Minority Kids at DISD Lead Nation in AP Test Scores in Math and Science. Who Knew?

Students from TAG and SEM are recruited to attend Ivy League schools. Harvard has 4 undergrad and 4 graduate students, Columbia 3 undergrad and 3 graduate students, Yale 3 undergrad and 4 graduate, MIT 4 and 2 graduate students. The success of AP program in DISD is not due to Mike Miles. It's been going for years!

It's like being the top commentator or head writer at the Observer.

Top of a shit pile is still shit

"Private school kids take tests and tests and tests. Is there some reason public school kids and especially minority students shouldn't have that same advantage?"

No, local private schools kids take radically fewer standardized tests than DISD kids. Most locals privates in the 2nd-8th grades take the ERB (total time about 8 hours) or ITBS (same, about total time of 8 hours) or both. There is no test prep. Let's say they take both for a total time of 16 hours. A DISD kid in those same grades can easily spend over 120 hours taking tests and another 120 hours prepping for the tests. That's a ratio of 16 hours to 240 hours. That's a difference of 224 hours of instruction time.

Minority DISD students taking AP tests can be and usually is a good thing. Because so many rankings are based on the total number of tests taken or the total number of tests passed, DISD encourages some kids to take AP classes who would be better served in regular classes. Although you should alway err on the side of inclusion, DISD can do a better job of screening in some classes. For example, last year 1420 DISD students took the AP Government exam, but only 7% scored a passing grade of 3 or higher. The average score was 1.3 . The lowest score you can get is a 1. 

Dallas has been good at educating smart kids for some time now.  Programs such as those in the magnets, vanguards and academies are working as they were designed.

My fear with Miles early on was his need to mess with the things that were already working well. He came in very heavy handed to Townview to show them who was boss.  Not sure of his stance at this time, hopefully he found their were bigger problems at other schools.  If anyone has any insight, I would like to hear it.  However at least with me, he started out on the wrong foot. 

Michael Hinojosa was another one who wanted to disrupt the magnets.  He thought if those kids were back at their home schools, those schools would be better.  However, that would assume that the program at the home school would get the same results for that single student.

Jim, Are you saying that the average score on a math or science AP exam of DISD minority students is higher than the same students in any other public school district in the nation?

I didn't read it the same way. I read it as DISD having the highest ratio of minority students with scores of 3 and higher vs the total number of minority students in 11th and 12th grade, regardless of whether the students had taken a math or science AP exam.

Those are two pretty different ideas. DISD and NMSI have done a good job of focusing on AP participation rates. If you take 18000 AP exams like DISD students did last year, you can get a higher number of passing scores than a district with a higher average score by having more test takers.

Some statistics that judge how well you're doing are the average score, the percentage of passing scores, etc. Comparing those numbers for minority students across the nation's 100 largest school districts would be a good comparison. Absolute numbers vs average numbers can be misleading. I'm not sure that's the case here; I couldn't find the method for how they calculated their claim.

Jim:

Welcome to the party, despite being several years late.

Back when Gov Perry was running to be the GOP nominee for POTUS, several folk ran the numbers and determined that Texas was more effective educating black and hispanic students than places like Wisconsin and suchlike when the students are collated by race.  Not just Dallas.

Of course, overall state scores up north are still better, since they have more whites and fewer non-asian minorities that does Texas.  The Gap of one standard deviation in mean IQ and g-loaded test scores between white and black students and 0.5-0.75 SD for hispanic students is not going away.

AP test takers.  Sounds like the top students are being reached, which is good.  What about everyone else though?  The cream will rise to the top even with significant barriers.  It's the kids that make up the majority of the bell curve that we need to be measuring.

Math team was my favorite sport. We'd leave at about 6 am with multiple cars full of kids to go to schools close and far and spend a Saturday overseeing and feeding a group of about 20 5-8th graders who were taking 4 tests. 3 tests covered math, 1 tested science facts. 

DISD kids were always at the top of the awards.

@SEMTAGtechie Woodrow Wilson also has several in Ivy League schools. One just graduated this year magna cum laude from Yale. I know Hillcrest also has some.  Next year Woodrow will have two Ivy League athletes:  Joseph Ritter at Cornell playing basketball and Eli Brown at Brown University rowing crew.

@buckbucky With all that's wrong in the world, how do you keep such a positive outlook? 

@Rumpunch1 However, that would assume that the program at the home school would get the same results for that single student.

Unlikely.  One of the biggest advantages of the magnet is that the good students are surrounded by other good students.  The worst thing that can happen to a gifted student is hanging out with and being influenced by the dregs.  The company a person keeps is very important.

@Anonymous There's always that one person who, no matter the "good news" on anything DISD related, always has to question the statistical methods, as if DISD simply CANNOT do better at anything at all compared to any other school anywhere in America.

I'm not sure what the statistics are regarding internet trolling, I can't find a method to prove up the above paragraph, though, so maybe it's pointless?  

@Amy S I know J. L. Long has placed #1 in certain areas at regional math and science contests this year, including the last one in Colleyville.

@doublecheese @buckbucky What's wrong in the world?

