Forget the achievement gap -- blacks in Oxford's Class of 2016 have great ACT scores

    There’s been quite a ruckus over a news story stating that the Oxford School District was considering the creation of a separate opt-in school, or school-within-a-school, for students on the federal school-lunch program in an effort to reduce the school's achievement gap.
    The Oxford School Board held a special meeting Friday, Sept. 30, to address community concerns, and released a press release apologizing, and stating that no separate school would be formed.
    The separate academy idea might be a good one for a district with 20,000 students. For a district with 4,000 it just doesn't work for a variety of reasons. I won’t address some of the comments made by Superintendent Bryan Harvey, save to say that they weren’t very well thought out. However ham-handed some of Harvey’s comments might have been, he and the school board do deserve credit for trying to provide the best education possible for every Oxford student. Their heart was in the right place even if their head wasn't.
    There is a huge socio-economic divide in the Oxford student body; although located in the poorest state in the nation, the median price for houses listed for sale in Oxford is almost $250,000. I suspect the disparities of wealth, which often fall along racial lines, cause some real problems when it comes to school management.
    Although the proposed academy was presented as a way to help low-income students, in reality it was almost certainly designed to reduce Oxford’s racial achievement gap, which is  the largest in the state. Last month the high school gave the school board the results of the junior ACT tests, which all students now take; the school ACT average was 22.2; white students had an average ACT score of 24.6 while black students had an average score of 18.1, which was a substantial increase from the year before. On its face this is a huge achievement gap, but when you analyze the reasons for the difference, these numbers are easily explained, and should be a source of great pride for Oxford.
    Oxford has has a tremendous number of near-geniuses; the school’s top quintile is probably equal to any school in the nation, including highly selective schools such as Stuyvesant, the Phillips schools, etc. Oxford is a medical, legal, and academic center, and as such attracts a large number of professionals, researchers, and college professors, along with their children. Most of these affluent, advanced-degree-holders are white or Asian. No matter where you are in the country, children of wealthy professionals or college professors tend to do very well academically. There is nothing that any school can do that will allow other students to "catch-up" to these students.
    Add to this the fact that because of its good schools Oxford has a reputation as a brain-cluster community. Most parents are able to perceive whether their children are far smarter than average at a fairly young age, and quite a number of these parents – overwhelmingly affluent and white – are moving to Oxford specifically to take advantage of Oxford’s quality schools. Again, these students are well ahead of the game when they move into the system. There is nothing the district can do that will cause other students to "catch-up" with them.
    All of these factors distort Oxford’s achievement gap. If you take out the disproportionate number of children of advanced-degree holders, much of the achievement gap simply disappears. Once you do this you can focus on something else, namely that based on 2016 ACT scores Oxford apparently does an outstanding job of educating its minority students.
    According to charts provided by the ACT, a score of 18 is in the 71st percentile in comparison to black students nationally. In Mississippi, the average black student ACT score is 16.6 while the average white score is 20.8. In other words, Oxford, with last year's average black ACT score of 18.1, is doing an outstanding job of educating its minority students in comparison to other Mississippi school districts, at least insofar as the Class of 2016 is concerned.
    I've tried to find the ACT average for black students at other Mississippi schools, but Oxford is one of the few school districts to have this information available online. It is possible, however, to compare the performance of Oxford's black students to the whole-school average of schools that are made up of 90 percent or more black students. Here are some of those figures: Aberdeen,  16.7; Ashland, 16.3; Clarksdale, 15.1; Greenwood, 15.8; Hazlehurst, 15.5; Holly Springs, 16.2; Jackson, 15.6; and so on. In fact, a majority of Mississippi school districts have an averageACT score of less than 18.1, regardless of their demographic makeup.
    I pointed out some years ago that a good school should cause the student achievement gap to increase every year. That's because such gaps are caused by some students being able to learn more quickly than others, whether due to natural talent or support at home. The only way to reduce such gaps is for a school to simply refuse educational services to its brightest students, which is child abuse. In the fable of The Tortoise and the Hare, the tortoise won the race because the hare took a nap. The only way to narrow achievement gaps is to make the fastest learners take intellectual "naps" by refusing them educational services.
    Oxford High School has an incredibly large clump of very high scorers on the ACT every year, and this elite group, made up almost entirely of white and  Asian students, causes a huge achievement gap in test scores. But the success of these mostly wealthy, near-genius students doesn't make Oxford's black students any less successful. Yes, there is room for improvement, but in comparison to other districts Oxford's black students are doing well, and the community needs to know that.
    The sad fact is that the Oxford School Board was taken in by a bunch of charlatans who convinced them there was a problem when none existed. An achievement gap isn't a problem. If black ACT scores drop back down to the state average, that's a problem.

