Have we really stooped to criticizing a school for identifying and recruiting good students? It is disappointing that the complex socio-economic issues at play in a modern urban high school can be so overly simplified and trivialized, or that the statistics can be spun to such a degree.
Yes, let’s do look at the schools statistics. Specifically, let’s go to the TEA information Mr. Dreher refers to. For some reason, I can’t get a direct link to it to work, so go to the TEA site, click on Accountability, then follow the links for Academic Excellence Indicator System Reports (AEIS) and continue to follow them to get a 2007 campus report for campus 057905022. The TEA, in their wisdom, list the performance requirements in a separate document, not in the AEIS reports, so go to here and look at item 2 on top of page 2 for the Standards for both 2007 and for 2008. You’ll need this to properly interpret the data. Don’t miss the footnote that Dropout Rates for 2003 through 2006 are not comparable to 2007 due to a change in the way these figures are calculated.
"The school’s TAKS math and science numbers are especially grim. The overwhelming majority of Woodrow’s white students meet state standards, but only a minority of blacks and Hispanics do."
What his comments don’t say, but what the statistics show, is that the passing percentage of minority student subgroups in 75% of the subject areas, while still too low overall, meets or exceeds the current standards set by the Texas Education Agency. Only the math and science scores of a single minority subgroup fall below those goals. Neither does he bother to point out that these low scores are confined to the 9th and 10th graders. After a couple of years within the academic rigor of Woodrow, all student subgroups of every ethnicity in the 11th grade test well above the TEA goals, including a clear majority of African-Americans and Hispanics. I don’t know how to read that as anything but success in teaching all kids, not "mostly white kids", as Mr. Dreher states.
Anyone, columnist or parent, who thinks "…bringing more neighborhood whites into Woodrow would lift the school’s overall scores" isn’t paying attention. Overall scores don’t matter. As noted in my previous post on this subject, the two accountability systems administered by the TEA take the No Child Left Behind concept very, very seriously. A school can be deemed academically unacceptable if only a single ethnic subgroup fails to perform up to requirements in a single academic category. No increase of any number of high performing students in any other ethnic subgroup or subject area will change that. The school will still be deemed academically unacceptable as long at that particular subgroup continues to struggle in that particular subject. No school can hide this problem behind the performance of it’s highest achievers. Certainly Woodrow doesn’t try. The trick is to balance the schools resources so that the needs of both the lowest and the highest performers are met. I think the current Woodrow administration and faculty do an admirable job of this as reflected in the increasing success of the lowest performers as well as the continued success of the highest.
To put my personal perspective in context, I am the current chair of Woodrow’s Site Based Decision Making Committee (SBDM) and expect to have my third child graduate at the end of May. And yea, I’m one of Mr. Dreher’s "White Folks". Not that it matters. Over the past few years I have come to appreciate the difficulty faced by our educators. The factors that influence our children’s success or failure within the school are as unique and diverse as the kids themselves. It is only within the TEA statistics, let’s remember, where the kids are categorized by race. I suppose that makes it tempting, even easy, to make the flawed assumption that performance differences between these classifications is racially driven. Other reasons would have to be purely anecdotal because the stats aren’t kept that way. That doesn’t mean, however, that those other reasons are invalid.
I have been in the school and can say with confidence that any suggestion that kids are denied opportunity, resources or support of any kind based on their race is incorrect. Absurd, actually. I have witnessed first hand the very significant efforts of Woodrow faculty and staff to address the academic needs of the school’s lowest performing students. I know of the many sincere efforts by all involved parents and staff to reach out to all segments of the Woodrow community. I know that participation in any program, sports, music, tutoring or AP classes, is open to all who wish to undertake them. Mr. Dreher’s allusion otherwise is simply misguided.
