Misusing Data Misleads the Public

This is the first of what I'm hoping will be a regular post from CPS communications guru Peter Cunningham, who has been a regular reader and occasional commenter on the site:

"Last spring, the Chicago Consortium on School Research released a study suggesting that only 6.5% of Chicago public high school freshmen eventually graduate from a four-year college. The Consortium has since adjusted the number upwards because of new graduation data from colleges, but the number itself is an estimate based on the performance of students from the 1980’s – long before school reform took hold or Mayor Daley took control of the system. Nevertheless, many people have quoted the figure as undisputed fact and blamed the current administration for falling short.

"No one can tell you with certainty how many CPS students eventually graduate from a four-year college and until they can, we should all stay away from this statistic. We all agree that, no matter how many of our kids are earning four-year college degrees, it’s not enough and we must do better. Rather than blaming people for the shortcomings of the past, however, let’s talk about what we can do in the future to get more kids through college. The New York Times used the statistic to focus on the responsibilities of colleges to support struggling students and help them succeed. Another dimension of the issue is the skyrocketing cost of college tuition.  Clearly, CPS has the key role in preparing kids for college and we are doing more today than ever before, but we all have a role in raising success rates."

Feel free to comment on Cunningham's argument below, and if you or anyone you know might have a valuable perspective that should be shared on this site -- be it teacher, activist, parent, etc. -- let me know at [email protected].  The point of the site is to hear all views, share information, and learn from each other.

Comments

Accepting Cunningham's argument, but asking when will CPS know how many students graduate from 4 year colleges? I thought the process to determine this was started with Melissa Roderick and the HS people in 2000.

"The Consortium has since adjusted the number upwards because of new graduation data from colleges..."

Mr. Cunningham, can you please tell us the adjusted rate?

CPS's Office of High School programs also has a wonderful Post Secondary Office, that assists CPS students in getting to, staying in, and graduating from college. Check out their website.

[Julie Woestehoff]

Peter makes an important point, one that holds true for more than the four-year graduation statistic but also includes many of the positive claims CPS makes for itself. Our children deserve better than for us adults to play loose with statistics (see most of the Renaissance 2010 hype for examples).

As the mother of two of the oldest college seniors in Chicago -- both CPS graduates and the smartest, most successful young men a parent could want -- I appreciate the fact that graduating from college in four years tells little about the quality of K-12 schooling.

We need to be more concerned about the millions of CPS students who have never attended a day of college because their families don't believe they can afford it, or they haven't had adequate high school counseling, or they dropped out after having been held back three times by CPS.

Our children deserve our serious attention to all of the danger signs of the neglect and inadequate service so many of them receive. The low four-year graduation rate is one danger sign. CPS and the civic and foundation community need to put far more resources into analysis of the many severe problems in the system.

Perhaps even more important, we need to take a closer look at models of success that have a track record, not just expensive hype.

I'd suggest starting with the Designs for Change research (www.designsforchange.org - The Big Picture) which clearly connects local school decision making with the steady, impressive gains from 1990 in 144 CPS schools that escaped central office intervention. Conversely, the schools which experienced the most serious interventions from CPS have barely improved during the same time period.

Most of those 144 schools face the same social and economic challenges as the schools that have not improved. They should be the obvious models for the system, yet this important research has been ignored by CPS, the media, even Catalyst in favor of "flavor-of-the-month" schools which do not accept or serve all students.

The saying, "Live by the sword, die by the sword" is appropriate here. Until CPS stops misusing data for its own purposes, it's hard to attack others for doing the same.

Where is the research to indicate that local school decision-making improves high school outcomes?

If the children coming from the 144 Designs for Change schools benefited so much from their elementary education and local control, then again, what happened to them when they reached high school?

[Peter Cunningham]

I believe the 6.5% figure is somewhere above 8 right now, but you have to check with the Consortium.

I'm not aware of ongoing efforts to determine how many of our students eventually graduate from college, but we have begun tracking how many enter. At least 46% of the kids from the graduating class or 2005 enrolled in some kind of college (two-year or four-year). We won't have 2006 numbers until the spring.

