I've had a lot of people connected with BVSD tell me that "they're trying" but that it's just impossible to improve the schools. Ok, maybe we have an impossible expectation. Maybe public schools just can't be improved. It's not fair to berate people for failing to achieve the impossible. So is it impossible?
To take a look at that, I pulled the CSAP scores from DPS (thank you DPS AR&E) to compare. (Numbers: DPS_CSAP.xlsx) The numbers here are the percentage of students at or above proficient. Or to put it another way, the percentage that are graduating with a High School education. And in today's economy, that is the percentage of students that have a decent chance at a well paying job.
The top line is BVSD where they are coasting along at 70% and the differences over a decade are statistical noise. The numbers below are DPS, where they clearly have a much harder job. Yet we see improvement, significant improvement year over year. In many cases we see them almost doubling the students passing over a decade.
The bottom line? DPS manages to educate an additional 10 – 20% of their children over a decade of improvement. BVSD remains running on autopilot. We should demand better of our schools. After all, sentencing 30% of the children entrusted to our care to a lifetime of economic poverty should be considered unacceptable.
- Original article BVSD – No Improvement.
- Updated BVSD stats: Bvsd_stat.xlsx
