Using School Metrics to Determine Education Quality (Dallas, Plano: crime, house)

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

I see a lot of threads here where people seem to assume that a school's metrics such as SAT scores and NMSF numbers are indicative of better education quality at that school. I do not believe that is necessarily the case, and I think posters here sometimes reduce something that is inherently complex and difficult to measure down to a few statistics for the purpose of simplicity. The result is an arbitrary ranking or comparison that should mean little to a person trying to decide which district is right for him or her.

Let's take SAT scores and NMSF totals, for example. These two are essentially the same because the PSAT is almost identical to the SAT. Student outcomes on these tests probably tell us almost nothing about the education quality at a given school. These tests are too strongly correlated with things like IQ, income and race (all of which are correlated with each other as well) to assign a major causal role to school quality. If one understands the nature of these tests, that claim isn't surprising. The SAT does not test any advanced concepts. In fact, most juniors or seniors who are good students will be far more likely to have forgotten a concept than to have not yet learned a concept. The SAT is a reasoning test that aims to take content everyone should already know and test it in a way that calls on students to exercise critical and creative thinking. It is no surprise that IQ (a mostly genetic consideration) correlates well with SAT scores, and it is also clear that it makes no sense to chalk a good SAT math score up to having a good math teacher in high school.

My point is simply that many of these metrics correlate too strongly with things like income, race and parental education (again, all of which correlate with each other) to assign a major causal role to school education quality. If you take a given student and place him in Highland Park, is he or she likely to do significantly better on the SAT than he or she would have in Grapevine? Probably not, if we are assuming equal resources to pay for test prep, tutoring, etc. At the end of the day, the information we have available to measure schools simply doesn't allow us to say that one school is the eighth best in the metroplex, whereas another is the fourth, so the latter is a better school. That just isn't justified. We may, however, be able to adjust for demographic information and determine which schools perform surprisingly well relative to the socioeconomic makeup of the student body. That would be an interesting endeavor.

The bottom line is that parents who are looking for a school for their children must not confuse better metrics at a given school with a higher likelihood that their child is going to perform better at that school.

[bencronin04]

I'm going to disagree with what you're saying to an extent. A bright student SHOULD do well anywhere, yes. However, the "community" plays a very large factor into the quality of education and the resulting "scores" a student should achieve. When a child is surrounded by a community that expects excellence in almost all arenas vs. being in a school they are worried about being beat up, gang related activities and a teacher that is just trying to handle a bunch of outspoken bratty children that have no strong parental upbringing...almost EVERYONE would "preform" better at the first school. So yes, the school does play a fairly large piece in the results your child is able to achieve. Now would someone attending HP do any better than someone attending say Coppell, Plano Senior, etc...no. But when you get into schools that score significantly different in testing, say HP and SOC, you will no doubt see a difference.

We're essentially saying the same thing, but to disregard test scores as a metric for the quality of education one receives at said school of choice, is just as foolish as it being your only deciding factor.

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Originally Posted by bencronin04

I'm going to disagree with what you're saying to an extent. A bright student SHOULD do well anywhere, yes. However, the "community" plays a very large factor into the quality of education and the resulting "scores" a student should achieve. When a child is surrounded by a community that expects excellence in almost all arenas vs. being in a school they are worried about being beat up, gang related activities and a teacher that is just trying to handle a bunch of outspoken bratty children that have no strong parental upbringing...almost EVERYONE would "preform" better at the first school. So yes, the school does play a fairly large piece in the results your child is able to achieve. Now would someone attending HP do any better than someone attending say Coppell, Plano Senior, etc...no. But when you get into schools that score significantly different in testing, say HP and SOC, you will no doubt see a difference.

We're essentially saying the same thing, but to disregard test scores as a metric for the quality of education one receives at said school of choice, is just as foolish as it being your only deciding factor.

I was speaking to the notion of comparing somewhat similar schools. Of course the same student going to HP is probably going to do better than if he or she went to SOC. Most posters on this forum, however, are not trying to decide between HP and SOC. They are comparing schools that are somewhat similar. In such cases, SAT scores are probably not useful at all in determining education quality.

[bencronin04]

Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost

I was speaking to the notion of comparing somewhat similar schools. Of course the same student going to HP is probably going to do better than if he or she went to SOC. Most posters on this forum, however, are not trying to decide between HP and SOC. They are comparing schools that are somewhat similar. In such cases, SAT scores are probably not useful at all in determining education quality.