@JimSX @Anonymous

Preparing to take SAT or ACT or AP exams is a good thing, especially for minority students. I have long argued that DISD should align the non AP 9-12 curriculum with the ACT test. College entrance exams are a barrier for poor kids. But second graders don't take the SAT and don't need to learn to take tests. They need to learn and are instead losing almost a whole year of instruction time compared to their private school peers in the K-8 space because of useless standardized test that have no future benefit. STAAR testing is a waste of time; ACT prep and practice tests in the 9-12 grades can be very helpful. 

@JimSX @Anonymous  Took 3 sats at st. mark's but also had 15 students for most  classes.

@Rumpunch1 That's not to say that they still wouldn't do well.  Just not AS well.  It seems more unfair to bring down the top students to help the home schools than it is unfair to the home schools that the top students aren't there.  Neither is good, but one seems worse to me.

@casiepierce  I made the comment above and I am a big supporter of DISD schools. I am also a supporter of NMSI and open access AP classes. My comment was meant to clarify. Only say or imply you're the best at something if it's actually true. DISD supporters like me help DISD the most when we give accurate and concise information with context. If the ratio is the number of test passers vs total students, say that very clearly. Otherwise, people don't trust what you say. I read that press release (and everything that's on the DISD Hub) and thought it could mislead a parent. If you go to your child's DISD school 2014-15 data packet and look at the school's average AP scores, you could be in for a shock if you think those average scores are the highest in the nation for minority kids in public school. 
It's not whether we "CANNOT do better", but instead just how we actually did, how that compares, and if we need to do better or simply maintain the current achievement. Given our level of poverty, DISD is doing a good job with AP instruction and has been for the last 8 or 9 years, but we have a long way to go. Implying we're the best scorers when we're not is less than helpful.

@JimSX @Anonymous

My point was to make clear that success and participation are not the same thing or of equal importance. Your headline and the DISD press release can lead parents to an incorrect conclusion: DISD minority students lead the nation in average test scores on math and science AP exams for minority students. I do not believe that is a true statement, but I am afraid it is the takeaway message due to unclear wording and an unusual statistic. People don't usually measure success in the number of people taking the test, but instead by how they do on the test. Many high school ranking make this same mistake.

@JimSX @roo_ster 

Funny how the left accuses the right of being "anti-science" while at the same time stuffing their fingers in their ears and mumbling, "Lalalalalalala I can't HEAR you."  Best look to your own tribal notions of taboo and heresy.

Where have you been the last few decades? You know, when biologists discovered DNA and the human genome was mapped?  When that mapping pointed out the five or so major human sub-groups that correspond to what have been known as races via external/macro observation for a few centuries?   When test after test after test over time and space showed such a consistent and measurable delta between the races?  When some of the tests (after mapping the neanderthal genome) showed that europeans are not even fully homo sapiens, but have a significant amount of homo neanderthalensis DNA?

I am reminded of a rather pithy comment: "The Right does not believe in evolution and the Left does not believe in biology."  Referring to the Right's demonization of Charles Darwin and the Left's demonization of Francis Galton.  Oddly enough, the cousins were on good terms with one another, even as those whose pieties their theories offended sought to elevate the one and sink the other.

An allegedly fictitious concept you are apparently obsessed with.

@JimSX @doublecheese I don't disagree with what you are saying here.  But this is about measuring the top kids, rather than the process of making them the top kids in the first place.  It's good that it's happening, but it doesn't prove that there have been improvements to the system that raise the performance of ALL students.  

@Anonymous @JimSX We left DISD because I made that exact calculation.  The STAAR prep starts in January and consumes about 1/3 of each week's work. Multiply that from 3-12th grade and DISD kids will lose a full year's instructional time, not including the complete waste of time, money and administrative function that is....the ACP tests. Aligning course content with ACT in high school = good. Regurgitating STAAR prep in lieu of actual teaching by teachers = bad. All was great at our high performing elementary until we hit third grade STAAR prep. This is how kids that are scoring on par with Park Cities elementaries end up 200+ SAT points behind by high school.

@doublecheese @Rumpunch1  I agree - too much risk to be worth the gamble.

I feel that both Hinojosa and Miles are/were motivated to smooth the results a bit.  Having some awesome schools and many crappy schools doesn't win you the Broad Prize (Hinojosa) and unless all students and schools are part of an educational experiment, then you cannot have a marketable K-12 product to sell when your return to the educational consulting field (Miles.) 

@Anonymous  I want to thank you for your input.  If a person isn't in the know it's easy to fall for the spin.  I don't know why some people have such a hard time with the "whole story" instead of the spin version and want to negate what's being said by cursing the messenger.  I think everyone's bottom line is to see the children of Dallas get the very best public education possible.  To get there the true facts need to be examined and told.

@JimSX @roo_ster 

Jim:

If your world view can not accommodate reality, perhaps you need to change your world view.  Race and biological differences are real.  Calling those who acknowledge reality names won;t make that go away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Genome

"Those of us who live outside Africa carry a little Neanderthal DNA in us," said Pääbo, who led the study. "The proportion of Neanderthal-inherited genetic material is about 1 to 4 percent. It is a small but very real proportion of ancestry in non-Africans today," says Dr. David Reich of Harvard Medical School, who worked on the study.

@JimSX @roo_ster Do you insist that different breeds of dogs and cats are fictitious too?

Maybe you and Myrna could team up and start another periodical together.

@bmarvel @roo_ster @JimSX  I am African from the waist down.

@bmarvel @ColonelAngus @roo_ster @JimSX  That's the Neanderthal part, or so the wife tells me.