Bassett Examines Progress Point Influence on School Performance Scores
Why question School Performance Scores?
The School and District Performance Scores, along with their associated letter grades, were released without fanfare just as schools dismissed for the Christmas holiday. Potentially controversial news is often held until a holiday.
Despite the letter grades being curved to maintain a constant grade distribution, well over one third of schools and almost one-fourth of districts moved up or down a letter grade.
I would like to explain to your readers how the LDOE designed this churn into the accountability system. The promulgated rules for Progress Points magnify small changes in performance into large point jumps. A computer model that produces highly erratic year-to-year outcomes determines the winners and losers of a Hunger-Games style competition for the Progress Points.
This churn-by-design perpetuates an unjustified sense of crisis about school performance. When your local school drops a letter grade, you are concerned. The churn means that, if not this year, sometime within the next few years you will almost certainly experience the concern. This turmoil provides a ready environment into which LDOE can plant its next untested reform. Progress Points fertilize the turmoil.
After careful study, my opinion is that they are complete natural fertilizer.
Herb Bassett
Progress Points introduce unnecessary volatility to school performance measures
The 2015 School and District Performance Scores were released later than usual this year, just before the Christmas holiday. An important feature in those scores in the John White era is Progress Points which were first known as Bonus Points when introduced in 2013. Progress Points are proving to be a major source of year-to-year volatility in the performance scores.
In theory, Progress Points identify and reward schools and districts that excel at the job of improving the performance of struggling students. In reality, they fail at that task and randomly fluctuate the letter grades assigned to schools and districts, causing turmoil and giving a false impression that we have found ways to break the relationship between scores and poverty.
The LDOE curved the School Letter Grades this year to hold the Louisiana Educator: Bassett Examines Progress Point Influence on School Performance Scores: