A discussion of education in East Tennessee
The Latest ACT Results Per High School, And A 10-Year History On NAEP Scores
I have not posted anything for a long time. Rest assured that I am not going to deviate from my past focus on academic achievement, and I am looking to get from my Board of Education representative, Thomas Deakins, the latest final ACT scores for each high school to update the graphics for this area below to see exactly how we are doing. I also asked for a ten year history of the NAEP for grades 4 and 8 in every Knox county school. I would like to be able to show you ten-year curves on NAEP performance on the feeder schools of each high school.
Perhaps you remember me bringing up the fact that we showed Knox County getting a score of 87% in math on the TCAP, the Tennessee test in 2008. The TCAP has been dumbed down so much over a few decades, that the national test, the NAEP score on the EXACTLY SAME MATH LEVEL scored our kids at 21% if I remember correctly. That is just horrible for the future of our kids. I heard at a Board of Education (BOE) meeting some senior people saying that well, the TCAP unfortunately does not show the correct level at which our students are, but at least it can be used for relative measurement, that is TCAP compared to TCAP year-to-year. That is absolutely not true. I could not believe this logic. The reason why it is not useful for that purpose, because the NAEP shows our real accomplishment at 21% which is an absolutely horrible failure. If all of a sudden the TCAP would show us going in math from 87 to 100, the real math results under the NAEP might go from 21 to the low thirties. Even if your child scores a 35 in the NAEP, the child is going to be an absolute failure in math coming out of 4th or 8th grade. This is what the dumbed down curriculum has done to our children, and even to the young parents of today. So the TCAPs were useless all these years and no one said a thing. They knew that it was useless. The reading scores are similar to date. This is how our children went from primary to secondary school, being extremely poorly educated in the most important two areas for high school, reading and math. Thanks to the poor education system, they entered high school with one hand tied behind their backs. not one person stood up within the BOE and KCS Central during the past few decades to sound the alarm about this situation. Not one person stood up and remained standing, until this awful situation was corrected. Not one ladies and gentlemen. And to me, this is an incredibly shameful behavior, since our children's and today's younger generation's income depends on what our education did well. Nothing in this case, and all was being done on our dime, our tax dollars.
We already know that coming out of high school, things are not any better. Only about 79% graduate, and of those only 17-18% are college ready or job ready. For the first time in the last few years we heard our local companies complaining about the fact that they are no longer able to hire high school grads as before, because they cannot communicate properly in English and they cannot do simple math.
Please note that all this time, the BOE or KCS or the mayor's office kept reassuring the public about the great job our schools are doing. I remember Dr. McIntyre's positive words about the Knox County diploma for work "well done". And the real knowledge taught our children was in the gutter all this time, less and less could qualify to enter college, and there was a huge drop in science and engineering degrees in particular, creating a huge damage for our country. I want you all to remember well about what really happened, because the newspapers and TV stations AND especially KCS management did not tell you anything about how bad things have been for a long time and still are.
I am saying how bad things ARE, because we have seen nothing yet in the ACT scores that would indicate any serious improvement. I am very eager to add the ACT scores for this year to the ten year history I am showing here, to see if anything has changed.
We have learned an important thing I hope. Do not believe what such people promise or say. Believe what they actually have done, that is measured by the ACT. The ACT is the best measurement indicating how much our children have learned, from grade 1 to grade 12. Never get side tracked by all kinds of side issues that people can say to defend their own lack of accomplishment AT OUR EXPENSE. Just focus on the ACT scores.
And now you can look at how much each high school received per student in 2008 alone, for great results by a few high schools, and really bad results by most high schools.
THERE IS A BIG CHANGE COMING. OUR STUDENTS WILL HAVE TO WORK A LOT HARDER TO MAKE UP FOR THE DUMBING DOWN OF SEVERAL DECADES. THEY NEED THIS TO BE ABLE TO GET A HIGHER EDUCATION AND GOOD JOBS IN THE FUTURE.
The American Diploma Project through a company of senior industry leaders, people in education and politicians recognized the huge dumbing down problem about 6 years ago and formed a company called Achieve, Inc to do something about it. They came up with the minimum curriculum that is necessary for our high school students to become successful - if they get top grades with it. 35 states signed up to do it, and TN joined them about a year ago. We call it the TN Diploma Project, but it is the same thing. I read that we no longer focus our kids on the TCAPs. They will have to show good results on the NAEP. Thank God! As a nation, we have fallen to 34th place in math at the high school level. 33 other nations have passed us. WE USED TO BE ON TOP about four decades ago. With the new diploma requirements, we could become around the 15th. To be successful, and for our children to be successful, they will have to do even better than the new curriculum requirements, and do it with A's and B's if we want to be among the leading nations again. That means more jobs for our kids, who work hard to get good grades in both high school and college. So the TN Diploma Project is a very good and necessary thing. The challenge is that the BOE and KCS Central does not explain to parents what a bad job was done on our kids before, necessitating this change. The entire country did a bad job. It should be said that the schools and teachers had nothing to do with this. They did what they were told to do. Our kids were NOT educated well enough, and they were not taught enough material as a result.
