Ranking

[NavyHoops]

Last time I had checked, Huntsville, AL had more citizens with PhDs per capita than anywhere else in the country. Not sure if that still holds true as Huntsville has had some changes in the last few years. Regardless, I don't think Alabama is doing to shabby.

And Frenzy, you are young and hopefully here to learn. You are obviously a bright young man, hopefully you take something away from all this. I think once you get to college, regardless of where that is, you will realize that your school did give you some advantages. Oh trust me when I say, once you step foot on campus no one will know what school you went to, GPA, SATs, class rank. No one will care. I don't remember us ever talking about it. I didn't know until senior year at USNA that my room mate of 3 years had missed 1 total question on her SAT. The only reason it was brought up was she talking smack to her brother on the phone as he had a perfect score!

 

[LineInTheSand]

I have no idea where my classmates went. I have no idea how they did in school or on tests. I have no idea what their class ranks were.

No one really cares about high school when you get to college. It's like you have a clean slate.

 

[frenzymando]

Before the southeast gets too much crap.... there are 4.8+ million people in Alabama. Assuming 1 in 50 can join Mensa, with a gifted I.Q., we can assume there are around 96,000 gifted folks in Alabama. Some may not have access to a good school, some may.

What you can also assume is that the people who are accepted to top level schools are very competitive. You may want to bash the southeast, but it's the bright folks from every state who are being accepted.... not just the northeast. And you can find just as many dumb redneck idiots in Mass or Rhode Island or New Jersey, as you can in Alabama, Mississippi or Georgia.

You can find smart people wherever you go and you can find dumb people wherever you go. I never attempted to imply otherwise. But on average, I would guess that the Southeast does not have a a higher percent of students go to college, higher test scores, etc than the Northeast. And if the strength of a school is determined by the student body as a whole, the strength of the average is what matters not the top 10% when determining the strength of a school. When trying to get accepted in an academy, the strength of the top 10% is what actually matters not the strength of the average. The top 10% is the group that is effecting the candidate, the people at the 30-100% mark have no impact on the candidates rank. That is why I feel % of students going to college is a poor metric. In my opinion(which doesn't really matter at all) it would make more sense to look at the top 10% or 20% when determining strength of school for "bonus points" purposes.

If you or anyone else would like to talk more about this subject feel free to PM me.

 

[hawk]

Not sure if this is true, but I would guess that the Northeast region is the strongest region when it comes to academics in the US. I come from Alabama, and the Southeast isn't really known for it's elite scholars, so I would guess that our standards are lower than the Northeast's, or basically no one here would receive the bonus points.

Can't speak for Alabama, but your guess would be very wrong about some schools in other SE states. And similarly wrong about USMA competitiveness.

Remember, its not the competitiveness of the general student body that matter most, its that of the students who chose to apply. And some states are very much more interested in USMA (more applicants per capita) than others.

Likewise, I've found sweeping generalizations like you made not very useful or accurate.

My bet is you could find both extremes of schools just in Birmingham.

 

[hawk]

Not sure about the precentage breakdown, but academics was your GPA, military was your miltiary grade, and the physical grade was a combination of your APFT, IOCT, and sports participation (i.e. based on the difficulty and leave of accomplishment, more points.

Pretty much right. Add any DPE courses to the Athletic grade mix. (50% dpe coursework, 30% testing, remaining is the sports index)

With increasing uplifts for the sports component based on club & varsity participation. (White book)

Mil grade has weighting for different graded events and also your rater evaluations. (Green book)

And each of the major areas (acad, mil, athl) are then statistically adjusted before rolled into the Cadet Performance Score (CPS)

 

[hawk]

But on average, I would guess that the Southeast does not have a a higher percent of students go to college, higher test scores, etc than the Northeast. And if the strength of a school is determined by the student body as a whole, the strength of the average is what matters not the top 10% when determining the strength of a school.

Big hint: For the majority of the slots you are competing with others in your state and in your district. The exception would be the National Waiting List and similar.

Another hint: Admissions knows way more about your schools and others in your state than you seem to realize. Like most colleges, they weight based on several factors and from memory assign their own weighting to class rank based on not just % going to college, but number of AP's offered, etc.

As to states, let's just pick a couple. Connecticut VS Georgia. Mass vs Virginia. Vermont VS South Carolina (or North).... Of each pair, which do you think clearly has higher overall college attendance? And higher overall test scores?

But then ask, which is more competitive for USMA? A much higher percentage of the Southern States high performing students chose to apply to USMA.

