Bacon's Rebellion

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Poverty No Excuse for Lousy Richmond Schools

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by

James A. Bacon
in

This communication from reader John Butcher was worth reproducing in full. I publish it here with his permission. — JAB

I enjoyed Peter’s piece about “The Richmond Elite’s Bizarre Self Image” and the comments that followed.  I want to suggest that the focus there on Richmond poverty is appropriate but misses the main point.

Beyond question, the kids who are economically disadvantaged are educationally disadvantaged.  Indeed, we can tease out the magnitude of the poverty effect from the SOL test data.  Here, for instance, is a plot of the 2013 division reading pass rate v. the percentage of students who are economically disadvantaged under the Education Department’s definition:

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The data give a decent least-squares fit (R2 = 0.64), suggesting that the ED percentage indeed correlates with the scores. On this graph, Richmond is the gold square. (Recall that Richmond had the lowest reading score in the Commonwealth this year). The red diamonds are (from the left): Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, and Petersburg. Charles City is the green diamond.

Here is the same graph for the math tests:

butcher2

The color codes are the same and the correlation is not quite as good.

Richmond is 2.52 standard deviations below the fitted line on the reading test, 1.36 below on the math test.

Focusing more narrowly on the divisions with more than 70% economically disadvantaged students, we see:

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On the graph, the gold points are Richmond; Petersburg appears in red.

In this group of twelve divisions with challenging student populations, Richmond was outperformed — for the most part, considerably outperformed — by all the other divisions on both subjects, with the single exception of Franklin City on the math tests.

In short: Socioeconomics does not provide an excuse, much less a reason, for Richmond’s lousy performance.

Delving further: The VDOE database also gives data for students who are or are not economically disadvantaged. Plotting the pass rates of the economically disadvantaged students and the rates for the students who are not vs. the percentage of students who are economically disadvantaged, by division, gives the following for the reading tests:

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The data support the intuitive notion that a high percentage of poor students leads to lower scores for both the poor and non-poor students. The data also show that Richmond (the large, gold diamond and circle) grossly underperforms the trend.

The math data show very much the same patterns:

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The clear conclusion here is that Richmond’s public schools are grossly underperforming for all our students.

Said otherwise, Richmond is doing an awful job and the high concentration of poverty here does not provide an excuse.

I follow your blog in my RSS reader and enjoy your and Peter’s writing. Keep up the Good Work!

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18 responses to “Poverty No Excuse for Lousy Richmond Schools”

  1. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    how many teachers .. are qualified to teach the tougher to teach kids?

    I think that’s a problem at most schools that have economically disadvantaged.

    Not all of the disadvantaged fall behind but the ones that do – need more than standard teacher help and most schools don’t hire any more than the Feds Title program funds.

    you can see the results at virtually any school by looking at the correlation between the percent of economically disadvantaged and their reading and writing scores – as a group.

    the simple reality is that small kids who do not have educated parents do not get help from their parents like the kids do that do have educated/economically stable parents.

    it’s just the reality. it’s no one’s fault least of all the kids who are in those disadvantaged circumstances.

    the difference between Richmond and Henrico (or others) is that they have a whole bunch more of these kinds of kids – and are not able to pay for or attract the higher level expertise that is needed to deal with these kids needs.

    there is no magic here.. and no silver blame bullet.. it’s just that these kinds of kids are harder to teach and take higher level expertise than average teachers.

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      You’re missing the point of John’s post. He acknowledges that teaching poor kids his harder — his graphs show it. But even among school districts with big majorities of poor kids, Richmond does an exceptionally poor job. There’s no room to run, no room to hide. A big part of the problem is the school district governance and administration.

      1. larryg Avatar
        larryg

        well I sorta see the point but do you see mine? How successful will Richmond be in competing for higher skilled, higher paid reading and math specialists?

        that they spend as much money as they do – and Richmond has chosen to not provide school budget data to the Virginia Auditor is galling… as heck.

  2. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    I’m still not sure I understand the point. Poor children are harder to teach and Richmond makes an exceptional hash of it. Could it be that the problem is both poverty and bad school administration?

    I fail to see how this somehow nullifies the point of my blog — namely that Richmond’s elite is chasing tangential things such as a minor league baseball park and pointless trips to irrelevant cities when they should be concentrating on BOTH problems of school poverty and management.

    Showing these graphs does not somehow give the elite a pass. The problems remain unaddressed.

    1. larryg Avatar
      larryg

      well I sorta see the point but do you see mine? How successful will Richmond be in competing for higher skilled, higher paid reading and math specialists?

      that they spend as much money as they do – and Richmond has chosen to not provide school budget data to the Virginia Auditor is galling… as heck.

    2. larryg Avatar
      larryg

      well.. it’s a blame game without the blamers having the backbone to get to this issue of what the problem is – and how it might be fixed.

      It’s not just Richmond and it’s a tough problem that takes committed people to fix it – and there are some places that are making progress – but it takes money and courage to hire people who have the skills to perform and get paid accordingly.

      it’s a joke to think that charter/choice/voucher schools will do any better without getting the money to pay for the higher skilled specialists.

      the voucher approach is sort of like a lottery for a few lucky ones while we just write off the rest who did not get lucky…

      but I still won’t blame the elite… they’re around every town.. they tend to the museums and stadiums and other feel good endeavors and they still clear of the tough problems… nothing new there..

  3. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    and they “STEER CLEAR”… I gotta start paying more attention and use the EDIT feature!

  4. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    Mr Butcher: Does your definition of economic disadvantage take into account the different costs of living in different areas of Virginia? A person considered economically disadvantaged in a higher cost area might not be economically disadvantaged (in real terms) in a lower cost area.

    1. larryg Avatar
      larryg

      not every child who is economically disadvantaged is “at risk”.

      it’s a precursor and schools look for kids who show up with without breakfast or a bag for lunch or lunch money and are also academically behind.

      the actual specifics of the other circumstances are more for FYI in the bean counting… but the schools know the child’s circumstances and his/her likely performance if they don’t intervene – with food and extra academic help.

      you can also have kids who live in good economic conditions and are well fed but they are still recognized as ‘at risk’ because of their academic deficits.

      if the kid is behind and cannot keep up – he/she will need more focused help than they’ll normally get in a regular classroom.

      the higher percentages of kids like this at a given school -make for a bad situation – an almost hopeless situation for the teachers who will (like most ordinary people) try to find jobs at schools with less difficult circumstance where they will not be blamed for the academic failures of most of their class.

      I don’t know what Richmond is spending the money on – since they chose not to deliver to the State Auditor – their finances for last year but I suspect they have a lot of entry level personnel but few higher skilled personnel and a high turnover rate.

      Few teachers will stay in a school system like Richmond if they have other alternatives.

  5. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    Mr. Butcher: Could your analysis be subject to bias based on the number of private schools in an area?

    I recall from my years at UVA that a seemingly large percentage of students I met from Richmond attended private schools. I mean, one woouldn’t want Buffy or Winthrop mingling with the hoi polloi now would one?

    If there is a higher concentration of private schools in Richmond relative to the other areas you studied and if those private schools granted scholarships to bright, needy children – would that skew your analysis? Perhaps the presence of a large number of scholarship granting private schools in Richmond are “skimming off” the smartest of the economically disadvantaged students. In other areas (with few private schools) this would not happen.

    I am not saying there is bias, I am only asking if it’s possible.

    1. larryg Avatar
      larryg

      re: ” An “economically disadvantaged” student is a student who is a member of a household that meets the income eligibility guidelines for free or reduced-price meals (less than or equal to 185% of Federal Poverty Guidelines) under the National School Lunch Program(NSLP). Districts are permitted to use their best local source of information about the economic status of individual students “

      1. DJRippert Avatar
        DJRippert

        Federal poverty guidelines – being our inept government’s idea of good statistics – only accounts for different costs of living in Alaska and Hawaii. The other 48 states and DC are covered by a single set of numbers.

        Meanwhile, the cost of living within the state of Virginia can vary by a factor of 2X from one county to another.

        http://livingwage.mit.edu/

        To summarize, the federal government is incompetent and virtually everything it does is half-witted. The federal poverty guidelines are no exception.

        Fortunately, the Weldon Cooper Institute is not the federal government and is not incompetent. In order to de-idiotize the federal guidelines the Weldon Cooper Institute created the Virginia Poverty Measure (VPM) which adjusts for costs of living.

        Using inept federal figure the rate of poverty in Virginia is 11.6% while the VPM is 11.9%. However, the area of NoVa inside the beltway moved from an official poverty rate of 7.4% to a VPM rate of 12.3. In other words, Northern Virginia inside the beltway has a higher percentage of poor people than the Virginia average. Kind of makes you wonder why we are transferring money to the subsidy sucking people in the Richmond region (VPM = 12.0%).

        The rest of Fairfax County (outside the beltway) checks in with a VPM of 9.7% putting it in a tie with “Northern Neck and Eastern Shore” and “Virginia Beach and Chesapeake”.

        It seems that filthy rich Northern Virginia isn’t so wealthy when competent statistics are used to analyze the matter.

        It also makes me wonder why Fairfax County (outside the Beltway) has so much better schools than “Northern Neck and Eastern Shore” and “Virginia Beach and Chesapeake” when all three areas have the same percentage of poor people when viewed properly. Perhaps there is a shift in the three regions with regard to children in poverty.

        Your area, LarryG, is considered part of the Northern Virginia Exurb area and has the lowest level of poverty in the state – 9.4%.

        1. larryg Avatar
          larryg

          wait a minute.. isn’t weldon cooper a creation of the Richmond Clown Show?

          methinks you have a sliding scale here that you adjust according to your commentary sometimes!

          The Federal measurements are guidelines and you’re arguing about something that you perceive to only be measurable by money and cost-of-living and you’r missing an important piece and that is the education level of the parents.

          And you are also forgetting where Title 1 money for at-risk kids comes from to start with – and in many schools is the ONLY money specifically targeted – by law towards at-risk kids.

          local schools across Va spend more money that the SOQs require them to and ask yourself how many, including Fairfax spent more local money than just the title 1 money for at-risk kids?

          you should realize that it’s not money alone that is the deciding factor in classifying “at- risk”. They have to be behind academically in the early grades.. even at the pre-K level.. and they have to have low education parents and low economic circumstances.

          you continue to want to blame Richmond and the Feds depending on the time of day rather than say – ” they should be doing this instead” and thats a big problem because the Feds and the State are people also – trying to find ways to deal with problems and we have a ton of people on the outside who are condemning their efforts without once offering real alternatives.

          No matter whether it’s GM and their ignition switches or METRO operations or Fords making Edsels.. people – working for the govt and companies – do make mistakes.

          If all we every do is keep a list of mistakes to which to assign blame and condemn – we’re not going to get better.

          there are schools in the US that work off of the same Federal “rules” that you hate – that do a much better jobs with the economically disadvantaged.. and those folks do not fret over the less than perfect measurements involved because they know the kids that need help can be identified in a variety of ways and that measurements are guidelines not absolutes.

          everybody plays the blame game these days.. it’s like whack a mole with the govt as the whackee…

          1. DJRippert Avatar
            DJRippert

            Weldon Cooper is run by the University of Virginia – an institution that is essentially “off limits” to the Imperial Clown Show in Richmond. In fact, when the Dragas – Sullivan affair happened none of the clowns in Richmond knew anything about it.

          2. DJRippert Avatar
            DJRippert

            The US federal government consumes approximately 25% of America’s GDP. For that amount of money they should be expected to do things right. Any CEO who used the same pay scale in Decatur, Alabama as in Manhattan would be fired for gross incompetence.

            You have no idea how schools deal with economically disadvantaged children because you have no accurate measure of disadvantaged children.

          3. larryg Avatar
            larryg

            re: Imperial Clown Show and Virginia Agencies..

            let’s see Weldon Cooper and UVA don’t count as clown show but VDOT and DEQ do? what’s your threshold?

            re: we don’t know about disadvantaged kids.

            we know a lot more than we would if we did nothing. we can do better – yes but your approach is to blame and condemn and write it off as no good and we can’t go forward like that.

            For your info – the GS scale for Federal Employees does vary by location and that’s an example of the Feds doing it right.

            the criticism of the measure of poverty and economically disadvantaged however, I agree with.. and I suspect that not only would it change the Fairfax numbers – make them lower but would make Richmond higher – so that even more than 80% would be classified as disadvantaged.

            but I also related to you that it’s not only the economic status of the child that goes into the assessment. If the child is academically behind in the early elementary grades – it signals a big problem that is going to get much worse if not dealt with competently – and at that point the precise measurement of whether a kid is economically disadvantaged – really doe not matter. The status of economically disadvantaged is a general screening tool.

            If a kid comes to school hungry and has no lunch or lunch money – the response is to get him food and if he is behind academically – to get him help.

            can we do this better? or do we just condemn the current efforts for not measuring accurately?

        2. larryg Avatar
          larryg

          the two references are pretty good. thank you!

          I’m intrigued by the cost-of-living issue in terms of what lower skilled people do in high costs areas … if they don’t make enough to pay for shelter…

          food is relatively cheap in comparison but a couple of things to think about.

          first – that the phrase economically disadvantaged in schools does not necessarily mean a child is behind academically.. it’s used as a proxy for finding the ones that are – and it’s pretty good at that because if you look at SOL scores – one of the categories is economically disadvantaged and it usually shows low SOL scores for the group.

          so .. it’s academic performance is not directly related to poverty indicators but it is a proxy to further look into a child’s circumstances.

          second.. Fairfax is a relatively rich school that likely has many reading and writing specialists in part because of the higher percent of kids that do have not have English as their first language…

          Richmond spends money out the wazoo but I’m betting it’s not for reading and writing specialists who are not going to work in Richmond schools if they have other options.

          3rd and finally – if there was a way to address the Richmond issue with alternative education – charter, choice, vouchers – I would support it – as long as it dealt with all the kids not just a few lucky ones while the others were abandoned… for lack of enough resources but I will admit with the amount of spending that Richmond is doing in the name of education – compared to their performance – ought to cause changes.

  6. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    I did not realize that DOE had put all this data on a database… (which is slow even at 6am….).

    but I’m confused as it seems to show Fairfax with higher numbers of economically disadvantaged (and perhaps that was DJs question).

    Won’t make excuses for Richmond except that it’s obviously in trouble… even as the Mayor finds other things more important to pursue.

    and again.. Richmond did not provide financial information to the Virginia Auditor so it’s impossible to gain insight to exactly what they are spending so much money on in Education.

    but this really does show that anyone who has kids who cares about those kids are going to do whatever they can to NOT send them to Richmond Public Schools – either private or don’t live in Richmond and yet, here they are talking about stadiums and slave museums…

    but I’m puzzled about Fairfax’s data..

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