Demographic Research

94 percent of FTC students earned high school diplomas in 2018-19

Patrick R. Gibbons November 22, 2019

Graduation rates for students in the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program declined slightly in 2018-19 according to a new report from Step Up For Students.

Of the 2,648 high school seniors using the scholarship, 94.1 percent earned a high school diploma in 2018-19. That’s down from 95.1 percent in the previous year and from 94.6 percent in 2016-17, the first year with reported graduation rates for the scholarship program.

Selected student level characteristics among 12th-graders, number of graduates, graduation rate (2018-19) SOURCE: Step Up For Students

Step Up For Students in 2018-19 provided scholarships to 99,735 students who attended one of 1,802 participating private schools. The scholarship program is restricted to students living in households earning less than 260 percent of the poverty level, or about $66,000 for a family of four. The average student participating in the program in 2018-19 lived in a household earning just $25,755. Of those students, 68 percent were black or Hispanic; 54 percent lived in a single-parent household.

Step Up (which hosts this blog) manages five scholarship programs, including the nation’s largest privately funded scholarship program, the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship.

According to the report, religious schools saw higher graduation rates than non-religious schools, with Episcopalian, Islamic/Muslim and Seventh Day Adventist schools achieving 100 percent graduation rates.

Nine in 10 students (93.8 percent) who qualify for the federal free and reduced-price meal program graduated, while 97.3 percent of students at the highest threshold of eligibility graduated.

Females were more likely to graduate than males, but only by a 1.4-point margin.

Black and Hispanic students graduated at a rate of 92.2 percent and 94.2 percent, respectively, both slightly below the 95.7 percent for white students.

The graduation rate for scholarship students cannot be compared to Florida’s public school graduation rate. The Florida Department of Education uses a four-year cohort method that tracks students starting in their freshman year. Florida’s public school graduation rate from 2017-18 (latest available) stands at 86.1 percent, a massive improvement since 2003-04.

November 22, 2019 0 comment

Demographic Research Education reporting Testing and Accountability

NAEP 2019: Mississippi improvement more impressive under closer examination

Matthew Ladner November 4, 2019

Matthew Ladner

Federal officials released results from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, Oct. 30. The congressionally mandated project administered by the National Center for Education Statistics provides group-level data on student achievement in reading and mathematics for grades 4 and 8.

While last week’s NAEP news was glum nationwide, Mississippi students performed relatively well. You have to dig into the details to see just how well.

First, a bit of backstory.

Mississippi is one of the nation’s poorest states and has the largest African-American student population in the country. The state has ranked at or near the bottom on NAEP scores for many years. Over the past decade, policymakers have adopted several K-12 policies familiar to Floridians: A-F letter grades for schools, a strong emphasis on early literacy, a charter school law and an education savings account program for students with disabilities.

The state’s choice sector went from non-existent to nascent in recent years, although it’s not yet at a scale where it can play more than a complimentary role to the public education system. Yet based on this year’s NAEP, as seen in this crosstab of student race/ethnicity on fourth-grade reading, something seems to have gone very right.

Average scale scores for Grade 4 reading by National School Lunch Program eligibility across race/ethnicity for Mississippi, nation

Free and reduced-price meal eligible white students in Mississippi, as well as free and reduced-price meal eligible black students, outscored their peers by 9 points. Not to be outdone, eligible Hispanic students beat the national average by 15 points. These differences are statistically significant.

Meanwhile, Mississippi black students who do not qualify for free and reduced-price meals (middle to high income) outscored their peers nationwide by 22 points.

Mississippi didn’t just clobber national averages; the state took it to the nation’s wealthiest states as well. Northeast states (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont) have long held the highest NAEP scores, but they tend to hold the same advantaged end of various achievement gaps as wealthy states. Many of those states spend far more per pupil than Mississippi as well.

NAEP allows comparisons not just between states, but also between states and regions. So, here are the trends for fourth-grade reading broken down by student free and reduced-price meal eligibility status.

Back in 2009, students in Northeastern states in both low-income and middle/high income categories were well ahead of that cohort in Mississippi, but in 2019, Mississippi led among low-income students and tied among non-eligible free and reduced-price meal students. Mississippi students progressed from being well behind students in Northeastern states to being virtually tied in both categories on eighth-grade reading over the past decade.

As a relatively late adopter of reform efforts, Mississippi had the chance to learn from earlier successes and earlier mistakes. Alas, there have been more of the latter than the former.

Massachusetts began its reform efforts in 1993 and had the highest scores on all four NAEP exams until 2019. Florida’s scores surged after 1998 with a different, but also multi-faceted set of reforms. Arizona students were unique in achieving statistically significant gains on all six NAEP exams between 2009 and 2015, and Mississippi joined Arizona in that category in 2017.

Initial success does not guarantee sustained success, but for now, Mississippi leads in the academic improvement clubhouse. I hope it continues its success – and that the rest of us can give the state some competition.

November 4, 2019 0 comment

Achievement Gap Demographic Research Education and Public Policy Education Research Testing and Accountability

2019 NAEP prediction: Teacher strike effects will be felt

Matthew Ladner October 24, 2019

Matthew Ladner

Editor’s note: Federal officials will release results from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, on Oct. 30. The congressionally mandated project administered by the National Center for Education Statistics, also known as “the nation’s report card,” provides group-level data on student achievement in reading and mathematics for grades 4 and 8. EducationNext asked four national education policy experts, including redefinED executive editor Matt Ladner, to predict this year’s findings. Ladner’s take is offered here.

You can read predictions from Matthew M. Chingos, Sandy Kress, Susanna Loeb, Paul E. Peterson, Michael J. Petrilli and Morgan Polikoff in the full report, available here.

Greeks of antiquity consulted the oracle of Apollo for predictions about the future. The rituals involved the use of drugs and inhalation of mind-altering vapors among other things, like sacrificing a goat. Apparently in combination, these rituals inspired the oracle with the ability to make cryptic predictions with multiple possible interpretations – a handy skill when you don’t actually know much about the future.

The request to make predictions about the new NAEP data puts me in a dilemma similar to that of the oracle. NAEP results act like an oblong ball that bounces in unpredictable ways, and moreover, we have limited understanding of the policy factors influencing trends and even less understanding of the non-policy factors. Some of the things we think we know are probably mistaken, and we don’t agree on what we think is known.

Accordingly, I’ve decided to employ a modernized Delphic method. I’ll spare the goat, and I’m not much for inhaling vapors, but having consumed massive amounts of my drug of choice, caffeine, I will dare a few predictions.

Prediction 1: America continues to play in its academic food.

The 2009 to 2017 period proved broadly disappointing nationally. The country saw no progress in fourth-grade math or reading during this period, nor in eighth-grade math. The national average for eighth-grade reading improved by 3 points. In short, meh to sub-meh improvement.

Few states escaped the stagnation gravity well. Arizona and Mississippi students, though, did demonstrate statistically significant gains on all six NAEP exams given after 2009 (fourth-grade and eighth-grade math and reading 2009 to 2017, and fourth-grade and eighth-grade science 2009 to 2015).

Staring deeply into the prophetic clouds in my coffee, I’ll predict that the average state fails to reach a net +2 for the full 2009 to 2019 period. I hope to be wrong on this prediction.

Prediction 2: The 2018 strikes will leave a mark in the data.

Labor actions closed schools in 2018 in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, Los Angeles, Colorado and North Carolina. These strikes varied in length and breadth. Of course, we’ll never know what the 2019 NAEP scores would have been if these strikes had not occurred. Apollo’s caffeinated whispers, however, lead me to believe that kids learn more when they are in school than when they aren’t, and that many schools adhere to “make-up time” rules in a half-hearted fashion if at all. It won’t be possible to establish causality, and we would expect to find a mixed bag of results in these jurisdictions regardless, but a curious pattern of bubbles in my London Fog leads me to believe that a fairly consistent (negative) pattern may emerge. Again, I hope I am wrong on this one.

Prediction 3: Achievement gap milestone breached in the 2019 NAEP.

No state’s black student population has ever matched or exceeded the score for any state’s white population on any NAEP exam. The racial achievement gap has been deep enough that even the highest statewide average for black students has never matched that of the lowest performing statewide average for Anglo students. But it’s been getting close in recent years.

NAEP eighth-grade math scores for Arizona black students and West Virginia white students, 2000-17

Arizona has had the highest performing African American student population, and their NAEP scores have improved strongly over time. The 2-point gaps seen in both 2009 and 2017 were very close. Scores for both West Virginia Anglos and Arizona black students may take a hit in 2019 (both states experienced strike-related school closures), but this may not prevent the lines from crossing.

Apollo sends word: 2019 will be the year where the highest performing black statewide group will bank a statewide average NAEP score higher than the lowest performing Anglo statewide average. Which is not at all to say that this is high enough, but it is an important milestone we have yet to cross. I hope I am right on this one!

October 24, 2019 0 comment

Charter Schools Demographic Research Education Research News School Choice

Fordham Institute report: Rising tide of charters lifting all boats

Patrick R. Gibbons October 21, 2019

Patrick R. Gibbons

Forget about the charter vs. district school debate. The more important question is whether student achievement improves overall. Does a rising tide of charter school enrollment lift the overall achievement boat? The Fordham Institute released a report to address exactly that.

As charter school enrollment increases as a percentage of the total students within a district (called “market share” by the report’s authors), the achievement gains of all students, within both charter and district, improve. According to the report, urban areas with high concentrations of black and Hispanic enrollment in charter schools saw significant math and reading achievement gains for black and Hispanic students overall.

Note: Figures show the predicted changes in the average ELA and math achievement of grades 3-8 black students in charter and traditional public schools as district-by-grade-level charter market share increases among black students. Estimates were generated using a cubic spline with knots at the 5th, 35th and 95th percentiles (see red dots) and controlling for student demographics, district-by-grade-level unit and year fixed-effects, and district-specific quadratic time-trends. Sample includes all urban units with a 0 to 50 percent black charter market share and average black enrollment >2,500 between 2009 and 2015.

Note: Figures show the predicted changes in the average ELA and math achievement of grades 3-8 Hispanic students in charter and traditional public schools as district-by-grade-level charter market share increases among Hispanic students. Estimates were generated using a cubic spline with knots at the 5th, 35th and 95th percentiles (see red dots) and controlling for student demographics, district-by-grade-level unit and year fixed-effects, and district-specific quadratic time-trends. Sample includes all urban units with a 0 to 35 percent Hispanic charter market share and average Hispanic enrollment >2,500 between 2009 and 2015.

Hispanic students benefit in suburban and rural areas, while black students see achievement gains in rural areas, but not suburban ones. White students see no gains regardless of the location of the charter school or district.

“Increasing the percentage of black and Hispanic students who enroll in charters — especially in the largest urban districts, which educate millions of minority students per year — would significantly reduce the longstanding racial achievement gaps that are ostensibly of concern to policymakers,” the authors wrote.

These are striking results, especially given the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s call for a moratorium on charter schools. National teacher unions, which represent a mostly white teaching corps and also oppose charter schools, have been longstanding financial supporters of the civil rights group.

Fordham’s study is not without its limitations. The dataset covers seven years, the research is not randomized, and the results may be due to the fact that charter schools are disproportionately established within low-performing urban districts to begin with.

Still, author David Griffith notes that his report “is consistent with prior research that suggests black and Hispanic students learn more in charter schools, and that competition from charter schools has a positive, or at worst neutral, effect on traditional public schools.”

October 21, 2019 0 comment

Charter Schools Demographic Research Education Research School Choice

Should we feel optimistic or pessimistic about American K-12 education’s future?

Matthew Ladner October 14, 2019

Matthew Ladner

Only about one in 10 of those surveyed believe America’s K-12 education will be a model of excellence by 2040, according to a new poll from Real Clear Opinion Research.

A recent poll conducted by Real Clear Opinion Research shows that Americans don’t hold the country’s public education system in high regard. The poll drew responses from 2,014 registered voters on their views and expectations of K-12 education between Sept. 20-24.

This Real Clear Opinion infographic below summarizes many of the results.

Respondents were asked to rate the importance of 15 goals from reading and writing proficiency to engagement in civil discourse. Blue dots indicate how many rated the importance as either a 6 or 7 on a 7-point scale. Red dots indicate how the respondents think the overall public education system is highly performing on this measure. Green dots measure the perceived performance of local schools.

More than 75 percent of respondents think it is very important for the public education system to prepare students to be good citizens, but fewer than 30 percent think the national public education system is doing a good job producing good citizens (red dot) and only about 33 percent think their local system has a strong performance in producing strong citizens (green dot).

Respondents consistently rank the importance of the various goals as high but rank the performance of the public education system as low. Moreover, respondents don’t seem very optimistic about the public education system’s prospects for improvement. When asked to look 20 years ahead, most respondents expect a public education system that is average, below average or “poor and unable to adapt to shifting priorities.” Independent voters were considerably more pessimistic than either Democrats or Republicans:

Americans thus seem to see their public education system as falling short in a variety of ways and aren’t especially optimistic about future improvement. Republicans exhibited the greatest amount of optimism, with 24 percent forecasting that the American public school system would be a “model of excellence around the world” in 20 years. Only 13 percent of Democrats and 3 percent of Independents were similarly optimistic. You, as a regular RedefinED reader are more aware of looming challenges lying ahead in the next two decades than most.