As one RC put it, you can almost map competitiveness for USMA based on % military population compared to civvy. Which essentially translates to states with more bases (and larger) are often the most competitive.

All of this is borne out when you look at individual MOC's who consistently get more appointments than just their vacancies. Which (to me) is the strongest indicator of state competitiveness.

 

[Daughnworks]

Before the southeast gets too much crap.... there are 4.8+ million people in Alabama. Assuming 1 in 50 can join Mensa, with a gifted I.Q., we can assume there are around 96,000 gifted folks in Alabama. Some may not have access to a good school, some may.

What you can also assume is that the people who are accepted to top level schools are very competitive. You may want to bash the southeast, but it's the bright folks from every state who are being accepted.... not just the northeast. And you can find just as many dumb redneck idiots in Mass or Rhode Island or New Jersey, as you can in Alabama, Mississippi or Georgia.

You can find smart people wherever you go and you can find dumb people wherever you go. I never attempted to imply otherwise. But on average, I would guess that the Southeast does not have a a higher percent of students go to college, higher test scores, etc than the Northeast. And if the strength of a school is determined by the student body as a whole, the strength of the average is what matters not the top 10% when determining the strength of a school. When trying to get accepted in an academy, the strength of the top 10% is what actually matters not the strength of the average. The top 10% is the group that is effecting the candidate, the people at the 30-100% mark have no impact on the candidates rank. That is why I feel % of students going to college is a poor metric. In my opinion(which doesn't really matter at all) it would make more sense to look at the top 10% or 20% when determining strength of school for "bonus points" purposes.

If you or anyone else would like to talk more about this subject feel free to PM me.

I recently did a great deal of research for a project on ACT scores by state. What I found, shocked me and it may surprise many of you as well. It's a sensitive subject, particularly in today's polarized environment.

I found data exists for students in every state based on race. It's been available for YEARS but no one wants to talk about it! I found that Asian (22-24), White (21.6 - 23), Hispanic (about a 20) and Black (16.8-17.9) students only varied by about 1 point on a composite (and even breakout subject scores) ACT score from state to state. Put more clearly for emphasis, black students in MA performed equally to black students in MS. White students in WA performed almost exactly as white students in FL, and so on. Inner city, rural and suburban living really does not matter.
Compared to census data, what I did find was the racial makeup of states and therefore the "total score" of some states varied widely. For instance, Mississippi has almost a 40% black population (the largest per % of any state) whereas Maine has a 2% black population. MA has a 8% population, CT has a 4% black population and NY has about 11%). Within this data, immigrant blacks are considered the same as African American blacks, therefore, student from the large Ethiopian neighborhoods in south Boston are considered "black".

Although white students in MS score the same as white students in ME and black students scored the same in the two states, the higher number of black population brings down MS score as a state. With Mississippi at almost 40%, Alabama, similarly has about a 26% black population and GA and LA also have over 20% black populations. These are the states with the highest black populations and coincidentally, the states whose "total scores" are historically near the bottom compared to all other states.
I also noticed that although Hispanics score slightly less than whites, the difference is not as great as the performance of blacks. Increases in Hispanic population have adversely affected the state scores of California and Arizona over the past 15 years. Statistically, California is now almost 40% Hispanic origin.
Now, naturally, exceptions to a demographic pie chart always exist. We all know that.
I did further research and went back 30-40 years. Guess what? The stats are almost identical. How much do you suppose we have spent on education, with no appreciable increase in standardized test scores, since the 1979 beginning of Dept of Education.
It seems that if we, as a country, as a noble people, really want to address the problem of education to raise standards and proficiency for a competitive workforce, we probably need to start where help is needed most, within the black community. If we could honorably address this issue, instead of calling everyone a "racist", perhaps we could begin to alter the statistics of the past 40 years and maybe change a few lives along the way.
As to the causes for varying scores by race, I am no sociologist or politician. I was merely looking at raw data for all states and over many years.

 

[bookreader]

If your research is accurate, that's quite a hot potato.

Frankly, I think that school funding needs to be reduced as it is true that more money in the public school system isn't resulting in a better educated population. But then I homeschooled my kids, so what do I know...

