ON TULSA’S NEW SUPERINTENDENT
06 FEB 2015 
POSTED BY AHAMILTON
BY JOHN THOMPSON
I live 90 miles from Tulsa. While I take a keen interest in Oklahoma school reform issues, I do not want to intrude into Tulsa Public Schools [TPS] business. Given all of the other recent progress by Oklahomans in moving beyond the scorched earth edu-politics of recent years, I was dismayed that the TPS would hire a Chief for Change, Deborah Gist, at a time when Oklahoma’s former Chief for Change, Janet Barresi, was leaving office. It will be up to Tulsans to determine their own school policies. So, I will merely offer some facts regarding the issues that patrons might want to consider.
When it was announced that Gist was the only remaining candidate in a closed-door process of selecting a new superintendent, it was claimed that the nationally respected NAEP data showed that Rhode Island schools had improved more under Gist than the national average. Moreover, it was implied that student performance growth for low-income children of color was greater in Rhode Island during Gist years.
These sorts of statements are known as “Mis-Naepery,” or the misuse of NAEP data.
Since Tulsa is an 80% low-income district, the key question is whether Gist addressed her state’s racial and economic achievement gaps. [After all, when claims of major gains in student performance are announced, usually they are found to be a result of economic and demographic shifts, so social scientists look at long-term patterns broken down by race and income.]
Even one of Gist’s closest allies, RI-Can, complained that 2013 NAEP data showed, “Most gaps between white and non-white and low-income and non-low-income remain unchanged or in some cases, have grown.” For instance, between 2011 and 2013, the gap separating reading proficiency between white and black 4th graders increased by 50%. They also cited, “The fourth-grade reading gap between low-income and non low-income students [which] grew from 29 points in 2011 to 36 points in 2013.”
The proper use of test score data for addressing that issue was analyzed in the most recent NAEP reports about 8th grade reading scores for black students: “This performance gap was not significantly different from that in 1998.” Placing 4th grade reading scores for black students in context, NAEP concluded: “This performance gap was not significantly different from that in 1992.” Placing 8th grade math scores for black students in context: “This performance gap was not significantly different from that in 1990.”
I could go on with these disappointing results, but the pattern is clear. There is no evidence that the expensive and divisive “reforms” implemented by Gist improved student performance. And claims On Tulsa’s New Superintendent | Oklahoma Observer: