New Orleans Dropout Rate Improves

Posted on by Leslie Jacobs

Pre-Katrina, New Orleans had one of the worst dropout rates in Louisiana, and Louisiana had one of the worst dropout rates in the nation.

Educate Now! was curious to know how New Orleans is doing today. We hadn’t seen any dropout data for New Orleans since Katrina, so we contacted the Louisiana Department of Education and got the 2008-09 dropout numbers for every school in Orleans parish. The 2008-09 data is the most recent year available because dropout reporting lags a year. (The 2009-10 data will be released next spring.)

The Good News: We are better in 2008-09 than we were in 2004-05.
The Bad News: We are still above the state average and have a lot of room for improvement.

Continue reading →

Evaluating New Orleans Charter Schools

Posted on by Leslie Jacobs

Charter school performance has recently been the subject of a number of reports. Some of the highlights:

1.     A national study of 36 charter schools in 15 states showed that on average students who won lotteries to attend charter middle schools performed no better in math and reading than their peers who lost the lottery and enrolled in regular public schools. At the same time, this federally commissioned study showed that charter schools were more effective when serving low-income, lower-achieving students (especially in urban areas) than they were serving higher-income, higher-achieving students.

Read more about the study in Education Week magazine.
Read the Mathematica study “Evaluation of Charter School Impacts.”

2.     Last month, the same research firm, Mathematica, found that KIPP students, most of whom are poor and from a racial minority, outperformed their peers in regular public schools. Read more about Mathematica’s KIPP study.

Continue reading →

RSD Schools Significantly Outperform Voucher Program

Posted on by Leslie Jacobs

Background

Two years ago, Louisiana enacted the Student Scholarship for Educational Excellence Program, a pilot voucher program in New Orleans designed to offer students an alternative to attending a failing public school. The voucher program gives parents of eligible students in New Orleans the choice of attending non-public schools that have agreed to participate in the program, and the state pays the tuition.

As a district of choice, Orleans families have multiple education options, including the voucher program. There has been great focus on the reforms inside the Recovery School District (RSD) and the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB). With the recent test score release, we now have data to begin evaluating the performance of voucher students. Continue reading →

High School Performance Conclusions

Posted on by Leslie Jacobs

If we look at the high school data from 2005 to 2010, we can come to certain conclusions:

  1. Significantly fewer students are forced to attend a failing high school. We are giving students better high school options.
  2. Our high school students are performing better on the GEE.
  3. We are doing a much better job getting our seniors to graduate.
  4. There is not sufficient data to accurately assess how well we are doing at keeping students in school. Since the data system to track students across all schools does not exist at the local level, the state needs to provide timely information so New Orleans can ensure that this important outcome is evaluated and any related issues addressed. It is a critical issue that is not getting the attention it deserves.

The Dropout Struggle

Posted on by Leslie Jacobs

Pre-Katrina, the state measured the annual dropout rate for each district by analyzing the October 1 student counts to determine how many students dropped out from one year to the next. Back in 2005, New Orleans had an annual dropout rate of 11.4%, compared to a state average of 7%. (For every 100 high school students enrolled in 2004, 11.4 of them dropped out of school by 2005 – a total of 2139 students!) This was the third worst dropout rate in the state behind two small rural parishes – Red River and East Carroll. To view the 2004-2005 dropout report, click here. Continue reading →

More Seniors are Graduating

Posted on by Leslie Jacobs

2005 and 2010 Graduation Rates

Historically, New Orleans did a dismal job helping their seniors cross the finish line. In fact, in spring, 2005, the last year all the schools were under the Orleans Parish School Board, only 79% of New Orleans seniors graduated, tying Madison Parish for the worst record in the state. Thus, for every 100 seniors, 21 did not get to walk across the stage and receive diplomas.

The percent of seniors graduating has risen dramatically since 2005.

This year, 90% of seniors graduated, allowing 270 additional seniors to proudly participate in graduation ceremonies.

In 2005, 79% of seniors graduated.

In 2010, 90% of seniors graduated – an 11 point increase.

For a list of post-Katrina (2007-2010) graduation rates by school, click here.

Student Performance is on the Rise

Posted on by Leslie Jacobs

The GEE

The Graduation Exit Exam (GEE) tests 10th and 11th graders in English, Math, Science and Social Studies.

Since 2005, New Orleans test results have grown more than the state in all subjects.

  • In English, New Orleans grew 12 percentage points; the state grew 3.
  • In Math, New Orleans grew 21 percentage points; the state grew 11.
  • In Science, New Orleans grew 13 points. The state grew 4.
  • In Social Studies, New Orleans grew 18 points. The state grew 7.

2005 and 2010 GEE

Overall School Quality Has Improved

Posted on by Leslie Jacobs

2005 Pre-Katrina

Pre-Katrina, high schools in New Orleans were sharply divided between high performing, selective admissions schools and low performing (many the lowest in the state) open admissions high schools.

In 2005, 67% of high schoolers (grades 9-12) attended a failing school.

While a failing school has a School Performance Score (SPS) of less than 60, the majority of New Orleans’ failing high schools were the worst schools in the state, with scores below 30.

Post-Katrina to Today

The high schools governed by the Orleans Parish School Board were the first to reopen after the storm. Some of their highly selective schools reduced or eliminated their admissions criteria to help get students back in school and to bring their student enrollment closer to pre-Katrina levels. This change in student make-up contributed to a drop in their SPS scores.

As a result, today we have fewer 3, 4, and 5 star schools and more 1 and 2 star schools.

The good news:  Significantly fewer students are attending failing schools.

Using either the 2009 SPS scores or the spring 2010 test

scores, Educate Now! estimates that in 2010 only 36% of students in grades 9-12 attended failing schools. This is marked improvement!

View 2005 high schools with student population and performance rankings.
View 2010 high schools with student population and performance rankings.

In addition to the schools that were one star or higher in 2009, Educate Now! calculated three additional high schools should have a 2010 Growth Performance Score* of 60 or higher:

O. Perry Walker, Algiers Technical Academy and Thurgood Marshall Early College High School. Congrats to all three!

Unfortunately, while the percent of students attending a failing high school has dropped, so has the percent of students attending a high performing high school – from 21% in 2005 to 10% in 2010.

We can and should be able to have non selective high schools that are high performing. Educate Now! wants to shine the spotlight on Sci Academy. Their 10th grade GEE scores were excellent -the third highest in the city behind Ben Franklin and Lusher. Sci Academy proves that open admission high schools can excel; our challenge is for more of them to do so.

* Growth performance scores use only the most recent year of data. A school performance score averages two years of data.