Blinding you with science -- MCA-II 2009 science scores

Last week, we published an article about this year's MCA-II science tests. A few educators and readers wanted to know where specific schools stacked up compared to others (the article only compared entire school districts).

Here's the P-B editoral about the scores. (Just a reminder: the news room and the editorial board are separate entities and different people. News articles state facts, editorials take facts and deliver an opinion.)

So here we go... Since the tables really don't format that well into this space, I've created links:

• Rochester schools, ranked in proficiency rates by grade (pdf)
    Washington Elementary ranked top at elementary, Kellogg was top at middle school, and Century was top at high school.

The next links are actually the same Excel spreadsheet. Both breakdowns are separated by sheets within the one file. You can switch between the sheets at the bottom left of the Microsoft Excel window, (Sorted by County, Sorted by Score). Any questions, e-mail me.

The important figures here are: school name (obviously), grade, and percent proficient. Students tested shows the sample test size from that school and grade.

More is explained below.

• State schools, sorted by county and grade, sorted by proficiency (.xls - MS-Excel)
    This spreadsheet is a little bit murkier than the pdf file, based on the sheer size of including every district in the state. Also, this includes the breakdown of how students performed, based on a four-point scale defined as: Does not meet proficiency (1), Partially meets (2), Meets (3) and Exceeds proficiency (4). Students scoring an M or E (3 or 4) are rated proficient.

You can view the breakdowns of how all students performed by viewing the "D", "P", "M" and "E" fields on the spreadsheets. Yes, it would be easier for the state to make it simply pass/fail or not proficient/proficient, but that's another topic. This allows us to see how many students are close, how many are far away and how many are exceeding the bar.

• State schools, ranked and sorted by proficiency and grade (.xls - MS-Excel)
    To show how Rochester and area schools performed compared to all schools in the state. Some fields might need to be cleaned up, but this file allows us to look at the different scores. (If you downloaded the first .xls file, you already downloaded this sheet. Look to the bottom of left of the Excel screen and find "Sorted by Score.")

I found it interesting to see the breakdowns of how well students performed. For example, parents have asked me if the gifted program at Friedell Middle School results in higher MCA-II scores. I guessed that it wouldn't necessarily account for a higher overall score, but that the amount of students in the "exceeding" standards group (4) might be slightly higher. On this one test -- which does not necessarily prove the hypothesis -- that happened. The school had a slight bump in the highest amount of students in the (1) group and in the (4) group.

Note: While looking at the figures we should keep in mind that even though MCA-II test scores are an easy way of comparing schools, this post shouldn't be taken as an endorsement of one school versus another. They also aren't a reason to blast another school district's complete educational system. This post is not an effort to pit one school against another.

For more information about the MCA-II science tests, read this article and also the Minnesota Department of Education MCA-II page.

Pass on any comments or errors at: emann(at)postbulletin(dot)com.