Institutional racism is defined as “the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their color, culture, or ethnic origin”. Does the Wake County School System practice systemic bias against students due to their demographic characterization rather than their individual achievement? Or has the school system really changed once they became aware of apparent bias?
Figure 1 shows the percentage of qualified eighth grade students (Level IV on fifth grade End Of Grade test) placed in Algebra I for the 2006-2007 school year reported by EDSTAR Analytics. Note that 80% of the qualified Hispanic and Black students were denied advanced math placement.
Figure 2 shows the percentage of qualified eighth grade students (EVAAS 70% probability of success) placed in Algebra I for the 2008-2009 school year reported by SAS Institute. Again this shows that nearly 60% of the qualified Hispanic and Black students were denied advanced math placement.
The 2010 placement guidelines state that teacher recommendation or the EVAAS (Education Value Added Assessment System) prediction is used to place students in advanced math classes. EVAAS uses no demographic information in the formulation of its predictions. They are calculated solely on individual student achievement as measured by standardized tests. The WCPSS guideline states that students who have a 70% probability of proficiency should be placed in more advanced classes unless a compelling reason is documented.
To report compliance with the guidelines, the EVAAS Academic Preparedness Report can be run for each school and the number of students predicted to succeed can be compared to the number actually enrolled. This can be done now and the results should be available to the public for each middle school.
Middle school math placement determines math and science placement in high school. Students who take algebra in middle school have the opportunity to take Honors and Advanced Placement math and science courses that other students do not. Placing students who meet the criteria for success into the less advanced middle school math classes results in the schools being responsible for the lower achievement of these students and for the fact that they do not take advanced math and science courses in high school. Schools can no longer scapegoat parental involvement or conditions of poverty. The school system is responsible. If the data show that minority students who meet WCPSS’s own placement guidelines are being kept out of the advanced math track, there is nothing to explain this except institutionalized racism. The school system must report how it is complying with its placement criteria.
The result of institutionalized racism is that minority students cannot compete for class rank because they are not on track to take Honors or Advanced Placement courses, which contribute more quality points to Grade Point Averages (GPAs). They score lower on standardized tests because they have not been taught as much in less advanced classes, yet they take the same tests.
Figure 3If middle schools place students in compliance with the guidelines, the number of students in pre-Algebra and Algebra I will almost double. Recently, the Wake Education Partnership presented a graph (Figure 3) that shows the percentage of qualified students who were enrolled in Algebra I by middle school based on the EVAAS (Education Value Added Assessment System) prediction for the 2008-2009 school year.
Figure 3 shows that two years ago many qualified students did not have the opportunity to take Algebra I in middle school. It shows that overall some schools did a relatively good job of placement and that others did a fairly poor job. This means that there were still a high number of students who were denied the opportunity to take more rigorous honors classes in high school and were less prepared and less competitive with students that had that opportunity. In 2010 some schools should expect to more than double the number of students in the advanced track if they use EVAAS for placement criteria.
At the last Economically Disadvantaged Student Performance task force meeting the principal of Wake Forest Rolesville Middle School Elaine Hanzer presented her results from the 2009-2010 school year. Ms. Hanzer and her assistant principal Mr. Jacobs moved 50 students into more advanced classes. These students had not been recommended for more advanced placement, but Ms. Hanzer used EVAAS predictions for placement. One of the students who was moved had the highest score on the 7th grade EOG’s, but was still not recommended for the advanced class. Many of the students who were moved to Algebra I had not taken pre-Algebra, so the school provided extra help, filling in the holes created by skipping pre-Algebra. All of these students passed the Algebra EOC (end of course test) and the student who was originally overlooked for Algebra I repeated his success with the highest score in the Algebra I EOC. There are other examples of schools addressing the issue. Last year the principal and staff at West Millbrook Middle School reviewed their students’ EVAAS data and worked diligently to ensure appropriate placement of all eligible students.
Fewer than four weeks exist before students on a traditional calendar return to classes. Most students on a year-round calendar have already returned. After math placement information was sent to WCPSS central office this May, I asked for a report showing by school how well the placement guidelines were being followed. Michael Evans responded, first by telling me my request violated FERPA laws and second that the school system was under no obligation to produce a report that did not already exist. Considering the past history of denying many qualified students placement in advanced classes and the new guidelines put in place this spring, one would think that the school system would want to report how placement has improved this year, especially in contrast to the last several years. By denying my public information request for the report, should I assume that the guidelines are not being followed or worse?
We should require that WCPSS produce yearly reports similar to those created by EDSTAR Analytics, SAS Institute, and the Wake Education Partnership for middle school math placement. The placement decision is critical. The future of many students hinges on appropriate math placement in middle school. And there is very limited time to ensure proper placement before students start the 2010 school year.
References
Figure 1 data is reformatted from the screen shot below taken from the presentation by Dr. Janet Johnson and Eric Sparks on 6/24/2010 at the Economically Disadvantaged Students Performance Task Force Committee meeting (the entire presentation is available at http://www.edstaranalytics.biz/ under Current Events).
Figure 2 is reformatted from the graph below: From the Educational Policy Brief: SAS Response to the WCPSS E&R Comparison of SAS EVAAS Results and WCPSS Effectiveness Index Results, downloadable from http://blogs.newsobserver.com/wakeed/sas-and-wakes-achievement-gap
Figure 3: A screen shot from the Wake Education Partnership presentation http://www.wakeedpartnership.org/resources/K100%20presentation.pdf
2010 WCPSS Middle School Math Placement Guidelines
The following two tables were copied from a presentation by Dr Ken Branch to the WCPSS school board.
