Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Since TEI started in 2015 Dallas ISD NAEP scores have fallen dramatically!

On 11-7-19 the Dallas Morning News published the following chart, edited here, demonstrating how dramatically Texas had fallen with the 2019 scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). This is terrible for Texas!  It is even worse for Dallas as Dallas has fallen more than Texas.  the chart printed in the Dallas Morning News Editorial of 11-7-19:
The above chart shows Texas having 8th grade African-American NAEP Reading scores that are "worse than Mississippi." That translates to "The Worst in the Nation!" See the editorial at https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2019/11/17/so-were-better-than-mississippi-not-anymore/

In an earlier article on 10-30-19 about this drop in NAEP scores Dr. Hinojosa stated his problems with the release: "While Hinojosa said he didn’t have a problem with the data, he did have a problem with how it was reported. Even among the 27 urban school systems, DISD had a much higher percentage of high-poverty students and English-Language learners than most of the others, he said.
“When you break it down for the level of poverty, we do pretty well,” Hinojosa said. “But NAEP just puts scores out in larger comparisons, without disaggregating.”  See article at 
My question is in a comparison over time. The DISD demographics have not changed significantly but scores are still going down relative to other cities. The biggest shock is in the link to NAEP 8th grade scores for all Dallas 8th graders of all races compared with the nation and with Texas. In both 2017 and 2019 Dallas declined more than either the nation or Texas! This NAEP data is from https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading/districts/scores/?grade=8

Yes, in both the 2017 and 2019 NAEP testing in reading, Dallas 8th graders declined more than either the nation, or Texas!

Below are two more charts from this same NAEP data with the scores over 5 testing cycles covering 10 years for both 4th and 8th grade in math and reading.
The NAEP fourth grade Dallas Math scores have no statistically significant change compared to other large cities except for improvement in 2015. However, in reading Dallas fourth graders suffered statistically significant declines in scores for every one of the 5 tests covering 10 years!
Second, here are the 8th grade math and reading scores for the same period covering 10 years in Dallas. In 8th grade Math only the two most recent scores are statistically significant. Sadly they are declines as compared to other large city schools. In 8th grade Reading all 5 years of testing covering the past decade show scores that reflect a statistically significant decline as compared to other large cities.

Several other patterns are present:
1) Except for Fourth Grade Math, the highest test scores are in 2013 for both grades and subjects.
2) The buildup to TEI in Dallas started in 2013 but was not active until 2015 when the more rapid NAEP scores decline began relative to the rest of Texas.
3) The decline appears to be accelerating and DISD sticks out in Texas as having a worse than average decline in Texas. This is all happening as Texas itself has declining NAEP scores compared to the rest of the US. This only makes it look worse for Dallas.

Are NAEP scores going to be a factor in Dr. Hinojosa's bonus plan?
Are NAEP scores going to be a factor in the assessment of the TEI?
What factors would cause for such dramatically declining NAEP scores covering 4 years to be ignored in answering these questions beyond "It was not in the evaluation plan."

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