IT’S HERE!
IT’S HERE! Starting in mid-December, I start checking
the MCPS Office of Shared Accountability daily… waiting and waiting for the
annual report that gives us the results from last year’s Advanced Placement and
IB tests. This year, the report dropped in late
January!
I know not everyone geeks out on this particular report, but
I LOVE IT; I simply love it!! The first
part of this report outlines how MCPS performed and, to our credit, year after
year, we outperform the state of Maryland and the nation. That is certainly
worth celebrating, for sure, but, I think like a swimmer -- “how did we do
against ourselves?” If you’ve ever lived
with a competitive swimmer, you know about best times. This “sport” isn’t so different. I look at different things in the appendices
(outlined below), I compare this year’s scores to how students did last year,
and I look at my specific school stats to see if we are performing where I
would expect in relation to the rest of the county.
What this report does, more than anything else, is it gives
parents material to frame questions and helps identify areas of advocacy as we
work toward being “better” than we were before.
As a school system, we put a lot of emphasis on AP courses as being a
strong indicator of college readiness. I
think AP courses are an AWESOME entry point for students to experience the
rigor of college courses. But, it is
important as we expand the pool of students accessing these courses, we expand
the supports also so when a student commits a year to study a college level
subject, they have every opportunity (and expectation) of passing the exam and
possibly getting the college credit.
It is my belief, students shouldn’t be shocked by the exam
scores they receive in July. If they
have been taking a rigorous college level course all year, they should have
plenty of indicators from their formatives how they will perform on the exam. Sometimes things happen… but that should be
the exception, not the rule!
Below is an outline of the content within the report. Data
can be powerful – use it well!
· Appendix A: Starting on
page 8 of the document, shows me how many AP courses (and IB courses) my high
school offers in comparison to all the other county high schools. The range of AP classes offered in 2016-17
goes from 9-33 (which mind you, isn’t as dramatic a range if low AP courses
correlates with IB offerings). But,
maybe that would be something for a cluster coordinator to ask about. Scrolling through Appendix A, I can see the
last three years of participation for my high school by demographics. Are we attracting more students? Less students? What do I see in the trending
of specific populations? What does this
tell me (and what questions do I have) about the accessibility of our courses to all students? Do the numbers at my high school look similar
to my benchmarking schools? If not, why
not? Is there something we can learn from
them? Is there something they can learn
from us?
· Appendix B: This is where access and success intersect! Page 22
shows not only who took the test, but who passed it (with a 3 or higher). And again, I can scroll to my high school and
see by demographics who is passing and not passing the APs. And, I can look at my school in comparison…
and I think about conversations I’ve overheard about programs that are in place
in other parts of the county and ask questions at the next high school PTSA
“has our school ever considered having…?”
AND, page 30 is a special treat
because this gets to the detail of high school’s participation and whether the
numbers represent 1000 kids taking 1 exam each or 200 kids taking 5 exams
each.
· Appendix C: THIS IS MY
CANDY… this is where it becomes very personal because from pages 33-52, you can
see each course and how the students performed by high school in the 20 most
popular courses. I look at the mean for
the county for each class and how did my school perform against that mean? I look to see what courses we didn’t offer
and make note to ask more about that. And,
again, I look at my benchmarking schools – how are my “training partners”
doing? And, I really focus on schools
that are posting “rock star-like numbers” and sometimes I reach out to those
clusters and ask “what is happening over there” to gain more insight. For the past year, I’ve been reaching out to
my Principal on any courses I have questions about and I have been talking to
other parents – does this seem right to you?
If there are courses that have been underperforming against the mean
year after year – which I can see by looking back at this SAME report that is
published each year here -- http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/ And, I ask parents
in my community about their students’ experience in certain classes and go back
to the Principal to ask what explains this?
Is it a preparation issue? Do we need to create more professional
development opportunities? Something else
I have dared to ask “can I see the correlation data?” I haven’t seen it yet, but, when many parents
have similar stories of their children getting As in the course but, 2s on the
exams, I have questions… To my way of thinking, if a big group of students are getting
As in the class, I’m expecting – if the course is covering all the material
with rigor -- most of those students will post 4s or 5s on the exam. With our new data system being launched, that
can help target support to teachers and students – giving every child their
best chance at success. (Watch for that
in coming years!)
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