 

[vrs]

Daughnworks,
I would like to see your sources because the statement is quite interesting, while being a bit of a blow for public education. I will confess that I think the US public education system is, like democracy, a wonderful idea in concept and execution, and a social leveler. It, more than anything else, allows students opportunity to excel regardless of their background, just as democracy elevates the individual in a social context.
I looked at the Minnesota scores which popped up on a google search, and they replicate your statement, except that the number of African American and Hispanic students has more than tripled over the 10 or so years, but the numbers of other students has not increased as much (http://www.ohe.state.mn.us/dPg.cfm?pageID=1521). Going to National scores (http://www.act.org/newsroom/data/2014/states.html), ACT tests 100% of students in some states, but as low as 9% in Maine and 23% in Mass. and 29% in California. Not really comparing apples to apples here. It's useful for trends, but unless a statistical analysis of demographics, socio-economics and other factors are taken into account, it doesn't help to explain the data in a meaningful way. All this may say is that significant groups have less than optimal access to a good education that allows them to test on the ACT. *I trained as a scientist and I like to have all the variables described.

 

[Daughnworks]

Hello VRS,
I would love to have help on this, if only for a little while. I looked at ACT data first because it's taken by more children. I had to start somewhere. I still maintain SAT scoring, because it measures from 0-800 in a subject would give a more finite read than a 1-36 score from an ACT. The problem, however, occurs when SAT scoring results for Black/Hispanic students in some states is almost non-existent (too small to accurately sample). Take a look at this to get started. http://www.act.org/newsroom/data/2012/pdf/profile/Mississippi.pdf This is MS profile but each state can be substituted at will. It just takes time to accumulate info, which in this case, we know, was gathered using the same methods across states. You can use quickfacts census data on race per state from government. Try this and then plug in each state which interests you. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/28000.html

1. You made a VERY good point noting that some states have low participation in the ACT while some states mandate all juniors take this standardized test. While we could assume (and I really hate to assume when analyzing data) a child in Maine takes an ACT test because he/she has access to funds and a goal to attend college, it would be easy for us to surmise these students would be expected to perform better. They do not perform better by any significant measure. Still, merely having access to a test or motivation does not change students reported race. In other words, if only 9% of Maine students took the test, while it is NOT a complete sample, it is a statistically large enough sample to take into consideration. What we are really looking for is the results for students by race. I just could not believe the results were so similar from state to state. The US census data is complete across all states and is probably the best measure we have of who we are as Americans. When the two sets of data are analyzed separately and then laid on top of each other, it is clear large percentages of populations within each state skew results and thus, perpetuate stereotypes... leading to bad public policy.
It speaks to the widely held stereotype that southern states are "stupid", which, as you can see in the thread above, our children are still arguing about. In fact, that is not true, it's merely a fact that southern states have a larger percentage of under performing population by "totals" per state. What our Dept's of Education and our politicians NEED to address are the needs of these under performing populations without the fear of being tagged as a "racist".

2. I personally agree with you in stating access to education is the best social leveler and provides the "opportunity to succeed". Ensuring that opportunity is a concept almost anyone could/should support. What I am very interested in is allowing Governors to target funds to specific communities where the greatest percentage of impact can be made. It makes sense. It would save taxpayer dollars and spread untold amount of opportunity. The white demographic of our country is very large. It may take 50 trillion dollars (totally fictitious big number) to raise white students ACT test scores by 5 points. The lowest performing group, however, only represents 13% of the population is is often concentrated in urban communities in "northern states". The black population in southern states tends to be evenly distributed among all counties as a percentage of population (except for urban Atlanta).

3. Naturally, research like this begets the societal/cultural questions as to WHY some races consistently score better, across states and even zip codes. These are outside of my expertise and I am no politician. I need help. Additional research annihilates the myth that suburban schools are "better", at least on ACT tests (yes, I was surprised too). It is TRUE that white inner city students perform equally to that of suburban whites, blacks to blacks, Asians to Asians and so on. Again, the numbers are amazingly consistent.
You and I could think of 10 reasons from the tops of our heads for under performance or over performance of some races but it would be extraordinarily difficult to measure and prove any solution set. We are also guessing and may have bias. We need hard data and sound solutions.
What would be very interesting and fairly inexpensive, is, to target 10 counties in Mississippi (chosen because Mississippi has the larges percentage of black population of any state and the black population is spread evenly across each county, not concentrated in urban centers) with the aforementioned 10 ideas we can think of for under performance. Test each idea and record results. I submit, in relatively small numbers but a controlled sample, we may be able to provide hard data for real solutions. It may be the first time anyone directly addresses the real problems of under performance. After 37 years of the Dept of Education, increasing frustration of our teachers, alienation in the black community and untold billions spent, it's about time we address our problems. At least, it's an idea.

Please feel free to PM me.