Madison Central has 21 of 135 National Merit winners; four Semifinalists home-schooled

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    Listed at right (click to enlarge) are most or all of Mississippi's National Merit Semifinalists, as well as their high school
    I'm going to be blogging quite a bit over the next couple of weeks about the PSAT and National Merit Exam. My reason for giving it so much attention is simple: the PSAT is the most important examination that any really bright student will ever take.
    Sure, the ACT, SAT, LSAT, GMAT, GRE, and so forth are important. But they can be taken more than once. Taking the PSAT is like hunting with a single-shot shotgun; one shot is all you get, so you have to be ready. The rewards are immense, with numerous universities with great honors colleges offering automatic free rides to National Merit Finalists.
    Oxford High School had fewer Semifinalists than in past years, but four out of 200 is still a better showing than the overwhelming majority of schools.
    Items of interest in this year's scores:
    ● Mississippi has 135 National Merit Semifinalists this year, representing approximately the top one percent of Mississippi high school graduates. The cutoff score for Mississippi this year was 207, the same as last year. The national cutoff score for Commended status was 201, a two-point drop from last year.
    ● Tupelo got a National Merit Semifinalist! Tupelo High School used to be a real National Merit powerhouse, with as many as 11 Semifinalists in one year. They allowed things to slide, and for the past two years have had none. In an effort to break the slump Tupelo last year offered a nine-week PSAT-prep class limited to those students with a chance of making it. One did. Congratulations Tupelo!
    ● Four Mississippi Semifinalists are home-schooled, which I found surprising. Perhaps I could teach my children if they would listen to me or obey me, but they won't. Nor do I have the time! I want to know how these parents got they children to obey!
    ● DeSoto County has 15 Semifinalists this year, which I believe to be a record. DeSoto County is known for good schools and test scores but it hasn't been known for producing lots of National Merit Scholars; perhaps that is going to change. Also interesting is where the finalists came from. Five came from DeSoto Central, probably the best and most affluent school in DeSoto County. Five came from Southaven High; three from Olive Branch High School, one from Lewisburg High School, and one home schooler.
    There has been a trickle white- and affluent-flight going on in DeSoto County for several years now, as residents seem to be favoring DeSoto Central and more-recently Lewisburg. I have some friends who bought a weekday-house in the DeSoto Central school district some time back so their child could attend. But very bright students apparently are still getting a fine education at both Southaven High and Olive Branch High.
    ● Jackson Prep had nine NMSFs, the best of any private school save for St. Andrew's School, which had 12. St. Andrew's has a reputation for being incredibly liberal, as in li-ber-ul; just something to keep in mind if you don't want your kids getting a lot of strange ideas. (Don't get me wrong, I have friends who went to St. Andrew's. Liberal friends, who when telling people where they attended high school refer to it as "that liberal school" in a country-boy accent.)
    ● Northwest Rankin High School had eight Semifinalists. These folks were not on my radar; congrats!
    ● The Mississippi School for Math and Science has 10 Semifinalists. MSMS doesn't deserve the credit for this as these students were newly arrived when the took the PSAT, but it does show that there is a quality student body at the school.
    ● Madison Central High School apparently wears the National Merit crown, with 21 Semifinalists. This is out of about 550 students, and so represents four percent of the student body. Last year Oxford was the top open-enrollment public school in terms of percentages, with about 5.5 percent Semifinalists. Hopefully it will be again next year.


 

National Merit winners announced with five from Lafayette County; OHS 4, LHS1

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    National Merit Semifinalists have been notified and the state cutoff scores have seeped out. Mississippi's NMSF cutoff remained at 207 this year.
    Oxford High School has four National Merit Semifinalists. This is fewer than the 11 last year or the 12 the year before, but is still an outstanding performance. Lafayette County High School has one Semifinalist.
    Oxford High School's Semifinalists are William E. Anderson, David M. Dennis, Joonhee Jo, and William G. Tollison. Lafayette County's Semifinalist is Addison E. Roush. Congratulations to these winners, who are now automatically eligible for full-ride scholarships to many universities worth as much a quarter-million dollars!
    I'm surprised. I predicted that this year's cutoff would be 205, two points lower than last year. I based this on a two-point drop in the score for commended students, and on the substantial drop in Mississippi critical reading scores. Of course, math and writing scores were up.
    The Commended Student cutoff for this year is 201, and this info has been out for quite a while. In 2010 and 2011, and the Semifinalist cutoffs were 203 and 205 respectively, so this year has the largest gap between the Commended cutoff and the NMSF cutoff in Mississippi's testing history.
    Most states had a drop in their cutoff score. Alabama, for example, had a four-point drop to tie Mississippi at 207. Alabama's cutoff has tended to be five or six points higher than Mississippi's.

