INTRODUCTION – Bullis Charter School Comparison

UPDATE Sept. 18, 2013.

LASD trustee Doug Smith talked about some School Comparison data on Monday, Sept. 16,  but did not provide handouts or URLs. Lalahpolitico looked up the source she is familiar with – the California State education site to update this article with 2011-12 data. Here follows the data, and it does not change my conclusions.

The stats at BCS are not “statistically or significantly different” from those of several schools (e.g., Blach, Gardener) in our district and in other economically segregated suburbs like ours  — see Saratoga. Mr. Smith may have access to County data for 2012-2013 ,which is not yet available to the general public on the state site. Ummm. Not transparent.

TABLE: Local Schools 2011-12. BCS is quite similar to Blach and to Gardener. BCS provides free lunch volunteers, but not through the state program which generates the column data. Source: http://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us/Pages/Home.aspx

 

Table: Some Districts 2011-12.  LASD is very non-inclusive compared to many nearby districts. Only Saratoga seems less inclusive.

 

Table: 2011-12. In our general vicinity,  only Saratoga Elementary looks less inclusive than LASD

 

Table 2011-12. Here are some other local schools with low ELLs and low free lunches. This is a product of economic geographic segregation accomplished by town zoning laws mandating large parcels and no apartment buildings.

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ORIGINAL ARTICLE. Published Sept. 9, 2012

Here is the most widely-used data about underprivledged California students in public schools. The data tables below show a Bullis Charter School comparison … with other LASD and Santa Clara Elementary schools… where the Percentage of Students who are English Language Learners (%EL) is greater the 0% of the student enrollment….for each year 2005 to 2010.  The columns to focus on are % English Learners and % Free Meals.  There are conventional used as indicators of lower socioeconomic status.  However in LASD some of the EL students are not underprivledged hispanics, especially at the younger grades. We have had an influx of Mandarin speakers. These tables below are screen shots taken directly from the California Education web site. ( I do not attempt to research, present, or discuss any deficiencies in this dataset that probably exist. Let’s suppose its fact for now.)

Their is no data on free lunch on Bullis Charter, because like most charters, it provides lunch directly, rather than through the State program which collects statistics.  So we take BCS students getting free lunch as zero, even though in more recent years it was at least provided for some kids on a direct basis, allegedly.

Methodology:  We take the lowest performing school in LASD each year and compare how BCS stacked up against those schools. In general there is a deficit of underprivledged students from 0 to an outlier high of -17. That’s the arithmetic. That’s the extent of the deviation in underprivledged participation at BCS.

We take the lowest performing school in LASD each year and compare how BCS stacked up against those schools

Why didn’t I compare BCS to the LASD average? Because that is not apples to apples where I live.  Within LASD there is a wide spread in EL% and Free Lunch % between the elementary schools.[BCS was K to 6 these years.]  It is interesting that Gardner, Oak, Loyola, and Montclaire [Cupertino Union] statistics show schools that are generally as “privledged” as  BCS. There is also a wide spread between LASD’s average and neighboring districts’ averages. [Not shown here:  The LASD “underprivledged” stats average is similar to that of Saratoga , another area high very high economic geographic segregation.]

It is interesting that Gardner, Oak, Loyola, and Montclaire [Cupertino Union] statistics show schools that are generally as “privledged” as  BCS

Conclusion: But what does the arithmetic of these 0 to -17 missing underprivledged students at BCS from 2005 to 2010 mean? For LASD’s passionate supporters, it says BCS is a school that is cherry-picking or skimming with an up to 17 student deficit. Shocking!  For BCS sympathizers, it says, “Meh, not statistically signficant ” For lalahpolitico, it says “What’s the fuss – not much harm done with so few students involved.” But it would be nice for BCS work on it anyway. And LASD should do more to normalize the EL and free-lunch students between its schools too.  For lalahpolitico, the real, VERY LARGE harm in our area, as opposed to miniscule harm, is the lack of equity between school districts – like between LASD vs. MV-Whisman.

BTW: Nationally the charter school association does admit that as a group, charter schools do serve a lower percentage of  EL and underprivledged students.They say they are working on it. There is some more data at dashboard.publiccharters.org. Also visit www. calcharters.org

Note: [Special Ed statistics, such as they are, will be documented in another future post.]

