On Tuesday, Seattle Public Schools released reports for each school in the district, which spawned several articles on the great divide in achievement between schools north and south of the Ship Canal.
But if you look closely, you’ll see that we have our own great divide right here in Wallingford between our two neighborhood elementary schools: John Stanford International School and B.F. Day.
The school reports from Seattle Public Schools include detailed information on each school’s academic and test score performance for the 2009-10 school year, and a summary of improvement plans for this year from each school’s principal based on problem areas identified. Schools with low performance are given targeted funding and additional support, while schools with higher performance levels are given greater flexibility for usage of funds. Each school was “graded” on student performance in math, reading, writing, and science, as well as test scores, absence rates, and results from last year’s family surveys. You can view each school’s report on the SPS website.
Academic progress for each school was measured against data from the previous two years and the district average. Each school also received an overall score from the district, ranging from levels 1-5. You can see all of the schools and where they fall on this grading system on this chart. A Level 1 school is defined as having low performance and a Level 5 school has high performance.
Meanwhile, back in Wallingford, our schools fared well, except for B.F. Day. John Stanford, Hamilton, and Roosevelt each received a Level 4 rating, while B.F Day was rated a distant Level 2. While many folks don’t think about B.F. Day as a Wallingford school since it sits on the other side of Aurora, last year 23% of B.F. Day’s students were from Wallingford, and that number more than doubled to 48% this year due to the New Student Assignment Plan.
So, how is it that two elementary schools (John Stanford and B.F. Day), just over a mile apart from one another, could have such drastically different scores?
Well, a couple of factors come into play: First, up until this fall, B.F. Day drew students from all over the city–largely from the south-end–and as such, its demographic and socio-economic composition is far different than that of John Stanford.
Second, 42% of the B.F. Day student population received reduced or free lunch last year, compared to only 17% at John Stanford. According to the Federal School Nutrition Program, this metric is what school districts use “as a proxy for low-income status when determining whether a subgroup of needy students is making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under No Child Left Behind.”
A recent Seattle Times article mentions the district-wide, “gap in achievement between students from low-income families and those who are better off”. Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson calls that gap “unacceptable.”
The disparity in John Stanford and B.F. Day’s school reports illustrate that gap fairly well since the same 42% of students at B.F. Day that qualified for free or reduced lunch averaged only 46% proficiency on reading and 36% in math. What’s not so readily apparent is how poverty creates that gap.
Socio-economic status directly impacts the amount of time parents have to be involved with their children’s education–whether its volunteering in the classroom, getting involved in the PTA, or overseeing homework. This study shows the direct correlation between students’ academic achievement and a high level of parent involvement. Another study from 2000 specifically uses John Stanford as a prime example of the benefits garnered by parent involvement with the school, and compares parental involvement versus non-involvement, broken out by socio-economic status.
But the only way to know for sure if our Wallingford-gap theory is correct is to compare numbers when both schools have a similar demographic. That day is coming due to the New Student Assignment Plan, but we still won’t have apples-to-apples numbers for a couple more years since the new kids are mostly Kindergartners who won’t begin to take the state proficiency tests until they’re older.
Of course, while it may resolve the disparity between these two schools here in Wallingford, it still does nothing to bridge the achievement gap district-wide. In fact, it just adds to, what Dr. Wilda Johnson calls in her recent Examiner article, the “north/south divide.”
(SPS is holding regional meetings in late November and early December for folks with questions about the school reports. The closest meeting is scheduled for November 29, from 7-8 pm at Roosevelt High School.)
When I worked in Seattle SD a few years ago BF Day also served many homeless children. Poverty impacts school performance in many ways. This should not be a major mystery.
Yeah but in this case, our ignorance in this situation exacerbated the gap.. In my experience as a parent of a BF Day student, neighbors seem to count the 42% receiving frre lunch as a strike against BF Day when it’s really a wonderful school managing to raise the circumstances of some of these kids (at least for a few hours a day) while at the same time teaching anti-bullying, fairness and compassion along with the core SPS curriculum. (And as of this year they are an Advanced Learning Opportunity school as well!)
When we were trying to decide between the various schools in our cluster a few years ago, many people offered up their [usually uninformed] opinion that John Stanford was all goodness and light, while BF Day was the “homeless” school and that had horrible test scores so they must have bad teachers. As if your child was doomed if he went there. To this day, whenever people find out our child goes to BF Day we get the crinkled-nose crooked-neck sympathy look followed by “Couldn’t get into John Stanford, huh?”
Well this will confuse many, but I’m proud to say we didn’t even try. When we were choosing schools, we met with the principal of BF Day, Susan McCloskey to discuss these issues and get to the bottom of these legends and were quite happy with her answers, the quality of the instructors we observed and the overall condition of that beautiful old school. We hated the whole cluster/reference pageant and we figured that if we weren’t happy with our reference school, we should get involved as parents and make it better rather than run for JS or West Woodland or another recently remodeled school in an economically advantaged neighborhood. This just perpetuates the gap between schools. Consider that if you pull out the 42% of kids who got a 46% in reading proficiency, the remaining 58% not living in or near poverty averaged 76% proficiency. Still a gap from JS but no where near as wide. Now imagine if the families that opted out of their reference school under the old system had stayed and gotten involved with BF Day. Now imagine that the advanced kids don’t have to leave to get ALO and their scores are on that average.
