The Observation Deck

From the Ohio Department of Education:

http://ilrc.ode.state.oh.us/districts/D ... s.asp?sel=

Enter Lakewood, then choose Lakewood City

The link is to last year's report cards. This year's reports come out Aug 14.
The preliminary figures are pretty encouraging for Lakewood.

The new numbers are in.

http://ilrc.ode.state.oh.us/districts/D ... s.asp?sel=

The schools are failing the community and the students and the answer is not another round of raises followed by another round of tax increases.

Bill Call wrote:The new numbers are in.

http://ilrc.ode.state.oh.us/districts/D ... s.asp?sel=

The schools are failing the community and the students and the answer is not another round of raises followed by another round of tax increases.

Failing the community?

I have read the numbers, I must be missing something. Looked like we passed in everything. Could it be better? Sure what can't be better?

We have some other variables here we might want to throw in. Schools working around the construction. The amount of "new" students coming in from other countries, etc.

FWIW


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Remember, the numbers get skewed easily by the number and type of student in addition to the futile measurement system of "no child gets ahead".

Say whatever you want, but my wife and I have actually pulled our son out of private school and are opting for the Lakewood Public School system.

It's always been our belief that the most critical factor in a child's education is parental involvement. Public School isn't daycare. It requires active participation from both student and family.

Jim O'Bryan wrote:Failing the community?

Brunswick's rating is excellent and the district spends $8,047 per student.

Lakewood's rating is continuous improvement and the district spends $11,146 per student. Assuming 6,000 students, Lakewood spends $18 million dollars a year more than Brunswick would spend with the same 6,000 students. How do they manage to do more with less? Don't ask, it upsets the bureaucracy.

Lakewood spends nearly 40% more than Brunswick and our rating is barely above that of some of the poorest districts in the County. That sounds like failure to me.

Of course I expect to hear that the real problem is that we don't spend enough money. The voters are just too stingy!

Bill Call wrote:

Jim O'Bryan wrote:Of course I expect to hear that the real problem is that we don't spend enough money. The voters are just too stingy!

Bill

What if they don't say that?


Just curious.



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FWIW, the high school received a rating of Excellent for the THIRD consecutive year and met every indicator.

Sandy Donnelly wrote:FWIW, the high school received a rating of Excellent for the THIRD consecutive year and met every indicator.

Sandy

Thanks for jumping in, but this is no time to let facts get in the way of a Bill Call fire.


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FWIW, the high school received a rating of Excellent for the THIRD consecutive year and met every indicator.

And I'd say that's worth quite a bit.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if all school districts faced the same issues, had the same makeup of students and were all forced to meet the same standards,ie., an all English speaking student body taking the same English language test. It would make a meaningful comparison sooo easy. "They spend less, they get more, therefore they're better". Simplistic.

But, in the real world, any meaningful analysis has to first generate an apples to apples comparison. Social/economic issues play a part. The reality of dealing with a significant population requiring ESL or a variety of special needs, tends to result in subset scores that drag down the overall ratings, despite having met the same number of standards, system-wide, that other school districts have met. Importing special needs students not only skews our score lower, but enhances the score of the district from whence they came. Add to that the reality that many of the programs, while adding to the total per student cost, are actually funded by non-Lakewood tax dollars.

It is a complicated analysis and unfortunately, the tests which are being used as a measure are skewed against any district which has to deal with the diversity facing Lakewood.

Jeff

Again, out of curiosity, how many "special needs" kids are in each of these schools?

Would those students possibly require more spending?

It does look like we can use improvement in a number of areas, but I find this "report card" difficult to understand.

Of course, since I am merely a college graduate, there are a number things I don't understand (and question).

Our graduation rate seems low, but what's the real story?

I wish Dr. Estrop was quoted as saying more than, "It's a rigged system."

What's the story behind these numbers? How can I better understand them?

Any time that measurements are done with a student body using a single modality, (like a pencil-paper test, for example), anyone having a modicum of common sense should realize that there will be those who come out better than others for a variety of reasons.

In the past, this was called a bell curve; with a few scoring exceptionally well, a few others scoring exceptionally badly, and a huge bunch in the middle. You might as well take the tests and throw them down a flight of stairs. You'd get just about the same results. A few would hit the top step, a few would land on the bottom, and so on.

Students do need standards, but they also need a more flexible means of measurement as well as more flexible means of instruction. A single delivery modality of instruction (i.e. listening, or reading only) will benefit but a percentage of learners. To reach as many as possible requires multi-modality teaching and evaluation techniques.

Add into the equation economic, cultural, peer and parenting issues in the urban paradigm, and the learning process becomes complex.

In my opinion, "No Child Left Behind" is a simplistic, anachronistic, draconian and virtually fascist means of measuring educational progress by a simple one-size-fits-all testing system.