As for Julie's point about Designs for Change -- we don't support intervention for its own sake. Where we can get out of the way and let principals do their jobs, we have. We started the AMPS Program (Autonomous Management Performance Schools) in 80 schools to free them from district initiatives and direct oversight.

But when schools struggle and kids are being underserved, we're accountable. You have to do something. We can't look parents in the eye and say, "We know your child is struggling but we're not going to do anything about it because we're more committed to decentralization than to your child's performance."

[Julie Woestehoff]

CPS has a responsibility to do more than "something." You have a responsiblity to learn and know something about what works rather than just hand your responsibility over to some group to do "something else." You need to be able to look parents in the eye and say that you are doing something better, not based on phony data and public relations spin but based on real life success.

It's very telling that CPS and so many others in Chicago have pointedly ignored the Designs for Change research, and other research about the success of decentralization (Tony Bryk, Harvard's Archon Fung, the Consortium).

As for the problems of the high schools, the unluckiest elementary school students ended up in one of the majority of high schools that have been on probation -or reengineering or reconstitution or whatever CPS called intervention when it was that school's turn. So what are their chances?

I agree with Mr.Cunningham about the incrediable cost of college. We also have to keep in mind that only somewhere around 25% of the adult US population are four year college graduates (based on current census data) because of these costs. Another 6.3% have achieved an Associates degrees. An incrediable 21% of the population over 25 years old are in effect college drop outs.

The youngest age group (25 to 29 years) had rates of educational attainment slightly lower than people
aged 45 to 54. For example,
86 percent of people aged 45 to 49 had completed high school,compared with only 84 percent of those
aged 25 to 29. 27 percent of 25- to 29-year-olds had completed a bachelor’s degree or more, while 26 percent of those in the older groups (35 to 39 and 40 to 44) had reached this educational level. Only 14% of the Black population over 25 of the US has a 4 year degree.

We know that based on the SES and racial status of CPS students four year college graduation is highly unlikely. I think Mr. Cunningham and others in the CPS are guilty promoting false expectations for low income minority students. While we should not be advising kids because they are black and poor they should forget college, we should be giving them the facts that graduating with a four year degree is a long shot for poor minority kids who are children of parents who have not gone to college themselves.

The CPS spends a lot of effort pumping poor kids up to go to college, telling them about grants and loans. But the CPS never tells these kids that 21% of the US population are college drop outs, some with debt to pay and no degree to show for it. Is this reality good, no it is a crime that a rich nation like ours is in this situation. But part of an educator's job is to explain emperical reality to young people so they can make rational choices for their future.

Seems to me that the whole HS re-design (since 2000) effort was driven by attaining accurate data regarding the post-secondary activities of CPS students. Wasn't that the charge of the "post-secondary" unit? How can Cunningham say he is "unaware" of this?

Peter, share with us which schools are AMPS? Give me the demographic breakdown of these schools. Neighborhood schools serving a high poverty population seem to be stradled the most by CPS initiatives. These are the schools that need creative leadership and autonomy.

.....or maybe we should just fire those creative principals and get a CPS administrator to drive these schools into the ground so they could become part of Ren10.

There are a lot of complaints about lack of autonomy. Yet, we never hear exactly how giving these schools (the ones with lower performance) autonomy is going to change their practice. If leaders in these schools are creative and have big ideas (or little), then, what are they? If there is an effective leader and staff collaboration, what's preventing them from developing and implementing their own plan? Isn't some of the alleged tying of hands a bit exaggerated? Why don’t these principals and teachers and LSCs indicate what they would do it if they only had the power? Local school leaders need to stop some of the blaming too and do some leading. Take some ownership for their schools and the outcomes.

5:19,

You obviously are not a leader of a neighborhood school.

[SmashedFace]

To 4:15
I agree that the schools that need the most autonomy are the ones that are the lowest performing. Perhaps CPS's greatest manifestation of that is the "Turnaround Schools". That is exactly what has been granted them. I'm excited to see what will happen.
To 5:19: I agree with you. There is nothing that is preventing neighborhood schools (as 5:41 pointed out) or anyone else from having the CTU voting membership vote to waive part of the contract and to have the LSC to work with them to do things differently. It would take a lot of work, but the only thing stopping it is those in the building, not those those from central office.