I would encourage any parent who’s worried about their kids having to attend BF Day to talk to the principal and faculty and tour the school. Also consider that parental involvement is easily the number one factor in your child’s education. As long as your child is safe, if your child has your active involvement and support they will do well wherever they go.
Said it better than I could, Chris!
Thank you, Chris. I am happy to read your comment. My son will be starting K at BF Day this fall and I have been looking forward to him walking to his first school. However, I too have heard a lot of parents stressing about the fact that their kids now have to go to a school they never would have chosen. I’ve been trying hard not to let the negative attitudes rub off on me, and instead have been working to inspire positivity about the school.
If anyone else reading this post has a child poised to attend BF Day, there is a facebook group dedicated to parents who would like to start getting involved early in their child’s BF Day experience. Just search of “Future Parents of BF Day” and request to join.
My daughter also had a great experience at BF Day. The International dinner nights were outstanding and that was ten years ago, long before international was the buzz word it is now. Our primary interest in Seattle Schools was the treasure of diversity, something we are soon to lose under the new assignment plan. BF Day provided that, including the homeless kids, in a very warm family environment. As with any school, it is parent involvement that makes the school. Dig in by volunteering and have fun. To paraphrase: Be the school you want to see in the world. It works!
Chris said, “As long as your child is safe, if your child has your active involvement and support they will do well wherever they go.”
I think the point of the study was that the kids at BF Day are NOT doing well. I wouldn’t be so eager to believe all the “slogan engineering” from the principal of BF Day when the outcome screams FAILURE.
Do the kids at JS have parents wo are more committed to their success? Is that a crime now?
Maybe to level the playing field we should see to it that JS students are denied books and homework assignments; then their performance will come down to the level of BF Day and everyone can be happy.
“My kid can eat dinner from seventeen cultures!”
That’s great preparation for a career path of “would you like fries with that?”
Woah UU, I don’t think anybody was attacking JS or parents that are committed to their children’s success, merely defending BF Day. I don’t think it is fair to assume that the overall test scores of the children at BF Day prove that they are “not doing well,” i.e. not on a road to “success.” The poor test scores at BF Day seem to highlight an income-based achievement gap. (Some kids are doing fine and lots are not.) I agree with you that it is ok to be upset about that, but it seems like it is misguided to blame the teachers or principle at BF Day. Instead perhaps we all should be encouraging the public school system to find ways to address this glaring issue. But, if schools like JS don’t teach to the same demographic, that doesn’t prove that they are better at teaching, it just proves that they lucky enough to not have that challenge. And does that mean that those of us with means should steer clear of BF Day? I am of the opinion that that is not necessary in order to pave our children’s path to success. In fact, I think the success of our nation is dependent on us all being invested in _everyone’s_ education, which should be well-rounded and include more than just acing math and reading tests.
Off the mark a bit, UU. JS is not being attacked. What you said does not make a lot of sense, I don’t believe. But it did to you, I guess.
Depending on where you draw the boundaries of Wallingford you’ll also have the inaugural class at McDonald Elementary to add to the mix in a few years.
Actually, BF Day’s results are troubling when you do consider the low-income students.
Many came to BF Day from the southeast side, presumably to get a better education than in their neighborhood school. (Under the old assignment plan, BF Day was a “cluster” school for the SE area.) 46% rate of proficiency in reading is a lower pass rate than many of the Southeast schools, and the 36% math proficiency is median for the SE side. Now, here we have a group of students whose parents were involved enough to send their children to school inconveniently far from home, and the question is whether this decision was worth it. There is a lot more to schooling than state test scores, and this may have been a beneficial move for the students, but still–the low income students apparently are not reading at a level anywhere near the mid or upper-income students, and the school should have been able to narrow this gap. That, I assume was one hope of the parents sending their children to a school far away–maybe they were looking for a better school climate, a peer group more interested in learning, but certainly they were expecting a better education. To accept or excuse this disparity in scores at the same school is to completely give up on poor children, even those who tried to get a better education by going to the rich(er) kids’ school. This is a disservice to everyone.
I would be interested to know the “gains” percentage broken out for the low-income students at BF Day. This measures the percent of students improving year-to year (compared to students starting at the same level of achievement.)
Now, the low-income students don’t seem to be doing much worse in math than anyone else at the school. I would think the lousy city-wide curriculum would be partly to blame for this, but other schools manage a better pass rate. (and good luck fixing that as a level 2 school where there is no freedom to move away from that curriculum, but that’s another story…)
Why isn’t McDonald mentioned in this article? Is 48th St. not part of Wallingford?
Walt, McDonald School only re-opened this year and the school reports are based on last year’s data.