Allan Elementary shows solid academic progress in year before charter takeover
As Austin-area readers know, the Austin school board decided to hand over Allan elementary school to IDEA Charter Schools based in the Rio Grande Valley. This decision was based partially on the relatively poor performance on the state mandated Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills at Allan (although other East Side elementary schools had worse performance histories).
This decision was made in December 2011, a full 6 months after students completed the 2011 TAKS testing and at least 5 full months after the state released student-level data.
Now, given that AISD has some top-notch researchers, one would have suspected that AISD would have had internal researchers examine the student growth at Allan relative to other AISD schools and schools across the state after controlling for student demographics, school size, etcetera. At the very least, one would have though the district would have hired some outside consultants to examine all of the relevant information about the schools before making such a decision. They did not do this either other than hire a physics professor with no training in research methodology and who does not believe in any type of statistical analyses that controls for student background characteristics. The physics professor did not have access to student-level data (the district
This decision was made in December 2011, a full 6 months after students completed the 2011 TAKS testing and at least 5 full months after the state released student-level data.
Now, given that AISD has some top-notch researchers, one would have suspected that AISD would have had internal researchers examine the student growth at Allan relative to other AISD schools and schools across the state after controlling for student demographics, school size, etcetera. At the very least, one would have though the district would have hired some outside consultants to examine all of the relevant information about the schools before making such a decision. They did not do this either other than hire a physics professor with no training in research methodology and who does not believe in any type of statistical analyses that controls for student background characteristics. The physics professor did not have access to student-level data (the district
