Category: Education Matters

The SBAC Growth Model: A Fresh Angle on School Performance

A few months ago, we released this report on Hartford’s SBAC results for the 2015-16 school year, summarizing the proficiency results of Hartford students by grade and school, with a district-wide comparison to peer districts. At the time, we also did a basic cohort growth analysis and now the State Department of Education (SDE) has released its own, using a robust statistical model—with some surprising results.

This growth model sets achievable growth targets for each student’s SBAC scores based on their scores in the previous year, rather than expecting students at very low proficiency to abruptly attain high proficiency. This enables us to answer a very important question: Regardless of what population of students a district or school has, how much progress are those students making over time? In this way, growth results offer a much clearer picture of how well districts and individual schools are educating their students.

Some of the patterns revealed by these results are unexpected. Our full report can be accessed here; below are a couple of selected findings.

First, unlike the SBAC proficiency results, which show magnet schools consistently outscoring neighborhood schools, the growth results reveal a somewhat more level playing field, especially in Math; the average Math Growth Rate for magnet schools is just three percentage points higher than neighborhood schools. While magnet schools undeniably have higher proficiency levels than neighborhood schools, they do not appear to have a similar advantage when it comes to growth; students at magnet schools are only slightly more likely to achieve their growth targets than students at neighborhood schools in English Language Arts (ELA) and Math:

Second, we see something similar in the district comparisons. For example, East Hartford had much worse Math growth outcomes than Hartford, despite having much better proficiency outcomes. Statewide, the two top performers are Trumbull and North Haven, which both have growth rates just under 70% for both subjects. Among our comparison group, Farmington ranks first in both ELA and Math growth (53.6% and 64.6%, respectively). Read more on Hartford students’ growth results.

 

The Bottom Line

The state’s new growth model offers a new and valuable perspective on performance. Thanks to the growth model, we can see that proficiency rates in districts and individual schools do not necessarily reflect how much progress students are making there.

Nevertheless, the proficiency rates are still evidence of a very real achievement gap – one which Hartford can never close with our growth rates. The only way for our students to catch up by the time they leave high school is to have a growth rate that exceeds the suburbs. That must be the standard.


If All Politics Is Local, Our Superintendent Candidates Fill the Bill

HPS Acting Superintendent Leslie Torres-Rodriguez and Chief of Operations and Engagement José Colón-Rivas, plus Capitol Region Education Council (CREC) Assistant Superintendent for Operations Tim Sullivan are the top candidates to become Hartford’s next permanent superintendent – according to the Hartford Courant.  All have lengthy local experience as managers of schools – and even bigger contributions in service to children.  We highlight their resumes below.

 

The Board of Education’s search committee reportedly will interview the top three candidates this month and then select two finalists for some kind of public review.  In the meantime, here are some highlights regarding the three local leaders reportedly under consideration:

  • Dr. José Colón Rivas headed the City Department of Families, Children, Youth and Recreation for five years, under three Mayors – and also served as a broadly respected and moderating force during that time on the Hartford Board of Education, appointed by past Mayor Pedro Segarra, before leaving those two posts to become the District’s Chief of Operations and Engagement last summer.  He began his career as a teacher at Bulkeley High School, where he rose to be assistant principal, and later assumed the high school principal post at Hartford Public High School, stewarding its re-credentialing phase.  Before moving into the City’s youth work, he also led curriculum and instruction efforts at HPS’s central office, where he is taking a second turn today, as chief of operations and engagement.  He earned a doctorate at Penn State University in Curriculum and Instruction and Child Development Education.  See his full resume here.
  • Tim Sullivan today supervises CREC’s $141 million budget development process, including maintaining 10-year enrollment, facility, and finance projections for the 17-school system’s 8,500 students from 86 towns.  A lifelong resident of Hartford, he taught history at Weaver High School, then served as assistant principal at Bulkeley – and managed the central office scheduling for all Hartford high schools.  He became the first principal at Classical Magnet School, moving it from a program to a fully operational and award-winning school with 700 students and an $8 million budget.  Serving as a principal representative, he also worked on several district-wide committees, including those for teacher-contract negotiation, student-based budgeting, and principal selection.  He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Wesleyan University as well as administrator and superintendent certificates from the University of Hartford. See his full resume here.
  • Dr. Leslie Torres-Rodriguez graduated from Hartford Public High School and then built a diverse career, working as a director of academic enrichment programs, a school social worker, an adjunct community college professor, a freshman academy director, and a school principal, before most recently leading an 11-school network of Hartford schools as assistant superintendent of instructional leadership.  Named acting superintendent by the Board of Education when Dr. Beth Schiavino-Narvaez left last December, Dr. Torres-Rodriguez previously headed CREC’s Public Safety Academy in Enfield and Great Path Academy at Manchester Community College.  Last month (at the 55:06 mark of this video), she reported on the school budget challenges slated to be resolved in April.  She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at UConn and a doctorate in educational leadership from Central Connecticut State University.  See her full resume here.

 

The Bottom Line

 

Each of these educators has an impressive record of accomplishments; each also has deep familiarity with the city, its neighborhoods, and its student needs.  In the ideal world, given the frightening fiscal outlook – and the culture of cover-up – Hartford faces, all three candidates ought to be working alongside each other within HPS to help right the ship.  Alas, there can only be one at the top.  In the coming weeks, Achieve Hartford! will release its rubric for assessing the finalist candidates.


How Do You Solve a $20 Million Problem?

The big ticket item in the Hartford schools’ budget is its 69 percent allocation to staff salaries.  Hartford school costs increase by some $14 million annually and the projected cuts on the other side of the ledger, in State and City funding for fiscal 2018, likely will be around $6 million.  That’s a $20 million problem.

 

If the budget is Hartford’s biggest issue, and the schools take up 55 percent of it, finding innovative ways to finance education is the most important thing happening.  Governor Dannel Malloy has called for re-focusing aid toward the neediest cities, but that plan already has met stiff opposition from many of Connecticut’s 169 towns – and appears to be dead on arrival at the General Assembly.  Negotiable?  Maybe.

 

The legislature has until this spring to finalize the numbers, but it may not be able to resolve the disputes from towns that stand to lose funding as the more desperate conditions in cities are addressed.

 

Just as Mayor Bronin has called out the structural deficiency of Hartford’s revenue model, the District suffers in a structural quandary as well.  Hartford’s is more dependent on State revenue (70 percent of its operating budget) than any school district in Connecticut – and also has the highest rate of poverty and one of the lowest amounts of taxable property in the state. In a budget forum last week, HPS Chief Financial Officer Paula Altieri laid out the facts above and went further to explain:

 

  • Hartford has too many schools under-enrolled and must tackle this issue.
  • The upward spiral of tuition expense, 455 percent in the past eight years, has to be addressed; Hartford pays for students to attend magnet schools and receive out-of-district special education services, a problem begging for a solution.
  • The need to change stems not just from scarce resources, but also from the facts at hand:  Hartford schools’ unique characteristics are costly: aging facilities, small schools and unique school models – all exacerbated by a broken State funding formula.  “We shouldn’t have to beg for opportunities for our students; that should be their constitutional right,” CFO Altieri told the Wish School budget forum audience (albeit fewer than 20 people), February 7th (on video here).
  • Both CFO Altieri and Acting Superintendent Leslie Torres-Rodriguez and her staff have been meeting with School Governance Councils and principals to develop needs assessments and set urgent priorities per school, which will be how the budget process will be modified this year.
  • Each school will be charged with identifying “ingredients for success” and those will be factored in to the budget.
  • Hartford Board of Education Member Craig Stallings, who chairs its Finance Committee, is seeking a joint budget session with City Council – and wants NRZs, town committees, the African-American Alliance, and other organizations engaged by an entire campaign for school funding.  Moreover, Board Member Stallings did not mince words about the need to close schools and vowed to get residents to attend his committee meetings.

 

The Bottom Line.

 

While it has yet to go through the General Assembly sausage grinder, the governor’s 2018 budget proposal has the potential to change the scenarios, especially if the funding formula is improved to help those most in need.  Even if the state formula does change and Hartford’s $20 million hole is plugged, it doesn’t change the fact that, structurally, the Hartford Public Schools must transform how it spends its money.

 

Our next District superintendent must have a track record of successful fiscal management and business-as-usual District spending must end, for as school leaders know, operationalizing equity requires fundamental change.  The HPS tagline – Every student thrives and every school is high performing. No excuses. – must be more than an aspiration.  For our part, Achieve Hartford! will be releasing next month a comprehensive list of operational changes Hartford can make to move our system closer to equity.

 


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Hartford, CT 06106

 

(860) 244-3333

 

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