Some real talk about Level 3, Part II

Last week I wrote a review of how Wareham was labeled a Level 3 district. To review, one of seven schools in town is slightly on the wrong side of the 20% line based on myriad calculations based on MCAS results. But wait, there’s more!

As mentioned last week, Level 3 schools are in the bottom 20% in the state, a line of division based on the “hey, gotta draw the line somewhere” method successfully used by Europeans to set the national borders of Africa and the Middle East. However, being at 17% doesn’t mean that WMS just needs to “improve by 3.5%” to get to Level 2. It has to improve by a greater degree than the eight schools above it. If state databanks decree that Wareham Middle School improved by 10% last year, and the eight schools above do 12% better, WMS loses ground. This is the philosophy of the New York Stock Exchange – success isn’t what or how well you do, but how you compare to others. The Department of Education buys into it.

Unfortunately, the state stacked the deck against Wareham Middle School last year. A large element of the numerical gymnastics is comparing WMS to schools that the state labels as similar. In the case of WMS, this means nine others that are located in Amesbury, Billerica, Fall River, Medford, Middleborough, New Bedford (two), Plymouth, Rockland, and Taunton. So Wareham is expecting to keep pace with selected schools in these eight towns and cities, and loses points if it doesn't.

Ask if that truly is a representative group. Would you be surprised to learn that of these nine schools, only 3 have a higher percentage of low-income students? There may not be widespread shock that the average per pupil expenditure of these combined districts for the most recent year available is $12,756, compared to $12,241 in Wareham -- that's the red bar on the graph below. Does anyone believe things would improve if each WMS classroom had an additional $10,000 more to spend on education?  That's an updated set of books.  It's two classroom computers.

 ►The third item on the list of truths about Level 3: Wareham Middle School was placed on its level largely due to comparisons to schools that aren’t comparable. Now, there may statistical glimmers of hope. Wareham will be placed in a different group this summer, perhaps one that is actually appropriate. The “SGP” scores in recent fifth grade MCAS results, a group whose numbers will be counted as WMS students in reports issued starting in 2014, are a bit higher than those scores in grades 6-8. There is new leadership atop WMS and the public schools. This is a chance at a fresh start. Knowledge may be half the battle, but it doesn't have to all be pessimistic.

Finally, there is a sad, final truth to all this: students are barely part of this discussion. Some test scores in a couple subjects certainly are. A change in level can come by fairly grouping schools, or perhaps moving a new grade to WMS. It may or may not be coincidence that “education” has been stripped down to moving numbers around formulas in spreadsheets, and that “improvement” is the province of accountants and rather than educators. Even when WMS leaves Level 3, as long as this is public education, how much have things really improved?