students (scores manipulated) if not for the Richmond students.
But none of this makes data falsification a sound basis for evaluating our schools. And even a "long-standing" history of manipulating the scores is no reason to continue the practice.
Go Figure
So what could be the actual reason for this institutional mendacity? Perhaps, as Carol Wolf suggests, it is to obtain a free boost to the scores in order to improve the schools' chances to avoid Adequate Yearly Progress problems under the No Child Left Behind Act. For sure, this misrepresentation of the scores will have that effect.
We are left to wonder whether the federal government knows that Virginia is sending it falsified data.
Note added on April 27, 2009:
As outlined above, the school changed its name at the time it moved from the TJ High School building into the building that formerly housed the Maggie Walker High School. At about the same time, it stopped reporting SOL scores for its students from Richmond and VDOE started reporting those scores at the home high schools of those students (it had reported SOL and SAT and other scores to the "home" schools of non-Richmond students all along).
Perhaps I am a terrible cynic but the coincidence was too much: They changed the system to boost the Richmond scores just before the Richmond superintendent was put under a performance-based contract. So, of course, I asked VDOE for all their paperwork on the changeover.
Their response was interesting. As before, their response was courteous and more generous than the statute requires. But it was absolutely devoid of paperwork requesting or granting the scoring change. It seems that the system was so informal in those days that VDOE could approve the falsification of a few dozen SOL scores based on a conversation that nobody even bothered to memorialize.
The paperwork was more helpful as to the reason for "this institutional mendacity," as I called it above. The minutes of the August 31, 1990 Planning Committee (planning to create the Governor's School that now is Maggie Walker) mention the concern of the Assistant Superintendent at Colonial Heights about "test scores." Mind you, this was nine years before the SOL's; the scores in question were predominantly from the SAT. The Committee noted:
As far as the concern with the test scores being lowered, the Committee also stated that they could make the decision that the students' SATs could be counted at the home schools.
Note added on June 12, 2011: Bill Bosher yesterday confirmed this corrupt deal.
It is hard to know why VDOE would be a party to this manipulation. That's made even harder when we look at Fairfax. Wikipedia reports the 2007 enrollment at their Governor's School as 1807; SchoolMatters reports 1805; US News reports 1802. VDOE reports SOL scores for an enrollment of 1805. It appears, thus, that VDOE reports these students' scores to the school they actually attend!
The remaining question, of course, is why the Richmond area Superintendents have to be bought off with false data while the Northern Virginia Superintendents do not.
Concealing
the Malfeasance?
Not only
is VDOE manipulating the data and misleading the public and the federal
government, it also is refusing to tell Maggie Walker the scores
of its own students.
While I
was looking into this situation, I heard that Maggie Walker had asked the
State for the SOL results for its students and that VDOE had refused to
provide the data. So, of course,
my Freedom of Information Act requests to the State included a request for
documents on that subject.
VDOE
produced an undated document
titled "Maggie L Walker Governor’s School; Administration and Reporting of
Standards of Learning End-of-Course Scores."
VDOE said the document is part of the Maggie Walker Administrative
Manual.
In
short, this document says that Maggie Walker personnel administer the SOL
tests and then sort the answer sheets for pickup by the divisions
(implicitly the "home" divisions) of their students.
Then, "[t]he individual division testing coordinators place the
Maggie L. Walker students’ answer sheets among their division’s answer
sheets and send them to be scored . . . ."
After the scoring, Maggie Walker calls the home divisions to ask
about the scores.
Did you get that: The individual divisions hand carry the answer sheets back from Maggie Walker so they can claim the SOL scores of the Maggie Walker students.
Those
scores wind up in the VDOE computer, of course, so if the Maggie Walker
folks have to call the individual divisions to beg for the numbers, it must
mean that VDOE is refusing to provide the data directly to Maggie Walker.
There
can be no good reason for the State to refuse to tell Maggie Walker about
the performance of the Maggie Walker students.
The implication, then, is that the State's refusal is part of
an attempted (but now failed) cover-up.
| Note added on 5/5/09: Richmond
Alternative School (aka CCP or Capital City Program) provides
another nice boost to the SOL scores at Richmond's middle and high
schools. (Hat tip:
Carol) If you go to the RPS Web site, you'll find precious little information about the CCP. Our Mayor had much more to say about it:
VDOE reports that Richmond Alternative had a September, 2008 enrollment of 298 and that it serves grades PK-11. I am told, but have not been able to verify, that the kids can be sent there for up to 180 days.
For sure, the SOL scores of those kids are reported at Richmond Alternative, not at the schools that refer them to Richmond Alternative. Those reported scores are awful: 57 in English and 43 in math for 2007-08. That is worse than Petersburg, which scored 64 and 58 in the same year. (You have to wonder how those scores got Richmond Alternative fully accredited, but that is another story). You noticed, of course, that reporting the scores at Richmond Alternative implies that it is a "school," not a "program" or a "center." Never mind that it has no full-time students of its own, only those that have been temporarily sent there from another school. That said, VDOE credits Richmond Alternative with three standard diplomas in 2007-08. No telling how VDOE reconciles that with "getting them back into their regular schools" or with not having a 12th grade. Given VDOE's baroque, opaque, and profoundly dishonest system, this just might be their attempt to embarrass the Mayor as they earlier did the Governor. In any event, sending a student off to Richmond Alternative gives a double bonus to the sending school: get rid of a troublesome student AND get rid of that student's (probably miserable) SOL score. Query whether that's as nice as getting the SOL score of a Maggie Walker student who doesn't attend your high school. Certainly if the treatment of the Richmond Alternative scores establishes the rule, the treatment of the Maggie Walker scores is entirely dishonest. And vice versa. Indeed, the only consistent rule here seems to be that VDOE serves the interests of local Superintendents, not of the students or the public. |
There Is a Remedy
Unless
we accurately measure what our kids are learning, there is no way to hold
the school system, the schools, the principals, and the teachers accountable
for their use of public funds.
Yet we see that Virginia bureaucrats are deliberately, and probably
unlawfully, manipulating the SOL scoring
to produce false and misleading results.
They are willfully subverting the testing and accreditation
programs.
The term
for this behavior is "malfeasance"
and the remedy for it is for the Governor to
fire
the people who are telling these whoppers.
How
about it, Governor Kaine?