Thu, Nov 26 2009
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“The only reason we chose to use it was that it was a standardized metric,” Hauke said. “It’s not the best way to evaluate school quality, but it’s the best of what’s available.”
But Morris, the spokesman for the state education department, said the index score was developed as a way to measure improvement within a school or district. It is meant to measure progress, not quality, he said. “The index gives us a way to look at changes in student performance, specifically progress, across the spectrum of MAP scores,” Morris said. “It looks at the rate of change between levels and combines that into a single measure.” The state department publishes many statistics on its Web site, www.dese.mo.gov. The data are arranged in “report cards,” and viewers can access 23 areas, including enrollment, ACT scores, graduation rates, MAP performance and compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act. The slew of data can be difficult to read for a layman, Hauke said. “Because there are so many measurements, it’s very opaque,” he said. “It’s hard for someone interested in learning about their school’s performance to do it themselves.” While the Show-Me Institute is the first group to publish such rankings, it is not the first to try. Morris said the state department has wrestled with the issue of rankings for years. “We have more information than we need. We’re drowning in data,” Morris said. “It’s hard to display all that in ways that are meaningful, without resorting to simple-minded, ranked listings.” The closest the department has come to ranking schools is the release of top-10 MAP scores. Around April of every year, it publishes the 10 highest MAP scores in categories including grade and subject. The result is 42 separate top-10 lists. Rankings wanted Some parents say they want such ranked lists. “I pay a lot of attention to the MAP tests,” Joplin parent Kathy Brown said. “But there is way too much data to worry about. I wish there was a way to compare scores.” Kim Davis, of Joplin, also said she would like to see rankings. “Parents should have access to that information so that we can have some choices about what we can do,” Davis said. “If my child is in a bottom-ranking school, I’d be concerned that they are not receiving the education that a majority of children are.” Angie Besendorfer, an assistant superintendent in Joplin, worries that parents who base their school choice on one MAP index score might see excellence or problems that aren’t reflective of the entire school. The numbers are real, but Besendorfer insists that what those numbers say is not as easy to generalize. 
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