In previous blogs, I’ve called for Washington state to develop its own “Student Improvement Grants” (SIG) program and provide the resources to schools with demonstrated “income disparity”, instead of minority populations. That raises a question. How should we determine “Income Disparity”?
Schools are required to report endless lists of data to the state and among that data is information on students who qualify for “Free or Reduced Cost Lunch”. There is already a wealth of data, using this information to craft special needs programs.
Find out what's happening in Woodinvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
A review of the OSPI’s “Report Card” data base provides useful information. I set about to collect data on the percentage of “Free/Reduced Lunch”, ethnic makeup, graduation rates, and 10th grade reading and writing scores. The state average of “Free & Reduced Lunch” is 46.1%’ the graduation rate statewide is report at 77.2% (4year rate) & 78.9 (5year rate), 10th grade reading average is 83.6% and the10th grade writing average is 85%.
Find out what's happening in Woodinvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
King County contains fifteen schools districts. Seven of those districts report “Free or Reduced Lunch” percentages that exceed 50% of their student populations. The range is from 52.5% to 83.8%. (I will discuss the ethnic make up of these districts in another blog.) The range of graduation rates in these seven districts is from 50% to 81.3% and shows a trend of lower graduation rates as the percentage of “Free & Reduced Lunch” increases. It is interesting to note that three of these seven districts have graduation rates that exceed the state average, suggesting they’re doing a good job in the face of a significant challenge.
None of the seven districts report 10th grade reading scores that exceed the state average. though three come quite close. One district reports no test scores at all. Five districts report 10th grade writing scores below the state average and two exceed the state average. Of the five, two are very close to the state average. Again, this suggests these four districts are doing a good job in the face of a significant challenge.
Based upon this data, two districts stand out as needing their own SIG programs and two are reasonable candidates. One is decidedly rural and the other three are urban or suburban, depending upon your definition.