I am being very direct with all of you and I hope that you pass the word about why it is vital for all kids to work a lot harder and for all parents to demand much more from their children. School is going to become ALMOST as hard work as it should be. If you parents do not push your kids to do more than what is required by the new diploma system, they will have an awful future, with minimum wage at best, and increasing unemployment. Within 8-10 years, you will see robots doing most work that people are doing with a high school education only. The same is the fate of two year college programs a few years further out. The time for easy school work IS OVER. Students better work a lot harder in primary school as well, because past reading and math performance will prepare them for unemployment only.
Let's see if the new ACT scores per high school show at least a half point improvement. If yes, then KCS has done the right thing. I will write to you all about some very important new things that I discovered a few months ago. It will be shocking like this situation, and we must do something about them to fix them.
Perhaps you remember me bringing up the fact that we showed Knox County getting a score of 87% in math on the TCAP, the Tennessee test in 2008. The TCAP has been dumbed down so much over a few decades, that the national test, the NAEP score on the EXACTLY SAME MATH LEVEL scored our kids at 21% if I remember correctly. That is just horrible for the future of our kids. I heard at a Board of Education (BOE) meeting some senior people saying that well, the TCAP unfortunately does not show the correct level at which our students are, but at least it can be used for relative measurement, that is TCAP compared to TCAP year-to-year. That is absolutely not true. I could not believe this logic. The reason why it is not useful for that purpose, because the NAEP shows our real accomplishment at 21% which is an absolutely horrible failure. If all of a sudden the TCAP would show us going in math from 87 to 100, the real math results under the NAEP might go from 21 to the low thirties. Even if your child scores a 35 in the NAEP, the child is going to be an absolute failure in math coming out of 4th or 8th grade. This is what the dumbed down curriculum has done to our children, and even to the young parents of today. So the TCAPs were useless all these years and no one said a thing. They knew that it was useless. The reading scores are similar to date. This is how our children went from primary to secondary school, being extremely poorly educated in the most important two areas for high school, reading and math. Thanks to the poor education system, they entered high school with one hand tied behind their backs. not one person stood up within the BOE and KCS Central during the past few decades to sound the alarm about this situation. Not one person stood up and remained standing, until this awful situation was corrected. Not one ladies and gentlemen. And to me, this is an incredibly shameful behavior, since our children's and today's younger generation's income depends on what our education did well. Nothing in this case, and all was being done on our dime, our tax dollars.
We already know that coming out of high school, things are not any better. Only about 79% graduate, and of those only 17-18% are college ready or job ready. For the first time in the last few years we heard our local companies complaining about the fact that they are no longer able to hire high school grads as before, because they cannot communicate properly in English and they cannot do simple math.
Please note that all this time, the BOE or KCS or the mayor's office kept reassuring the public about the great job our schools are doing. I remember Dr. McIntyre's positive words about the Knox County diploma for work "well done". And the real knowledge taught our children was in the gutter all this time, less and less could qualify to enter college, and there was a huge drop in science and engineering degrees in particular, creating a huge damage for our country. I want you all to remember well about what really happened, because the newspapers and TV stations AND especially KCS management did not tell you anything about how bad things have been for a long time and still are.
I am saying how bad things ARE, because we have seen nothing yet in the ACT scores that would indicate any serious improvement. I am very eager to add the ACT scores for this year to the ten year history I am showing here, to see if anything has changed.
We have learned an important thing I hope. Do not believe what such people promise or say. Believe what they actually have done, that is measured by the ACT. The ACT is the best measurement indicating how much our children have learned, from grade 1 to grade 12. Never get side tracked by all kinds of side issues that people can say to defend their own lack of accomplishment AT OUR EXPENSE. Just focus on the ACT scores.
And now you can look at how much each high school received per student in 2008 alone, for great results by a few high schools, and really bad results by most high schools.
THERE IS A BIG CHANGE COMING. OUR STUDENTS WILL HAVE TO WORK A LOT HARDER TO MAKE UP FOR THE DUMBING DOWN OF SEVERAL DECADES. THEY NEED THIS TO BE ABLE TO GET A HIGHER EDUCATION AND GOOD JOBS IN THE FUTURE.