    While this is bad news for those of us hoping our children will make the cutoff in a year or two, it's good news for Mississippi. Semifinalists represent the top one-percent of graduates in each state. Commended students are made up of those scoring in the top three percent nationally who don't make Semifinalist. There were years in the past where Mississippi had no commended students; our top one percent was so far behind the rest of the nation that the Semifinalist cutoff was at or below the Commended cutoff.
    So a 207 Mississippi cutoff means that our state's best students are closing the gap with students from high-achievement states. A large gap still remains, though, as the chart reveals; the Massachusetts cutoff this year is 223.
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Source for state cutoff scores: www.collegeconfidential.com

Oxford High does it again with 27 graduates scoring 30 or higher on ACT; six score 35, two 36

    I wrote back in April that eight Oxford High School students had scored a 35 or 36 on the ACT and thus qualified to be STAR students.
    What I didn't report on was the number scoring 30 or higher. I asked for the information but never got it. The school board recently issued a report showing that 27 OHS students scored 30 or above out of a graduating class of 203.
    That comes out to more than 13 percent scoring a 30 or higher. On a statewide level, 931 students out of 28,481 students taking the ACT scored 30 or higher, or 3.25 percent of test-takers. As best I understand it, in Oxford almost every student took the ACT -- 198 out of 203, or 97.5 percent -- while on a statewide level participation rates were lower. So this makes the Oxford scores all the more impressive. (See state report, HERE. See national report, HERE).
    Here's the breakdown of the top ACT score distribution:

 2 - 36 composite score
 6 - 35 composite score
 1 - 34 composite score
 4 - 33 composite score
 5 - 32 composite score
 5 - 31 composite score
 4 - 30 composite score

     As you can see from the chart above, OHS doesn't have a normal "bell distribution curve." There ought to be a 50- to 60-percent increase in the number of students at each score point below 35, but there isn't. Of course, based on normal score distributions there ought to be a thousand students scoring below 30, but there are only 171. I'd love to have the chance to see the entire OHS score distribution, as I think it would be highly unusual. I suspect Oxford doesn't so much have a bell curve as it does a squiggly line curve.
    Also interesting is that Oxford's numbers for 2014 are almost identical to the numbers for 2013. In 2013 Oxford had 12 National Merit Finalists, eight students with 35 or 36 on the ACT, and 27 students with a 30 or higher on the ACT. The 2014 numbers were identical, except that there was one fewer National Merit Finalist.
    I've mentioned in the past that there is a lot of brain clustering going on around the nation as families with bright children seek out adequate school systems with other bright kids. A friend of mine calls it "bright-flight." And Oxford is adding a dozen or so of these super-bright kids every year.
    Other "bright-flight" clusters include the Madison County School system and St. Andrews School in Jackson. In 2013 11 of Oxford's approximately 225 juniors earned National Merit Semifinalist honors. At Madison Central High School it was about 23 out of 550. Mississippi's top brain-magnet is St. Andrews School in Jackson, where 15 out of about 85 students earned Semifinalist status last year. Of course St. Andrews is both private and selective, so it's not really fair to count them. The same goes for the Mississippi School for Math and Science, where 12 of 120 earned NMSF honors last year. But these kids don't arrive at MSMS until shortly before they take the PSAT.
    High ACT scores like Oxford has had the past two years may not happen annually, but more are in store for the future. My son is in 10th grade this year, and five or six students from his grade earned a 30 or higher on the ACT prior to the start of the school year. Given that many, if not most, Mississippi schools don't have a single student to break the ACT 30 barrier, I'd say that having half a dozen do so prior to their entering 10th grade is pretty impressive.

Mississippians may not be able to read, but we sure can write, and have PSAT scores to prove it

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    The late author Willie Morris once said "Mississippians may not be able to read, but we sure can write." It was a reference to the unusually large number of notable authors coming from a state known for having a high illiteracy rate.
    I was looking over Mississippi's PSAT scores and found some amazing numbers. Mississippi has fewer top scorers on the PSAT than the South and nation, but Mississippi simply blows out the competition when it comes to the writing section.
    The chart I've presented is for the most recent scores only, but this isn't a one-year phenomenon. You can look at the scores yourself by clicking here. I consider myself fairly well informed about these types of tests, and I can't come up with a good reason why Mississippi's PSAT writing scores should be substantially higher than the regional and national average while our state our state has fewer top scorers in the reading and math sections.
    One could argue that fewer Mississippians take the PSAT in comparison to the nation at large, so that our test pool is composed of more able students. This is almost certainly true, but it doesn't explain the discrepancy between the reading, math, and writing scores. And the fact that 47.1 percent of Mississippians scored a 50 or above compared to 35.8 percent nationally is a huge and significant test gap.
    It should be noted that Mississippi's average reading and math PSAT scores are actually slightly higher than the national average; this is likely due to only better Mississippi students taking the PSAT to begin with -- fewer than one in four juniors takes the PSAT. But Mississippi produces a smaller percentage of high to very-high scorers in reading and math despite its elite testing pool.
    I don't have any answers, but I certainly found this interesting. My guess is that most people could care less.