 

[bookreader]

Per your point #2, in my state we have what are called Abbott districts. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_district ) Educational funding in these districts is significantly increased (per the article: Since the Abbott original ruling in 1985, New Jersey increased spending such that Abbott district students received 22% more per pupil (at $20,859) vs. non-Abbott districts (at $17,051) in 2011.). However, the results have been rather dismal. We can speculate as to why this is the case, but here in NJ, we have plenty of evidence that increasing funding in these areas isn't necessarily the solution.

 

[Daughnworks]

^^Agree with bookreader. How much money have we thrown at this problem? We don't seem to see any difference; no real value for our $$.

Here are some of the things which have been suggested as to the WHY some groups under perform - ANY input is MOST appreciated. Naturally, there should be a study on why Asians, as a race, over perform.

1. Is it drugs, which bring a criminal element and temptation of easy money, urging young people to drop out of school? Within a small county, it is possible to almost completely alleviate the drug culture. It would make for an interesting test.
2. Is it after school programs up until 8th grade or so? Single moms leaving unattended children can lead to problems (and also promote independence) for young people. Most teenage pregnancy occurs between the hours of 4-6pm. Is it really as simple as partnering the aging population with the younger population so they can both thrive? Care about each other?
3. Is it lack of a father's influence in a home? Welfare programs do provide financial incentive for women to force men out of the home. There is quite of bit of latitude to keep families together.
4. Is it teen pregnancy? My son, at USAFASS right now, is on a Governor's Student Advisory Board for teen health. They dropped teen pregnancy rates 15% for 22 counties in less than a year. I can be done but it would be interesting to measure the effect on educational levels, ACT scores and overall proficiency.
5. Is it summer classes? We all see the research on Asian students who attend school 210-240 days to Americans 180 days. It cannot be that hard to do, especially for under performing populations. Two years ago, I sent my son to Brown for 2 weeks of analytical writing. Total cost by the time we were done was about $6K. It occurred to me, I could have hired an equally impressive grad student and had them teach the same class to 150 deserving students, LOCALLY.
6. Do we need a change in social culture? Are good grades not "cool" in this demographic? My own teenager and even his initial survey of smart friends seem to think this is a popular problem. He began his research with this premise. While we may not be able to change national culture, we could certainly change local culture when parents are on board.
7.
8.
9.
10
Any ideas?

We are off on a tangent now and do not need to hog the feed. My apologies. For a few wonderful years, our family kept houses on the south shore of Boston and in Mississippi. Our son is familiar with the preconceived notions of both areas of the country and tries to bring people together. It is wonderful that USAFA candidates, who are usually the best of the best and the smart ones, are also concerned with the health of their communities/states/ nation and are willing to lead to promote unusual solutions that we, as adults, seem to have ignored.

 

[New Kid]

VRS is right: "...but unless a statistical analysis of demographics, socio-economics and other factors are taken into account, it doesn't help to explain the data in a meaningful way."

Socio-economics is a major factor. This blog gives a good overview of the complexity of the data on achievement tests in light of SES, and of research that's already been done: https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/...itical-questions-been-asked-a-call-to-action/

Race is less interesting in aggregate b/c it hides massive internal demographic SES disparities. For instance, when you refer to "Asians", the 5% figure on their representation w/in the US population includes a huge range of backgrounds -- both highly-educated, high SES, voluntarily-immigrated families from India and not-entirely-voluntary refugee families from Cambodia or Laos. They have accordingly dissimilar SES circumstances in the US, and if you disaggregate the achievement data you'll see that these subgroups have large differences in test score averages. And so on.

 

[vrs]

Daughnworks,
Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful replies to both my and bookreader's comments. It's obvious you've researched, analyzed and pondered these data, and I think your conclusions are striking and very significant. Your thread above for reasons for the gulf in performance between groups is pretty thought-provoking.
I will look at the sources you provide. I am struck that the data show performance doesn't change across school types. I always thought that our school district did well on standardized tests partly due to parental expectations, plus the financial ability to seek help for students outside the school system (such as tutoring and prep classes for which there are advertisements all over the place!)
Let me look at the data some more, but my son sets off for USMA soon, and these last few days are too precious to spend on anything but him!
I hope your son has a wonderful time at USAF SS. I think it's such a good thing that those with so much seek to give back. Good luck to him, and much success.

 

[Daughnworks]

To VRS,

Ahhh, these last few minutes are so special. Good luck and all our love and support to your family as well. Congratulations to your son. I would very much like to talk to you further about your experience with him and West Point. Decision time is quickly approaching for our son as well.