Peter Cunningham is Duncan's Tony Snow. Why even give him space on your blog? He will never own up to shortcomings, unless they were from the previous administration. Data is always dated. Never something you can learn from. "Let's not dwell on the past. Sounds like, "let's not dwell on WMDs." Yes, there are tons of reasons why inner-city kids don't graduate from the universities in large numbers. Part of it is that CPS is a large drop-out factory by design with two tiers of curriculum--one for the high scoring kids and one for the rest.

Why free a group of schools from bureaucratic oversight? If that oversight is harmful, free all schools. If it is supportive, don't "free" any. If it is harmful, change it. It's like Cunningham is saying, "we not imposing our stupid rules and regs on everyone, just the bad schools."

[SmashedFace]

7:38:
I totally agree! CPS should allow each school to make a proposal to break from bureacratic constraints, explaining exactly what they plant to do to meet students' needs. If they have a coherent plan and the support of the faculty, why the hell not?!?

If it's good for charters, it should be good for CTU schools. Now, if the faculty & admin are unwilling to do anything and the children are doing poorly (on a variety of measures) then work to do something different, do Ren10-10 the them!

Giving Cunningham space on this blog is the right thing to do. It gives all of us a chance to expose this spin-master for what he is--someone who is willing to twist the truth in order to make $110,000 or more as a consultant to CPS. Wouldn't be so bad, but CPS is just one of his clients. If the press in this town weren't so co-opted by him (and so lazy), his rip-off contracts with CPS, CHA and other public institutions who hire him to spin would be front page news. Seems to me that $110,000 a year is a full time job, not a part-time consultant gig.

[Victor]

Dear 7:38:

Love your comment. As I say elsewhere, it "Cuts to the quick doesn't it? Nub of the issue...Core of the problem...and any other cliche you can think might apply about now."

"I bet politicians must really hate people who make sense, especially those who can make it clear to anyone listening."

P.S. - Whoever you are I have an offer for you. Email me.

[George Schmidt]

Peter (and all). Many of us will continue to cheer about your joining up here (by the way, congratulations on your recent promotion...) if the same critical scrutiny is to be provided to all data churned out by and about CPS. The Consortium has a mixed record, and all claims based on "research" need to be cross examined, especially in the current age.

But don't stop with the Consortium's shabby estimates of the ultimate college completion rate for CPS high school students.

Next, I suggest you put your detectives to work on the CPS approved annual study of charter schools. As usual, that study claims that Chicago charter schools "outperform" the neighborhood schools around them. But in reality, that's the same as saying that magnet schools outperform the neighborhood schools around them, since both the charters and the magnets are selective enrollment, requiring applications, deadlines and other requirements that local schools don't get to impose.

Question, then, Peter:

Is the Board of Education's Communications Department ready to charge that the annual charter schools study also straighten out its data sets? I called the authors of the charter study last week, asking for the names of the neighborhood schools to which each charter was comparing itself. I got a call back (very polite), biut not an answer (I'd prefer impolite on the phone and data in the mail or here, not smarmy smiles and then silence).

Last month, my topic at the Board meeting was "Lies, damned lies, and charter school studies..."

Like your review of the Consortium claims about college completion, the charter data require full disclosure and full data review.

So let's go this one first, then there are a few others that need be looked at. Within a year, we should be all the way back to the bedrock (A Nation at Risk and the William Bennett/Chicago Tribune blood libel "America's Worst School System") of infamous propaganda. Once we go back over the data from the 1980s (including the financial impact of the School Finance Authority on instructional dollars to Chicago classrooms and the rise in test scores despite the draconian cuts at the time Harold Washington was mayor) we can revise Arne's State of the Schools speech before he gives another one of those at the City Club maligning the days when African Americans (Washington, Byrd, Vaughn) ran CPS. Arne knows it's time he stopped dating the histories back to when white guys took over, but that's also about data.

[Peter Cunningham]

I'm honestly interested in hearing about some of the things the central office does that impede learning in struggling schools.
Please be as specific as possible.

We should be able to justify everything that we ask of schools -- whether it's keeping attendance or mandating professional development.

