FYI from BSF, 01.28.22
Enrollment, Race, and Quality
Today was supposed to be the deadline for priority registration for Boston Public Schools.
Until yesterday, when that deadline was moved to next week.
Seems merely clerical, but with Boston School Finder, we pay a lot of attention to these sorts of deadlines and requirements. Changes in rules change access. In the past, in Boston there has been a straight line from rules to where your child is assigned to school.
There is a clear racial discrepancy for Boston families who finish enrollment processes in earlier rounds (and, by definition, have more options).
The result? There is a clear racial discrepancy for which Boston families enroll in certain BPS schools. Tier 1 is the highest ranking in the school quality framework. The graph below is a near mirror to the graph above.
But what about the rankings themselves?
A rigorous study, led by recent Nobel Prize winner Josh Angrist, shows that race matters. Specifically, the school rankings used by the website Great Schools for schools in New York and Denver are essentially just proxies for race, and aren’t tied to student outcomes. It’s not the first time there has been a finding around race and perceptions of school quality.
This is not just true for businesses like Great Schools. It is evident in the quality tiers Boston Public Schools created.
There is moderate correlation (0.51) between the percent of Black and Hispanic students in a school and its assigned BPS Tier.
Which results in a set of circular questions:
Do lower tiered BPS schools have higher Black and Hispanic enrollment due to access barriers? Or, as the research implies, are BPS schools assigned lower tiers due to quality rankings tied to racial bias?
For the former, there are more resources from BPS and the community - over 5,300 people have used Boston School Finder this month alone.
For the latter, BPS has taken years of extensive steps to reduce bias. Unlike other ranking systems, test scores are not a sole determinant, and academic growth is heavily weighted. Factors such as leadership and family satisfaction are included.
Yet, the relationship between school quality and race exists.
But, not everywhere. For our partner schools (serving nearly 20,000 students), the correlation between race and tier is significantly weaker, and there is no relationship to Black enrollment (.009).
All of the schools are in high demand.
Reopening Boston, MA, and Beyond
Amid all the debate and attention around school reopening, what is it like to be a high school student actually living it?
For the first time in a few meetings, reopening was not the central focus of this week’s Boston School Committee meeting, although a small group of Boston families showed up at another meeting to express concerns and others cite continued bus issues.
Full materials here. High schools dominated in the discussion. “High school redesign” was launched seven years ago this spring, and this lengthy presentation documents where things stand. Significantly, there was the announcement of several new potential reconfigurations.
The new group of schools (darker blue shading above) has lost over 1,200 students over the past decade (36% of their total enrollment), and average the 11th percentile in the state’s accountability system.
The final open Boston School Committee position was filled by Brandon Cardet-Hernandez, an experienced special education teacher and leader, and former senior adviser for New York City Public Schools. We may find out in the next few months whether or not Mayoral appointments like this will wane, or stop altogether.
Reported COVID cases in Boston schools dropped again this week, by another 32% for students and 37% for staff. Staff absences due to the vaccine mandate have been delayed - a state appeals court judge issued a stay until next week. The BTU has asked for an exemption for staff that would last until the end of the year, and raised concerns about the disparate impact on teachers of color (no data reported yet). Recent polling shows continued, widespread support for vaccine mandates for teachers.
Reported school-based cases across all of Massachusetts dropped significantly this week (students and staff cases each down by about 34%). In addition new testing polices, some changes to masking also have also happened. It’s complicated - this podcast helps explain it.
The state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education also met this week. Materials here. The big news was the vote to drop two MCAS subject tests.
With state budget season starting this week, and Boston not far behind, expect attention to turn back to federal stimulus money. Big questions remain about how Boston is spending its money. School leaders around the country are struggling use the funds strategically, resulting in ironic investments such as virtual supports for in-person learning.
Boston and Massachusetts somehow have bucked a national trend - elsewhere, high school graduation rates have decreased through the pandemic.
Other Matters
The SAT is going digital and getting shorter.
Keep this in mind as discussion of preK expansion continues in Boston and across Massachusetts: a rigorous study of state-funded preK in Tennessee showed negative effects for kids. Turns out classroom quality is important.
Check out the Rennie’s Center annual dashboard for a roll-up of education data from last year.