The data, originally my son's project, which has morphed and taken on a life of it's own, blew me away. My son's "project" began because as a family, we had one foot in MA and one foot in MS. My son grew tired of preconceived notions of buddies in MA, thinking that MS was "stupid", very similar to our children firing shots at each other in the thread above. When he found data which shows MA has a high performing test score state as opposed to data showing MS as a low performing state, he asked WHY? The data led him to places he did not expect and opens a "big can of worms" as to the reasons why some races perform better. Yet, before anyone, more accomplished than him, can ask these questions, the pure data has to be collected and in place. It's very clear though, where it leads.

Like you, like all of us, so many presumptions I made about schools, test-prep, tax base, where to buy a house, etc., have fallen away, disproved, but not for the reasons I would have ever imagined.

 

[FalconsRock]

Very interesting thread and I agree with many points, especially the listed ones above from Daughnworks. I too think that throwing more money at the problem is not the answer. The United States spends more money per student than any other country and it has not done one iota to bring us up to the ranks of Finland, South Korea or Canada and New Zealand. I propose that along with absent fathers and parental disinterest in general, those cities and states where education is lacking has much to do with holding teachers accountable and not giving in to union garbage. Teachers who do not perform to standards should be let go to make way for teachers who have good track records. Also, if we don't change the culture of our society, we will not be able to recruit these good teachers to the poorer areas. When students are allowed to cuss and be disrespectful and walk all over the teacher, the quality of education will be substandard for all the students, even the ones who want to learn. It has to start with holding the teachers accountable as well as the students and not being afraid to discipline when it is necessary. We have plenty of money in the school system, more is not necessary. Use the money we have and hire better teachers and give them the reigns so to speak to do their jobs. That's my two cents worth

 

[vrs]

To VRS,

Ahhh, these last few minutes are so special. Good luck and all our love and support to your family as well. Congratulations to your son. I would very much like to talk to you further about your experience with him and West Point. Decision time is quickly approaching for our son as well.

Thank you, and absolutely! Will be in touch.

 

[Daughnworks]

To New Kid,

It's a different discipline. Studying socio-economic factors can only begin after data is collected as cleanly as possible. Studying "why" is subjective whereas data needs to be objective. First, you need data in a format which is easily understandable. An entire university sociology department could spend 30 years studying the reasons why or more precisely, what is the "magic formula" of extraneous factors (birth order, summer intensive opportunity, socio-economic factors, geographic location, days of sunlight, etc.), to enable our young students to increase standardized test scores as a national average.

 

[bookreader]

Hey @vrs - perhaps our sons will meet during CBT this summer. Yup, these last few days are precious.

@Daughnworks - good luck to your son at USAF. This discussion thread has been very interesting to me. So glad you shared your research with us.

 

[New Kid]

I agree that the data should be as clean as possible, but it's not a different discipline. Socio-economics and race are studied alongside one another for a reason. Focusing on test score patterns according to racial breakdowns w/o disaggregating by income categories doesn't tell us that much b/c in aggregate race can be a proxy for income in the U.S. Here's one among a million pieces on the topic: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealth-gaps-great-recession/

Certainly asking why is different than just data collection, but we collect data in order to investigate questions of why. You wrote the following:

"we probably need to start where help is needed most, within the black community. If we could honorably address this issue, instead of calling everyone a "racist", perhaps we could begin to alter the statistics of the past 40 years and maybe change a few lives along the way."

But it's unclear to me who in our culture is calling anyone a racist on this issue. School "reformers" are entirely aware of -- and talk, research, and analyze at length -- about "the achievement gap", which is quite specifically the test score gap that persists between varied ethnic/racial groups. It's a hot button issue for just about everyone involved in education, and most of the data indicates that much of this can be attributed to poverty. So it's more useful to talk about and target low-income communities. Many of these communities have high accumulations of black and hispanic kids; many of these schools have exclusively black and/or hispanic student enrollment. It does not mean that the students have low educational attainment b/c of their race. All signs indicate that it's much likelier they have low educational attainment b/c of their financial situation. The 'why' of that is still incredibly complicated -- poverty has a million tentacle effects that would be studied by that sociology department across those 30 years.

This is not an argument for more money in schools necessarily, but it is an argument for acknowledging that a lack of economic opportunity in a community is THE strongest predictor of low academic attainment -- be that in a city, suburb, or rural area. Be that in any state. Take your data and overlay income per capita by state. You'll see the same pattern.