From another post:
Anonymous said...
Explain this to me.
Roosevelt fickle?
Now he wants all 6-12 if his K-8 is working?
K-8 model wins credit for helping Pittsburgh students improve
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
City schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt wouldn't go so far as to say the PSSA results validated the district's decision in 2006 to establish K-8 schools, ...
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_696041.html
August 23, 2010 12:55 AM
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As is usually the case with these types of claims, it would be necessary to take a really good look at the history and data. For example, weren't there some schools converted to K-8 that were not working well and had already been changed back to K-5, such as Miller in the Hill District? Looking at only those K-8 schools that were retained can lead to skewed results.
So far the consensus in the literature seems to be that configuration doesn't matter a whole lot. It certainly won't be a silver bullet.
The search function on PURE's blog can be useful. See this prior post about Keystone awards given to schools making AYP 2 years in a row- in Pittsburgh, no K-8 schools:
Monday, November 23, 2009
Keystone Achievement Awards
From the PG:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09326/1015548-298.stm
The article notes that in Pittsburgh "seven schools have received the award for all six years the awards have been given: Banksville PreK-5, Dilworth PreK-5, Linden K-5, Phillips K-5, Rogers CAPA middle school, Sterrett 6-8 and CAPA high school."
Four K-5 schools, two middle schools and no K-8 schools- but the district has moved away from the K-5/ middle school structure.
Here's an information brief that the Broward County, Florida superintendent gave to board members there on the K-8 v middle school topic. Looking at the brief quickly, it seems to be comprehensive and well balanced- the kind of document it would be good to see in Pittsburgh when changes are being proposed.
http://www.broward.k12.fl.us/research_evaluation/Briefs/Brief101-125/K-8brief20080214v24final.pdf
The Broward materials include this link to the Joe Smydo article at the time the K-8 schools were established, describing discipline problems there:
http://www.post-gazette.com/
pg/07153/790934-298.stm
- The other side of the coin also would be to see how the K-5 portions of these schools did when 6-8 was added.
Hmm, if K-8's are doing well, and Schenley is doing well, but University Prep is NOT doing well even in terms of improvement (PVAAS) rather than absolute results- maybe Hill students should be returned to K-8's and Schenley.
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