Whether you believe it or not, this administration is absolutely committed to getting out of the way as much as possible and letting educators do their jobs.

But I keep coming back to the point that the administration is ultimately accountable when a school is struggling and kids aren't learning.

In many cases the 1988 reforms work beautifully --a great LSC picks a great principal who hires great teachers, generates parent and community involvement, and performance improves. No one is trying to undermine that.

But what happens when -- for some reason -- a school struggles year-after-year and no one does anything -- not the LSC, the parents or the principal? Who is accountable for that? Someone needs to intervene for the kids and create a better educational option right away.

Mr. Cunningham-
Thank you for the revised number for CPS college completers.
Will you list the neighborhood schools used for the analyses in the charter schools report as requested by Mr. Schmidt?

"Schools target poor readers, Duncan deploys specialists to help students at 128 schools." Front page headlines of the August 17th Chicago SunTimes. This launched the $52 million reading program and also 24 AIOs at a price tag of over $24 million per year. The data shows that 5 years later there has been very little gain by these schools. Yet the spin is positive, CPS is on its way to becoming the best school system in the country. Mis-use of data is frequent with central office especially Duncan. He recently stated the results of the ACT had moved from 17.0 to 17.6, "we are making improvement." He mislead the public because 17.6 is the average or mean. The ACT score for all African Amwerican high schools is 15, that is a one hell of a difference. In fact CPS always quote the average when they are talking about scores. After five years at the helm why is it the administratio can only point to two schools that they claim are successful, Dodge and Williams? Although only the first year of operation test scores were reported. Julie Woestehoff of PURE did some research and that the second year scores did not surpass the first year. CPS increased Charter spending from $90 mil to $130 mil for 2006. A laundry list of $77 million was cut from various areas and Special Ed getting the biggest hit. A list of charters are expected to open this September. Why don't public schools get first priority? The funds going to charters shifted to public schools would have eliminated these cuts. That couldn't be done because school reform is driven by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club. Buyers of $2 million plus Gold Coast condos cumulatively save millions of dollars a year in property taxes - money that could be used for cash-starved schools-thanks to a little-noticed Illinois tax break originally envisioned to preserve historically significant single family homes. It has been reported by Crain that developers are asking for and getting special tax status for historically significant buildings being converted into high-end condos. Under the program property tax rates are frozen for eight years at low, pre-redevelopment levels, saving individual buyers thousands of dollars in gtaxes each year. For instance, buyers of condos at the rehabbed Ambassador West Hotel will pay an averager tax bill of $5,000 to $7,000 a year vs. a market rate of $41,000 on a typical $2 million condo. Buyers at the Palmolive Building on North Michigan Avenue (average price: $ 2 mil) will pay about $9,700 a year, compared with a market rate of roughly $35,000. Four of the properties that Crain's examined are projected to produce combined tax breaks of more than $68 million. Chicago Public Schools get about half the city's tax levy. Chicago Public Schools can opt out of this tax break but they haven't. This school system is subsidizing the lives of luxury homebuyers and raising property taxes on other homeowners. Children are not first in the system, they are part of the plan to make Chicago Metropolis 2020 become a reality. What is happening at central office is worse than the hired truck scandal, kids are getting hurt and some are being destroyed.

[Julie Woestehoff]

Here's a specific example of what CPS does to drive down struggling schools, and how an LSC's efforts to make a difference were blocked. A school on the near west side had been on probation since the day Vallas proclaimed it to be so. The principal was replaced with an interim. After several years without progress, the LSC began to ask that they be allowed to select someone else. They were denied. Meanwhile, LSC-recommended programs to involve parents and address the serious discipline problems in the school with mentoring and other programs were also rejected.

This is just one example but it's a common story.

And the LSCs have just had amazing success in selecting principals that have brought academic improvement to Chicago schools, like the great choice they made at Brooks. Give me a break.

To 1:10

Tell us about CPS' success in bringing effective leadership to schools. Where are the leaders who have turned around high schools such as Fenger, Carver, Englewood, Calumet, South Shore, Robeson, Harper, Harlan, Clemente, Phillips, King, Collins, Richards, Kelly, Kelvyn, Tilden, and on and on