Clark School District Refuses Info Request
February 12th, 2007Last week, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported that the Clark County School District has “proven” the effectiveness of all day kindergarten with a “longitudinal” study that found reading aptitude was 3% higher amongst children who attended FDK. If they took out the results of the non “at-risk” children, and just looked at “at-risk” children, the improvement was 8%.
What, then, was the percentage improvement amongst non “at-risk” children? Beers asked the Legislative Counsel Bureau staff to ask the Clark County School District.
The answer would depend on how many children were studied in the FDK group, and how many of them were deemed “at-risk” vs. not “at-risk”. Simple mathematics dictates that it was below 3%, and in all likelihood near zero. According to a legislative counsel bureau analyst, “the figures for the low-risk students should be easy to calculate given the raw data.”
However, today for the second time, the Clark County School District refused to release the information. Here are the email exchanges, unedited:
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2/9/2007
LCB: The report gives the differences in achievement by 2nd grade between half-day and full-day kindergarten students who are in at-risk categories (FRL in Table 12 & Non-English Proficient in Table 14). The legislator wants to know what the difference who are not in these categories, who are considered low-risk. I think he wants to compare the additional differences between at-risk and low-risk for full- and half-day kindergarten.
CCSD: Joe, in response to the question below, that info isn’t in the report…this is an interim report and I anticipate that the year-end report will have that data. However, based on discussions with folks in our research dept. who are conducting this research, I think it’s safe to say that our findings will be consistent with other research that says that benefits are greatest for the FRL and ELL populations. With the exception of the voluntary pay-for-K programs we have, these are the populations we are serving first, and will continue to serve as more funds become available.
Hope that helps.
2/12/2007
LCB: So there’s no way to come up with a percentage change in achievement for low-risk kids? The other data shows the percentages of low-risk, some risk, and at-risk children in the study and also the percentage increase in performance averaged over all the participants, and then the percentage increase for the at-risk kids. With the total number of kids in the survey, it seems like it’d be fairly straightforward to generate percentage for the other risk categories as well.
CCSD: In speaking with our research office, they offered this response to the above:
The Full/Extended Day Kindergarten Longitudinal (Interim) Study (FEDS-L) focused on the effects of full-day kindergarten on all students as well as two specific subgroups (FRL, ELL) highlighted in the current report.
These two subgroups comprise a significant population in the CCSD.
Students who have no FRL designation were not originally disaggregated for analysis because their poverty level/income status is in many cases unknown. According to federal guidelines, students who have no FRL designation only means that they have not applied for Free and Reduced Lunch. Some students are not assigned FRL status in low-income schools, even though they qualify for free and reduced lunch. Therefore, because we don’t know with certainty the FRL status of students who are not officially designated, it is generally not appropriate to do an analysis and draw any conclusions about these students.
CCSD’s refusal to answer the Legislature’s question is outrageous. Their study was done with taxpayer dollars. To suggest it is inappropriate to draw any conclusions about non “at-risk” students is absurd, all the more so because they used the same techniques to publicize conclusions about “at-risk” students just last week.
February 13th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Senator Beers press release of “Beers Unmasks Deceptive Educrats” is very discouraging. It is sad that taxpayers have to pay for promotional political studies. I am sure that Educrats and the study group had already planned the outcome of study even before one inch of effort was put into the study. I am sure that left wing media will overlook this fact and will be also promote this taxpayer paid-for advertisement. Yet, the same media will ignore the voluminous studies that show that there are no long term effects of all day kindergarten.
In all the states that I have lived it seems every election year, the politicians say we must do some about education. And there is always some cute new idea that cost hundred of millions of dollars. But year after year, education gets worst. In the 1960’s, students graduating high school demonstrated 12th grade skills. In today’s world, we are lucky even if have teachers can demonstrate 5th grade level skills. We have so called“honor-roll” students that have to get remedial English and math course to gain acceptance into college.
The time has come to stop implementing cute ideas and make fundamental changes to the eduction system. New money is not needed. Even after inflation, we are spending 10x’s more then what was spent in the 1960’s. The foundation of education is broken. It is time to destroyed the huge bureaucracy that dooms our kids to failure.
March 2nd, 2007 at 12:14 pm
[…] I immediately set the legislative staff to work finding out from the school district what the “improvement” was amongst the rest of the second-graders in the full-day kindergarten group who were not labeled “at-risk” - essentially, those from lower-middle class homes and wealthier. The district stonewalled. […]