Agreed. But there's always something about being in the #1 school pattern that gets everyone excited.

Unfortunately this seems to be coming on stronger and stronger in the Dallas area. People are so judgmental these days on where one lives, what they drive, what their title is, etc.

[TheOverdog]

Impossible to even test (without serious social effects), so I completely disagree. You are just making it up.

And you also put too much faith into a total nonsense score (and ultimately useless) score like IQ. How many students even take an IQ test vs the SAT test? I'd bet the SAT is a factor of 10 higher if not more.

And if students did take IQ then what? Replace the SAT with an IQ test, and send those people to the best universities and give them the best jobs? A totally subjective test that you are able to take in elementary school? Really? How would that change anything for the better?

I was speaking to the notion of comparing somewhat similar schools.

What does that even mean? You mean you are comparing teacher salary range, number of extra-curriculars, funding on a per-student basis, and other things that are useful to tell if the schools are 'similar' or not? If not, then all you are doing is comparing students again, which you think is flawed due to all the factors mentioned.

It doesn't really matter anyways. None of us has much control over any school quality factors, so we can only pick the best one for our budgets. Like it or not, wealth begats weaths and community involvment begats community involvement, and crime begats crime.

Only the most radical and most dedicated can build community involvement from scratch. The rest of us have to work and attend to our own families - ie to follow.

[jdallas]

Originally Posted by bencronin04

Agreed. But there's always something about being in the #1 school pattern that gets everyone excited.

Unfortunately this seems to be coming on stronger and stronger in the Dallas area. People are so judgmental these days on where one lives, what they drive, what their title is, etc.

^More so in Dallas than most places.
Parental involvement and, more specifically, the family's dedication to fostering the development and education of their own child continues to be the #1 factor in a child's academic success. Everything else is secondary.
Also, it's important to keep in mind that even being #1 in the state is not all that significant when taking a broader look at the global community.

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Originally Posted by TheOverdog

Impossible to even test (without serious social effects), so I completely disagree. You are just making it up.

You're going to have to be more specific here. My post was somewhat long, so I'm not sure what you're claiming is impossible to test or what you're claiming that I am making up.

Originally Posted by TheOverdog

And you also put too much faith into a total nonsense score (and ultimately useless) score like IQ.

IQ is a strong predictor of standardized test performance and income, so whether you believe it is useless or not, it correlates well with these two factors. Whatever it measures, it is at least useful for predicting these things.

Originally Posted by TheOverdog

What does that even mean? You mean you are comparing teacher salary range, number of extra-curriculars, funding on a per-student basis, and other things that are useful to tell if the schools are 'similar' or not? If not, then all you are doing is comparing students again, which you think is flawed due to all the factors mentioned.

I am referring to schools that have students from somewhat similar socio-economic backgrounds. I said comparing students is flawed if one is attempting to determine which school provides the highest quality education; that doesn't imply that we can't use students to identify which schools are similar for these purposes.

[LauraLama]

It is like saying that value of a good house in ANY town would appreciate but we all know that similar house would appreciate much faster in Plano or Coppell compared to Tyler or Farmversville. If you want to take a risk then go ahead, I hope things work out but I don't want to gamble on my child's education. If one district produces amazing results every single year with less affluent demographics then others then may be they are doing something right.

If it's a magnet school or a selective private then obviously they are using exclusive raw material, if it's an open enrollment school then they are doing the best with whatever they get. Why not give kid all that you mentioned and a top school, if you can. At least be as selective as you are with your kitchen counters even though you can cook in any kitchen.

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Originally Posted by LauraLama

It is like saying that value of a good house in ANY town would appreciate but we all know that similar house would appreciate much faster in Plano or Coppell compared to Tyler or Farmversville. If you want to take a risk then go ahead, I hope things work out but I don't want to gamble on my child's education. If one district produces amazing results every single year with less affluent demographics then others then may be they are doing something right.

I clearly stated that it may be worthwhile to consider how a given district is doing relative to its socioeconomic status. I almost said that word for word. However, my guess is that, if we are able to perfectly control for all known factors that correlate well with SAT scores, there will be very little difference in the average SAT scores for the districts in the north Dallas suburbs. There may be a difference in other metrics, but for reasons I outlined above, I do not think that school districts play a strong causal role in SAT scores.

I do not agree with the housing analogy.

[LauraLama]

Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost

I do not agree with the housing analogy.

Think about it with open mind, why would you be picky about every aspect of the house but when it comes to school district then suddenly top quality is overrated and basic is more than enough.