The American Diploma Project through a company of senior industry leaders, people in education and politicians recognized the huge dumbing down problem about 6 years ago and formed a company called Achieve, Inc to do something about it. They came up with the minimum curriculum that is necessary for our high school students to become successful - if they get top grades with it. 35 states signed up to do it, and TN joined them about a year ago. We call it the TN Diploma Project, but it is the same thing. I read that we no longer focus our kids on the TCAPs. They will have to show good results on the NAEP. Thank God! As a nation, we have fallen to 34th place in math at the high school level. 33 other nations have passed us. WE USED TO BE ON TOP about four decades ago. With the new diploma requirements, we could become around the 15th. To be successful, and for our children to be successful, they will have to do even better than the new curriculum requirements, and do it with A's and B's if we want to be among the leading nations again. That means more jobs for our kids, who work hard to get good grades in both high school and college. So the TN Diploma Project is a very good and necessary thing. The challenge is that the BOE and KCS Central does not explain to parents what a bad job was done on our kids before, necessitating this change. The entire country did a bad job. It should be said that the schools and teachers had nothing to do with this. They did what they were told to do. Our kids were NOT educated well enough, and they were not taught enough material as a result.
I am being very direct with all of you and I hope that you pass the word about why it is vital for all kids to work a lot harder and for all parents to demand much more from their children. School is going to become ALMOST as hard work as it should be. If you parents do not push your kids to do more than what is required by the new diploma system, they will have an awful future, with minimum wage at best, and increasing unemployment. Within 8-10 years, you will see robots doing most work that people are doing with a high school education only. The same is the fate of two year college programs a few years further out. The time for easy school work IS OVER. Students better work a lot harder in primary school as well, because past reading and math performance will prepare them for unemployment only.
Let's see if the new ACT scores per high school show at least a half point improvement. If yes, then KCS has done the right thing. I will write to you all about some very important new things that I discovered a few months ago. It will be shocking like this situation, and we must do something about them to fix them.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Heather Marshall on -
Vic,
Nice work! You have outlined the problem so well. I would really like to see the information on 2009 ACT scores for each high school in the district when they are available. Did they scores in Knox County go up or down for each school...It is amazing how your information shows that throwing more money at the problem, does not solve it.
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Permalink Reply by Vic Spencer on -
I spoke to a few Board members a number of times about this situation. I do not understand why they do not level with the public about the situation. The only solution in avoiding a major negative reaction by the public is to finally tell the truth about KCS, the Board and the newspaper spreading only good news in the past to make the public believe that everything is going well in education. It's not only our Board of education. It may be all Boards of education in the nation who are acting that way. They simply must feel that telling the truth about all the bad decisions of the past for decades is not the way to go. I disagree totally. If you level with the population, it will be much easier to get full cooperation right away to get the right level of support, instead of creating a fight and some problems about the BILLIONS of tax dollars that were used poorly, literally reducing the knowledge that our children were supposed to have by the time they graduate from high school, just so that better news can be "created" with dumbed down weaker tests to create good grades to brag about in the news.
Well, it has caught up with all those who participated, and all those who went along and did NOTHING about this terrible situation.
I wonder why the News Sentinel has an editor on educational matters who does not present topics that are this important. Could I be wrong? I don't think so. I have the facts on my Web site at www.knoxedu.info showing exactly what happened. There are admissions today, even at the level of state education departments and the federal department of education to back 100% of what I have been presenting.
So what should we do with those who are defensive and did absolutely nothing earlier? DO NOT REELECT THEM. GET THEM REPLACED WITH PEOPLE WHO UNDERSTAND THIS HUGE PROBLEM, AND DO IT EVERYWHERE. If we do not do that, we simply do not deserve anything better, because we cannot even do that much for the future of our own children, and in the interest of all children's future. We also need to consider changing and be very critical of all decision makers within central organizations, like KCS Central, who are also fully responsible for this awful situation.
No foreign enemy could have damaged us more in my opinion, than people in management positions within our education systems' central management, and our Boards of Education in that order. Boards are voted in. They rely on the expertise of decision makers who are paid big bucks from out tax dollars at the central organizations. And NO ONE, NOT ONE PERSON on the BOE pays attention to the numbers that speak volumes, like the ACT. I think we need some major changes!
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Permalink Reply by Debi on -
Hey Vic. I noticed some of the schools had definite up & down years. Any associations/possible causes as to why?
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Permalink Reply by Vic Spencer on
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Unfortunately not. But those who know the intimate history of the school at that time would probably know. I see redistricting, that changes a substantial part of the school population as a possibility. Any major turnover in teachers could create such a possibility. Neighboring, better paying school districts attracting away the better teachers could have an impact. Teacher turnover going back up to ten years I would like to look at.
Based on all the people I have spoken to I very much believe that there are three major reasons for under performance.
Parental and teacher expectations are way too low in general. Part of this is parents not having a good relationship with teachers, and back their poor performing children. And guess what? The child's future totally depends almost totally on the teachers.