Should we be optimistic or pessimistic about the future of public education? Mixed results across states seems like the most likely outcome and “a model of excellence around the world” is not as far off as it may sound.

Massachusetts, the highest scoring state on NAEP, compares well to Asian and European systems on international exams. Stanford scholar Sean F. Reardon’s new data source, for instance, equates state scores to NAEP. When I ran the numbers for my home state of Arizona, I found far more variation within my state than between states. I also, however, found several Arizona districts (and the charter schools operating within their boundaries) that compare favorably to the average performance in Massachusetts:

Some of this data is a decade old, which is good news, because Arizona’s statewide NAEP scores improved after this period. Many of the Arizona district/charter combos are relatively demographically advantaged compared to Arizona as a whole, but few are demographically advantaged compared to affluent states like Massachusetts or Vermont and receive substantially less funding per pupil.

The real problem here lies at the bottom left of the chart. Those district/charter combos didn’t just perform worse than the lowest-performing state; they were substantially below the lowest-performing state.

In short, I’m more optimistic about my green dot than my red dot. The 2019 NAEP data for reading and mathematics for states and select urban districts will be released Oct. 30. Let’s see what happens next.

October 14, 2019 2 comments

Achievement Gap Demographic Research Education equity Education Research Policy Wonks School Choice Testing and Accountability

New Stanford data cause for investigation but not alarm in Florida

Matthew Ladner September 30, 2019

Matthew Ladner

Stanford’s Sean F. Reardon released a new data tool last week allowing the user to view academic scores and gains by school, district (with charters included) and county. One of the visualization tools allows you to track the academic growth in grades 3-8 for every school covering those grades in a state. This measure does not look good for Florida:

The horizontal axis of this chart runs from 100 percent free- or reduced-lunch eligible (left side) to 0 percent (right side). Each dot represents an individual public school, and the color scheme denotes a lot of academic growth (dark green) to below-average academic growth (dark blue). Florida’s chart above has a lot of blue and not so much green. For example, see high-growth Arizona’s chart:

Arizona is rolling in the green compared to Florida! Time to celeNAEP good times in Arizona!

Well, OK, let’s take a close look at this before getting the Kool and the Gang brass section going. It turns out this pattern has been evident in Florida’s NAEP data for years.
Below are Florida’s fourth- and eighth-grade NAEP math scores:

This is all the Florida math data from oldest to newest at the time of this writing. Going back in our way-back time machine to 1996, Florida students were seven points below the national average on both fourth- and eighth-grade math. Those were large and statistically significant differences. Move the clock forward to 2017 and Florida students had a seven-point advantage over the national average in fourth-grade math, and a three-point deficit in eighth-grade math.

We can calculate a cohort gain by looking at the fourth-grade scores for a group of students, and then their eighth-grade scores four years later. For example, in 2011 Florida’s fourth-graders scored 240, and in 2015 as eighth-graders the same cohort of students scored 275. That’s a cohort gain of 35, and that doesn’t look so hot. This is similar to what Dr. Reardon is presenting in the charts above.

Now let’s look at the same data for Arizona:

Arizona fourth-graders scored 235 in 2011, and then 283 in 2015 for a cohort gain of 48 points — the highest in the country. Note, however, that five of the 13 points separating Arizona and Florida came simply because Florida had higher fourth-grade scores than Arizona in 2013. Moreover, if we repeat this procedure between 2013 and 2017, Arizona’s cohort gains shrinks to 42 points — mostly because fourth-grade math scores increased by five points between 2011 and 2013, but eighth-grade scores did not improve.

So, what to make of all of this?

I like the fact that Arizona students seem to be learning about math and reading between fourth and eighth grade. I especially like seeing all those green dots on the high poverty side of the graph. It’s a (hopefully) good sign. Florida’s strong emphasis on the early grades leads to faster progress on fourth-grade scores than eighth-grade scores. Florida’s eighth-grade scores have improved, but not at the rate of the fourth-grade scores.

Ultimately, what is most important are not your fourth- or eighth-grade NAEP scores, or the difference between the two of them, but rather your long-term outcomes. I can’t even recall what math I studied in eighth grade, but I do remember graduating from high school, attending college and graduating from college. Here’s what is going on at Florida’s two-year community colleges:

Florida students have a higher graduation rate across subgroups.

