New AYP 2010 report again shows south side comprehensive high schools better than north side.

The new, 8-4-2010, Texas Education Agency AYP (Acceptable Yearly Progress) Report, at http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/ayp/2010/distcampfinal10.pdf, is additional powerful documentation of the superiority of the 15 non-magnet high schools on the south side of Dallas over the 7 similar DISD high schools on the north side. (See Page 48 in this report for DISD.)

While there are individual parts of the AYP report that must be strongly questioned, the overall pattern of the 15 non-magnet south side high schools doing much better than the 7 non-magnet high schools on the north side of Dallas is clear. The data below is taken from the above linked AYP report.

This AYP report shows that only 2 of 7 north side high schools made AYP, or 28.6%, while 5 out of 15 of the south side made AYP, or 33%. While this is not a big difference, when you count the reasons given for each school not meeting AYP, a very strong pattern emerges.

On the north side there were a total of 12 reasons for not meeting AYP spread among the 5 schools for an average of 2.4 reasons in each of these 5 schools. On the south side there were a total of 13 reasons given for the 10 schools not meeting AYP for an average of 1.3 reasons spread among these 10 school.

Then you look for more patterns and see that only 1 out of 5 north side schools did not make AYP for only one reason. On the south side there were 7 out of 10 schools that did not make AYP for only one reason.

Finally you notice that three north side schools, (43%), had three reasons for not making AYP! NONE of the south side south side high schools had three reasons for not making AYP!

Based on the above, along with previous evidence collected (http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2010/08/dallas-northsouth-gap-myth-suffers-with.html) can anyone deny that the non-magnet high schools on the south side of Dallas are doing better than those on the north side of Dallas?

How can Dallas media speak of a "North-South Gap" wherein the North is always superior? They can only do it by avoiding any reporting in print on the repeated academic patterns indicating a different gap, one with the south side on top!

All DISD schools and students must do better, must constantly improve. Transparency helps that to happen.

Dropout Counting in the News

This past week dropout issues were in the news. Dallas found that their dropout rate is the seventh worst in the nation. However, among cities of a million or more population, Dallas would have been at the bottom of the list, the worst student dropout rate in the nation! This status was also given Dallas for numbers from the graduation class of 2004. Since then the graduation numbers have continued to go down. In 2007 Dallas had the highest percentage of seniors who failed to graduate for any Dallas ISD class since before 1997! For the class of 2007 16% of the seniors failed to receive a diploma! See www.studentmotivation.org/dallasisd.htm for the painful numeric details.

By 2007 the graduation rate in Dallas ISD had fallen to 40.5%, 4 percentage points below the 2004 rate!

This week U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced that they would be requiring all states to use the same definition for dropout rates nationwide. It is long overdue!

The common dropout definition to be used needs to be simple, easy to track and verify, and fully transparent. In search of the needed transparency these numbers should be reflected easily for each school district in an annually updated spreadsheet of enrollment by grade. That spreadsheet should include the annual count given for diplomas actually granted, and at least 10 years of enrollment & graduation history. A spreadsheet similar to the one at www.studentmotivation.org/dallasisd.htm is recommended. Every school district in the nation needs such a simple spreadsheet easily available on their web site. It would expose what is really happening.

Yes, there will certainly be things that happen in all communities that cause these numbers to fluctuate annually. Those events should be explained in footnotes to the spreadsheet and never be allowed to compromise the validity of the numbers given in the spreadsheet. Too much has been hidden for decades about what is happening to our children. Simple true numbers and statistics must be mandated. If any educational administrator is fearful for their employment due to what is reflected, they should be able to explain those fluctuations, but not change the numbers reported.

The goal is to be consistent throughout the US so numbers in every state can be validly compared with those in any other state.