Letter to Wake Schools Superintendent – Partial Reply

Yesterday I wrote to the Wake County Superintendent, Jim Merrill, about some questions I had with the new budget. You can read the letter here: Letter To Wake Cty Superintendent. I received a reply back from Stella Shelton, interim Chief Communications Officer.

Here is what was received (below). Note that text in blue is Ms. Shelton’s. Text in Black represents my original emailed text. I’ve got a few comments about this reply at the end of this article.

Hi there,

This is Stella Shelton, interim Chief Communications Officer. I met you at the Green Hope Superintendent’s Direct Line. I can’t answer all your questions, but I will answer the ones that I know, and I will circulate your questions to other folks who know the material better.

Here’s what I know:

“85 Percent Of Wake County’s Schools met or exceeded expected growth on the new Common Core Standards during the 2012-2013 academic year.”

1. What is meant by or comprises “expected growth”?

This is text I pasted from the website of the NC Department of Public Instruction

The expected growth for a school is based on (1) its previous performance, (2) statewide average growth, and (3) a statistical adjustment (regression to the mean) which is needed whenever test scores of the same students are compared from one year to the next. A formula is used to generate expected growth for each school.

2. Where can I find the supporting documents for this claim?

The NC Department of Public Instruction publishes extensive data from all school systems, schools, and charter schools.

This website provides links to spreadsheets with school performance by school…throughout NC

http://www.ncpublicschools.org/accountability/reporting/datasets

Also, the link below on the WCPSS page does not take you where the link says it should – if it does, please indicate where this item is supposed to be located in the page it does take you to as it is not readily apparent:

Visit NCDPI’s website to view scores by district or to download sample test questions >

The link above states that that it is NCDPI’s website….because ‘scores by district’ and ‘to download sample test questions’ would be on separate pages, very likely to be moved by DPI’s webmaster, within the www.ncpublicschools.org website , the link was intended only to get users to the main page where they can search for the material that interests them.

On a related matter, I and many other parents asked several questions at the Superintendent Direct Line forum and have not seen any answers or response to them yet. Will there be an addressing of our concerns, in particular the pointed question about the NC Large Schools Superintendent Consortium and the Data collection? In case one needs to review what was asked, I captured it all here for you:
http://stopcommoncorenc.org/2014/02/25/wake-cty-direct-line-forum-video/

As Dr. Merrill stated at the beginning of each session, the Superintendent’s Direct Line was to receive community input, not a question-and-answer session. No follow-up reports, specific to Direct Line questions, are scheduled.

I’ll get the other questions answered as quickly as i can.

Regards,

Stella Shelton

So let’s see what we have here, shall we?

1. Text copied from DPI. That’s their story, they are sticking to it? This was unhelpful. DPI’s site is one of the worst I’ve ever seen for trying to find something specific. Their search engine will give you thousands of hits no matter what you use to search with.

2. Go dig in a spreadsheet with information you won’t understand.

3. The link to DPI’s site isn’t our problem and I should dig on my own… again.

4. They are not answering any questions or going to be doing reports from the Direct Line forums. So, in other words – parents got up there, asked real questions and will get no answers?

I’m writing off the last two questions for now and addressing the first, because I feel that was a dodge. I’ve replied with the following:

I appreciate the reply you sent and look forward to more details. The answers to first question below was not as helpful as I hoped.

“85 Percent Of Wake County’s Schools met or exceeded expected growth on the new Common Core Standards during the 2012-2013 academic year.”

1. What is meant by or comprises “expected growth”?

This is text I pasted from the website of the NC Department of Public Instruction

The expected growth for a school is based on (1) its previous performance, (2) statewide average growth, and (3) a statistical adjustment (regression to the mean) which is needed whenever test scores of the same students are compared from one year to the next. A formula is used to generate expected growth for each school.

2. Where can I find the supporting documents for this claim?

The NC Department of Public Instruction publishes extensive data from all school systems, schools, and charter schools.

This website provides links to spreadsheets with school performance by school…throughout NC

http://www.ncpublicschools.org/accountability/reporting/datasets

I’ll be brief — I don’t wish to dig around the DPI website yet again. I shall be more specific in hopes we can cut to the chase here:

I want to know how the Superintendent’s office made that claim of 85%. Please provide the formula used and please provide the supporting materials.

I’m disappointed the Superintendent won’t be addressing the concerns of the handful of parents who showed up to the Direct Line forum. They had specific questions that could easily have been answered and deserve to be.

Best,
A.P. Dillon

LadyLiberty1885.com