Here’s the public four-year data:

Florida’s NAEP scores up, high school graduation rates up, college graduation higher than the national average overall and across subgroups. The case made here is not that Florida education is great but that it has improved.

NAEP releases 2019 data in late October, so let’s see what happens next.

September 30, 2019 1 comment

Demographic Research Education Research Education savings accounts Gardiner Scholarship Home schooling Parental Choice School Choice

Should homeschool parents support school vouchers?

Patrick R. Gibbons September 6, 2019

Patrick R. Gibbons

While recent national data suggest homeschooling growth may be slowing, a report issued this week by the Cato Institute concludes that the homeschooling population is increasing many times faster than the K-12 public school population in a number of states with particularly favorable education choice programs, including Florida.

The report, “Homeschooling and Educational Freedom,” by Kerry McDonald of the Foundation for Economic Education, makes the case that school choice is good for the homeschool movement.

Sources: Florida Department of Education, North Carolina Department of Administration, North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Ohio Department of Education, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

A deeper dive: Although the homeschool student population has doubled since 1999, enrollment is beginning to decline. Between 2012 and 2016, the latest data available, the home schooling population declined by 4.7 percent, while public school enrollment increased 1.6 percent. But several states leading the school choice movement are bucking that trend.

Who homeschools: Popular opinion sees homeschoolers as overwhelmingly white, rural evangelical Christians. But homeschooling has been embraced by the progressive left as well. The old stereotype is giving way as minorities increasingly are embracing home education, while homeschool students have become more urban and financially diverse.

Where homeschooling is growing: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin all have robust charter school and school voucher programs, including several tax credit scholarships and education savings account (ESA) programs. These are states where homeschool population growth has greatly exceeded growth in public schools.

Florida, for example, offers the Gardiner Scholarship, an ESA program for students with special needs. The scholarship can be used to purchase school supplies and curriculum as well as fund dual enrollment courses and help pay for Florida Virtual School tuition.

Regulations in choice-friendly states may also play a role, such as allowing homeschool students to participate in clubs or sports at their local public school.

Why it matters: Texas, a Republican-controlled state with a meager charter school program and no vouchers, has seen homeschool parents ally with school district leaders to oppose expanding school choice through vouchers. Such home education parents have argued that vouchers would bring more regulations and scrutiny from the state legislature, ultimately hampering parents’ freedom to educate their children.

But McDonald’s findings suggest such opposition by homeschool parents is wrongheaded.

She speculates that there could be a peer effect with school choice. The more choices available, she suggests, the more people exercise a right to choose the education environment for their child, including the option to homeschool.

Writes McDonald: “Homeschoolers should support education choice programs, whether or not they are personally included in such programs, because more choice can lead to more homeschoolers overall.”

September 6, 2019 0 comment

Charter Schools Demographic Research Education Research School Choice

Don’t know much about charter schools

Donna Winchester August 30, 2019

Donna Winchester

Editor’s note: Continuing our review of the latest Education Next annual survey, redefinED looks today at the public’s knowledge level – or lack thereof – of charter schools. Based on those surveyed, it appears most Americans lack a full understanding of charter schools and the policies that govern them, and they’re no better informed now than they were when EdNext posed the same questions in 2012.

What was asked

· To the best of your knowledge, can charter schools hold religious services?

· To the best of your knowledge, can charter schools charge tuition?

The responses

When asked if charter schools can hold religious services, only 22 percent gave the correct answer – they cannot. The percent was similar in 2012. Meanwhile, a whopping 60 percent admitted they don’t know if charter schools can hold religious services or not, similar to the percent in 2012.

When asked if charter schools can charge tuition, only 27 percent of respondents in 2019 knew they cannot, compared with 24 percent in 2012. Forty-four percent said they don’t know if charter schools can charge tuition or not, compared to 44 percent in 2012.

What’s more …

The survey also asked respondents if they knew if there was a charter school in their local district. More than one-quarter – 28 percent – said they didn’t know.

In a deeper dive, a Harvard research fellow working with EdNext checked the responses against data on charter school locations. He found that many more people said they either “think” or “know” there is a charter school in their district than is in fact the case. Only 40 percent of those who say they “know” there’s a charter school in their district are correct.

Meanwhile, respondents were somewhat more likely to approve of charters if one or more is present in their district. The survey showed that 53 percent of respondents living in districts with charter schools favor them, with only 35 opposing them, compared to a margin of 47 percent support to 40 percent opposition among those living in districts without charter schools.

August 30, 2019 0 comment

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