 

 

Table A: All LASD Schools 2005-6

 

2005 Analysis

Oak School had .20% of students on free lunch or 1 student. BCS with half the enrollment of Oak, should have had less than 1/2 a student on free lunch. BCS had a students on free lunch deficit of 0 students.  Oak has 2.5% of students as ELs or 10 students. BCS with half the enrollment should have had 5 students, but only had 3, for a BCS deficit of EL students of -2 students.

Table 1: 2005-2006    Source: www.ed-data/l12/ca/us  You will need to use the interface to generate a similar report.

 

Table B: All LASD Schools 2006-2007

2006 Analysis

Loyola school had .20% of students on free lunch or 1 student. BCS with half the enrollment of Loyola should have had just over 1/2 a student on free lunch, but had zero. Rounding up, BCS had a student on lunch deficit of -1. Oak had a EL percent of 3.10% for 13 EL students. BCS with less enrollment, had 1.9% EL for 5 students. IF BCS had had Oak’s EL rate, BCS would have had 8 students, for a BCS deficit of EL students of -3 students.

Table 2: 2006-2007    Source: www.ed-data/l12/ca/us  You will need to use the interface to generate a similar report.

Table C: All LASD Schools 2007-2008

2007 Analysis

Loyola school had .40% of students on free lunch or 2 students. BCS with something over half the enrollment of Loyola should have had just 1 student on free lunch, but had zero. So BCS had a students on free lunch deficit of -1. Oak had a EL percent of 2.70% for 12 EL students. BCS with over half the enrollment of Oak, had 1.4% EL for 4 students. IF BCS had had Oak’s EL rate, BCS would have had 8 students, for a BCS deficit of EL student of -4 students.

Table 3: 2007-2008    Source: www.ed-data/l12/ca/us  You will need to use the interface to generate a similar report.

Table D: All LASD Schools 2008-2009 Source: www.ed-data/l12/ca/us  You will need to use the interface to generate a similar report.

2008 Analysis

Bullis Gardener, now fully opened as an elementary school, had .0% of students on free lunch or 0 students. BCS with something over 50% more the enrollment of Gardener should have had 0 students on free lunch, and had zero. So BCS had a students on lunch deficit of  0. Oak had a EL percent of 3.60% for 16 EL students. BCS with over half the enrollment of Oak, had 1.45% EL for 5 students. IF BCS had had Oak’s EL rate, BCS would have had 12 students, for a BCS deficit of EL student of -7 students.

Table 4: 2008-2009    Source: www.ed-data/l12/ca/us  You will need to use the interface to generate a similar report.

 

Table: E All LASD Schools 2009-2010

 

2009 Analysis

Loyola, had .5% of students on free lunch or 3 students. BCS with about 3/4 of the enrollment of Loyola should have had 2 students on free lunch, and had zero. So BCS had a students on lunch deficit of -2. Oak had a EL percent of 3.60% for 16 EL students. BCS with over half the enrollment of Oak, had 1.5% EL for 5 students. IF BCS had had Oak’s EL rate, BCS would have had 12 students, for a BCS deficit of EL student of -7 students.

Table 5: 2009-2010    Source: www.ed-data/l12/ca/us  You will need to use the interface to generate a similar report.

Table: F All LASD Schools 2010-2011

2010 Analysis

Gardener, had .0% of students on free lunch or 0 students. BCS with about 50% more of the enrollment than Gardner should have had 0 students on free lunch, and had zero. So BCS had a students on lunch deficit of 0. Oak had a EL percent of 4.30% for 19 EL students. BCS with nearly the enrollment of Oak, had na% EL for 0 students. IF BCS had had Oak’s EL rate, BCS would have had 17 students, for a BCS deficit of EL student of -17 students. ( arguably we might have used the prior BCS EL student of 5 and had a deficit of -12 students.)

Table 6: 2010-2011    Source: www.ed-data/l12/ca/us  You will need to use the interface to generate a similar report.

WORKSHEET – BCS deficit of underprivledged students each year 2005 to 2010.