Students are being subjected to a horridly rigid curriculum, devoid of creativity and personal expression, as well as an austere lack of individual variances. All too often, they are taught for content, rather than for mastery.

The reason we are not Brunswick, pure and simple, is simply this: More homogeneous groupings do better with homogeneous tests. Duh!

We have an eclectic mix in an inner-ring suburb. With increasing and unfunded mandates for urban schools to do more and more with less and less, the outcome is both predictable and regrettable.

That's my opinion anyway, with 31 years of classroom experience behind it.

Bill Call, you wrote “How do they manage to do more with less? Don't ask, it upsets the bureaucracy.â€Â￾ This is the knee-jerk reaction you generally call others out on. You can do better than that.

Let’s analyze the numbers a bit and see if we can actually add to the issue and not launch missiles.

Administrative Expenditures – Lakewood spends $868 per pupil to Brunswick’s $892. This expenditure type consists mainly of non teaching staff which includes central office and board staff and some school based staff such as counselors.

Building Operations Expenditures – Lakewood spends $1,794 per pupil to Brunswick’s $1,435. This bill consists of electricity, gas, cafeteria equipment, etc. New buildings tend to be more efficient to operate and maintain. While a closer look at the building stock of the respective school districts would be needed, one would assume that this cost per pupil expenditure would decrease in Lakewood as new buildings are brought on-line.

Staff Support Expenditures – Lakewood spends $186 per pupil to Brunswick’s $60. This item consists primarily of teaching staff professional development. District’s with a higher percentage of students with disabilities or limited English proficiency and considered economically disadvantaged must spend more to prepare teachers to serve this diverse population.

Economically disadvantaged – Lakewood-39.8%; Brunswick-16.9%
Students with disabilities – Lakewood-14.7%; Brunswick-10.9%
Limited English proficient – Lakewood-8.7%; Brunswick-0.7%

Pupil Support Expenditures – Lakewood spends $1,432 per pupil to Brunswick’s $982. These items also relate to the needs of children (economically disadvantaged, with disabilities, limited English). The state and federal governments set specific staff/student ratios concerning students with learning and physical disabilities – generally requiring one professionally trained teacher for every 10-15 students depending on the disability being served versus one teacher for 25 or so students in a standard classroom. (Close to 18% of Cleveland’s students are considered disabled.)

Instructional Expenditures – Lakewood spends $6,866 per pupil to Brunswick’s $4,678. Again, the issues concerning economically disadvantaged, students with disabilities and limited English proficient evidenced above come into play here. However, honors and advanced placement courses can be included in this expenditure deals with community expectations for its District to not only ensure that students earn a high school diploma but are also equipped with the skills needed to succeed beyond high school. One would have to look at Lakewood’s honors and AP programs in relation to Brunswick’s. The type of kindergarten program being offered also impacts this expenditure (all day vs. half day).

Finally, when analyzing per pupil expenditures one must look at the revenue/source of the money being spent. Districts with more economically disadvantaged pupils are provided more monetary support from the federal government (Title 1) and state government (Ohio Works First). These funds help local district’s reduce class size, supplement breakfast and lunch programs and provide all day kindergarten. (In 2005-2006, Lakewood received 6.3% of its revenue from the Federal government as compared to Brunswick’s 4.4%.)

It’s difficult to gather accurate revenue/source numbers by district because the Ohio Department of Education often includes private schools in with the public schools. For example, if you run a report for “Lakewood Cityâ€Â￾ schools, the Lakewood Catholic Academy and Lakewood Lutheran are included with Lakewood High and Emerson.

First and foremost, let it be known that I am a teacher in the Lakewood Public Schools.

The report card is very difficult to understand and cannot be taken at face value. Looking at the report card, Lakewood met 25 out of 30 indicators. This means we missed meeting 5 indicators. 4 out of these 5 were brand new this year (5th grade science and social studies and 8th grade science and social studies.) As an ESL teacher, I work cross grades and cross curricula, and I am involved in daily collaboration with the teachers of both of these grades. To be quite frank, the state was not clear at all as to what was going to be tested in these two subject areas. As always, we did our best with what we knew.

Let me repeat: 4 out of the 5 we missed were essentially a shot in the dark.

The reason we are in 'Continuous Improvement', Mr. Call, is because we did not meet the Adequate Yearly Progress. No Child Left Behind dictates that each school system improves their passage rate by the arbitrary percentage rate of 3% each year. Well, when the state keeps adding new indicators, can you really say that we didn't improve over last year when those indicators did not exist? Truly we missed 1 indicator from last year, not 5.

And don't even ask what happens when your passage rate is at 98%. I guess you're stuck in 'Continuous Improvement' because you can't increase by 3%.

And don't even ask what happens when your passage rate is at 98%. I guess you're stuck in 'Continuous Improvement' because you can't increase by 3%.