Most students are not motivated in our schools. They don't know basic things like what studying does to their brain, why a high school diploma is not an end in itself but it is vitally necessary as a gateway, and what very exciting fun jobs are coming up by the millions through technology, with very high pay, but you must be highly schooled to get them.
Lastly, no one educates the kids (probably in primary school) about what genetic abnormalities, drugs, tobacco and alcohol do to a fetal brain's development, and what a poor parenting environment does to a child's brain. Kids are born with virtually all of their brain cells if they are not brain damaged during pregnancy. However, their abilities as adults depend 100% on how their brain cells become "wired" (neuronal firing paths) through parental upbringing and subsequent experiences. Most of this wiring happens during the first year of a child. These pre and post natal combinations may create permanent damage and learning disabilities for children, some fixable and some not fixable. This is very important stuff. I have a bit more research to do to quantify this area, but it is certain that this is a major impact area for children. This is the area where inner city parental behavior in most cases damages the kids. Spending unsupervised time in the streets, gangs and so on create untold damage to the brain in addition to behavior problems that may be symptomatic of the brain changes. Therefore, and it is documented in a number of research projects, more time spent in school, if supervised, could be most beneficial, especially in the earliest years, including preschool.
My point is that perhaps most underperformance as you look at Linear Regression trend-lines over a ten year period in each school, can be explained by demographics, and resultant parental shortcomings.
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Permalink Reply by Debi on
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Vic, I think I posted somewhere back an African-Americian activist who had found that during the first years of a child's life positive vs. negative words have a direct correlation in their success as an adult. He found that in the culture of poverty a child is very likely to hear the majority of negative words, where as higher social classes are more likely to hear more positive words. He was working with his community on teaching young mothers and fathers how to change the way they speak to their children and was having some great success. I wish I could remember his name/program. Maybe it will trigger someone's memory who reads this to post more info.
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Permalink Reply by Vic Spencer on
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What studies indicate is that parenting has the greatest impact on how a child's brain is "wired" (mood, motivation, curiosity, ability to get along socially, and so on) a very large percentage during the first year, and then this process diminishes year after year. A negative, complaining and abusive environment will have the same result. It has nothing to do with race.
More of the same treatment of the young child will reinforce the "wiring" of the brain in a negative behavior direction. However, a change in parental behavior can also change the "brain wiring" in the young child. Under parental behavior one would include any adult behavior that is close enough to the child to serve as an example for the child.
That tells me how much more important the first five years are than the school years, along with the mother's behavior during pregnancy, especially drug, alcohol and tobacco use.
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Permalink Reply by Ginevra on -
I wonder how much individual students can affect those scores, also.
I remember my daughter pointing out to me a young man who, she told me, had achieved perfect SAT scores. His ACT scores would have had to be pretty impressive also.
He was also autistic, and graduated from either Bearden or West (can't remember for certain, it was several years ago).
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Permalink Reply by Heather Marshall on
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One individual student's score does not have any real affect on the school average because there are hundreds of students taking the ACT at every school.
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Permalink Reply by Ginevra on
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It would depend on the way the scores are calculated, Heather -- there are two kinds of averages, and one is affected more strongly by outliers than the other.
I thought that this was why some schools have been known to encourage particular students to be "absent" on testing days -- because they can pull down the average of the entire school. So even just a few especially gifted students might have the same effect of pulling up the whole school's average -- unless I'm mistaken.
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Permalink Reply by Heather Marshall on
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Vic, Do you know if the average scores for school ACT's are "mean" or "median"?
To clarify, Ginevra, one student's perfect score willl not really have any effect when there are 300 + students being counted in the average, it does not matter if it is "mean" or "median".
Furthermore, I teach mathematics in a Knox County High, and I have not heard that students are being encouraged to be absent on ACT testing days. It is quite the contrary, students are being encouraged to take the ACT, and do their best.
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Permalink Reply by Ginevra on
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You're right, Heather, I'm thinking of TCAPS, not ACT -- and of my family's experience in another state around 1990, when a first grade teacher openly advised parents of non-readers to consider "taking the day off" on their state testing day.
But I'm still curious about the average scores. How are they calculated? Does anyone know?
And -- if there are 300+ students being counted, how many students with exceptional scores would need to participate (for example the young autistic student I mentioned, the one with the perfect SATs) in order to pull up the average of an entire school?
I'd appreciate some response here from those who particularly enjoy working with math and figures. At some point, individual excellent students (I'm not sure how many it would take) would make a difference. How many individual students does it take to tip the scores, when those individuals excel?
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Permalink Reply by Vic Spencer on
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Gin, it works as you would average ten different scores. You add them all together, and divide by ten to get the "average" score. You can use your imagination what the "distribution" of individual scores may be. If you have a large percentage of high scores, you will get a higher "average" score, than if you had only a small number of high scores. The process is simple math like that. Am I answering your question?
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