NOT AS GOOD AS YOU THINK Why Middle-Class Parents in Texas Should Be Concerned about Their Local Public Schools By Lance Izumi, J.D. with Alicia Chang, Ph.D. NOT AS GOOD AS YOU THINK Why Middle-Class Parents in Texas Should Be Concerned about Their Local Public Schools By Lance Izumi, J.D. with Alicia Chang, Ph.D. NOT AS GOOD AS YOU THINK Why Middle-Class Parents in Texas Should Be Concerned about Their Local Public Schools by Lance Izumi, J.D. with Alicia Chang, Ph.D. October 2014 Pacific Research Institute One Embarcadero Center, Suite 350 San Francisco, CA 94111 Tel: 415-989-0833 Fax: 415-989-2411 www.pacificresearch.org Download copies of this study at www.pacificresearch.org. Nothing contained in this report is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the Pacific Research Institute or as an attempt to thwart or aid the passage of any legislation. ©2014 Pacific Research Institute. All rights reserved. No part of this pub- lication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without prior written consent of the publisher. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thank the Walton Family Foundation for its support of this project. We would like to thank James Lanich, Dave Johnston and the Educational Results Partner- ship for providing the data for the schools analysis. Also, we would like to thank the Texas Public Policy Foundation for its partnership with the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) on this study. Dr. John Merrifield of the University of Texas at San Antonio peer-reviewed the draft of this study. Any errors or omissions are the sole responsibility of the authors. The authors would like to thank PRI summer intern James Cunningham for his important research-gath- ering efforts. In addition, the authors would like to thank graphic designer Dana Beigel for her excellent layout of this study. Finally, the authors would like to acknowledge the contri- butions of the dedicated staff of the PRI, including Rowena Itchon, vice president of market- ing, Christine Hughes, vice president, and Sally Pipes, president and CEO. In addition, the authors would like to acknowledge the efforts of Chrissie Dong, formerly a member of PRI’s development department, and Laura Dannerbeck, marketing consultant for PRI. The authors of this study have worked independently and their views and conclusions do not necessarily represent those of the board, supporters, or staff of PRI. CONT ENTS Executive Summary ........................................................................................... 1 Introduction and Background on “Not as Good as You Think” Research ............................................................... 5 Texas Academics Standards and Testing ............................................................. 7 State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) ........................... 10 Analysis of Individual Texas Public Schools ...................................................... 16 Schools Below the Poverty/Performance Line .................................................. 22 Higher Perfoming Texas Public Schools ........................................................... 30 Conclusions and Recommendations................................................................. 32 Appendix A: Linear Regression Analysis of Non-Low-Income Public Texas Schools ............ 35 Appendix B: Texas Non-Low-Income Schools Performance ................................................. 41 Endnotes ........................................................................................................136 About the Authors ..........................................................................................141 About PRI .....................................................................................................143 8 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Are regular Texas public schools with predominantly non-low-income student populations performing well? Lots of parents of children at these schools think so. Yet, based on a variety of indicators, many of these schools may not be as good as parents think they are. On National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), often referred to as the nation’s report card, many non-low-income Texas students fail to perform at the targeted proficient level: • On the 2013 NAEP fourth-grade Texas 8th-Grade NAEP Non-Proficiency Rates reading test, 53 percent of non-low- income Texas test-takers failed to (Non-Low-Income Students) score at proficient level. 100 • On the NAEP fourth-grade math test, 37 percent of non-low-income 80 Texas students failed to score at the proficient level. 60 • On the 2013 NAEP eighth-grade 54 47 reading exam, 54 percent of non- 40 low-income Texas test-takers failed to score at the proficient level. 20 • On the NAEP eighth-grade math (non-low-income Texas students) exam, 47 percent of non-low-in- 0 come Texas test-takers failed to Reading Math score at the proficient level. Percent Non-Proficient 2013 NAEP 8th-Grade Reading and Math Source: National Assessment of Educational Progress Non-low-income Texas students also have lower proficiency rates on the NAEP compared to similar students in other states such as Massachusetts. The state-administered exam in Texas is the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR). The number of questions that a student must answer correctly in order to be deemed proficient on the STAAR exam is a moving target, with higher benchmarks for proficiency being phased in over time until a final “Recommended” level is set. According toThe Dallas Morning News: A seventh-grader, for example, needed to get 22 questions out of 52 correct on [the 2014] math test to pass under Phase 1. To pass under Phase 2 would have required getting 30 questions right. And a recom- mended passing score would have required 37 correct answers. Passing levels for other tests would change by roughly comparable numbers 1 In view of the low Phase 1 cut-point benchmark, and given that Texas says that the Recommended standard in the final phase is the state’s goal, this paper will compare the performance of predomi- nantly non-low-income schools using both Phase 1 and Recommended standards, emphasizing the performance of schools under the final Recommended standards. This study focuses on regular public schools where 33 percent or fewer of their students on the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and 50 percent or more of students in at least one grade level that failed to achieve proficiency on the STAAR exam. In view of the inflated proficiency rates on the STAAR exam under Phase 1’s Level II proficiency cut points, it is not surprising that relatively few schools have 50 percent or more of their students in at least one grade level failing to reach proficiency on one subject matter test. However, if one uses the final Recommended cut points, which the state says are the final recommended benchmarks, then significant numbers of schools fall in the 33/50 category. In Texas, there are 1,115 regular public schools where 33 percent or fewer of their students classi- fied as low income, i.e. schools with predominantly non-low-income student populations. Among these schools, 672, or 60 percent, have 50 percent or more of their students in at least one grade level failing to meet or exceed proficiency on the STAAR, based on the final Recommended bench- mark of proficiency. Among this group are such schools as: • Cottonwood Creek Elementary School in Dallas County • Garden Ridge Elementary School in Comal County • Shady Grove Elementary School in Tarrant County • Salado High School in Bell County • Liberty Elementary School in Denton County A technique called linear regression-line modeling was used to estimate whether a 1,115 TOTAL SCHOOLS IN STUDY relationship exists between (33 percent or fewer of the students classify as low-income) the percentage of students in a school who are classified as coming from low-income households and the percent of students proficient (at grade level) in the school for a particular grade and subject. This analysis for each grade in reading and math allows for the identification of schools that are performing above or below 672 SCHOOLS average performance based on with 50% or more of students in at least one the performance of all other grade failing to meet proficiency (Recommended Level II) schools in the state. 2 Schools on the regression line itself are performing at the average given the performance of all other schools in the state and the income levels of students, based on low-income and non-low-income classifications. Schools below the regression line are performing below average given the income status of their students, while schools above the regression line are performing above average given the income status of their students. Among the 1,115 regular public schools that have less than 33 percent of their students coming from low-income households, 758 have at least one grade where the subject-matter proficiency rate, based on the final Recommended benchmark of proficiency, was below the regression line. In other words, 68 percent of these predominantly non-low-income schools had at least one grade where students performed below the average performance of schools with the students of the same income status on a subject-matter test. The following is the breakdown of the number of under-performing predomi- nantly non-low-income regular public schools per grade level for reading and math: Grade