City Wants to See Student Performance Data

City Wants to See Student Performance Data

By Amber Lester Kennedy Saturday, March 12, 2011

Williamsburg City Council members want to know how city students are performing in the joint school system, but that information might be hard to find.

During the “board matters” portion of their Thursday meeting, Councilman Doug Pons said he would like to find out how city students perform compared to their county peers. He’s also interested in finding out more about the demographics of city students. Pons said he would have liked to hear that type of information at a recent joint meeting with the James City County Board of Supervisors and the Williamsburg-James City County School Board.

WJCC Spokesman Greg Davy said Friday the school system’s data input program doesn’t separate city student data from county student data. The division uses a program called Starbase to track test performance and other benchmarks; it could be possible to adjust the input to reflect city students’ performance, but would be very work-intensive, Davy said.

He said that when the division assesses student performance, it looks at how students perform in their grade level and what school they attend, but not their home addresses. “We don’t look at them as city students or county students,” he said. “We look at them all in one division.”

City Manager Jack Tuttle gave council a similar answer at Thursday’s meeting, noting that the city has asked for this data previously. Vice Mayor Paul Freiling admitted he’s not an expert at coding, but he’d still like to see them try.

“I’m not a database administrator and there are many ways to set up data, but we know how many [city students] there are, so we must know who they are,” he said. Judy Knudson agreed, adding that if the school system knows how many students receive free and reduced lunch in the city, they should be able to determine who the city’s students are.

Scott Foster noted he’d like to see performance data for city students before council votes to approve its budget, which will allocate money toward the school division. The members asked Tuttle to bring the issue up to the division administration again.

In the meantime, WJCC will discuss the budget at their work session at 7 p.m. on Tuesday at the Stryker Building.

Comments

+5 #13 Guest 2011-03-14 12:15

As a programmer this is a trivial task. Of course if our school system is forced to provide the data, I'm sure they'll hire consultants, Evergreeen or DeJong, for 50K to pull this data for us.

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+8 #12 Guest 2011-03-13 19:56

Quoting City Parent:

Fact is, "student performance" was on the agenda for the joint JCC/W/SB retreat. Council had asked for the information prior to that meeting and it never got it. I feel like the information is being with held because we’re not going to like the results. It would be helpful to simply know how ALL the children are performing relative to out neighboring communities and the State. Just hearing that the information isn’t available makes me even more suspect and frustrated – WHAT ARE THEY HIDING

It's interesting that this school system frequently has trouble pulling data together when the general public requests it but have it readily available when they want to do something! ANY programmer SHOULD be able to query that database by address and determine the scores from there. Tsk, Tsk.

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+5 #11 Guest 2011-03-13 12:23

When Mr. Davy says “We don’t look at them as city students or county students ... We look at them all in one division.” it seems he is making a point of principal. We are one division, so why would the numbers be broken out by city/county residence? It is unfortunate that Mr. Foster's comment appears to link city funding with city student progress, which I hope is not his intent. Our school districts and county divisions are not drawn by zip code, so it is simply more productive to look at student progress by school. The focus should be on improving the standards for all of the students in OUR division, not on adult posturing and funding games. It is unproductive and unrealistic to assert that the city has sufficient budget or tax base to run an independent school system.

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+6 #10 Guest 2011-03-12 21:41

I agree with "City" -- those silly city folks wanting info on how their children are doing -- they need to shut up, pay their money, provide us three schools to use, and let the county run everything -- we know what is best. Oh wait, I'm one of those city folks who would like to know how our kids do -- maybe its time we go our own way -- and take Blair, Berkeley, and MWhaley with us -- and let the county stew!

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+16 #9 Guest 2011-03-12 15:04

Be careful what you wish for...the City may not like what this story tells.

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+13 #8 Guest 2011-03-12 14:32

I live in zip code 23185. I live in James City County. Others who live in 23185 live in Williamsburg. Zip codes do not necessarily follow city county lines.

But there's a bigger problem in my opinion. I'm not at all convinced that the state tests actually measure student
progress. One of the problems I used to have to deal with is that auditors measured what they could measure, which wasn't necessarily the same as what needed to be measured.

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+7 #7 Guest 2011-03-12 13:46

(With tongue firmly in cheek) I agree completely with "city not a priority". As a Williamsburg City parent I have been asking for years for city data -- as have many other city families. It seems the data can be broken down by just about any category -- sex, age, race, poverty -- but not zip code. And we are such a silly little minority that the county would be much better served if we just went away -- and perhaps went back to having our own district -- accountable to our families, not the much larger and spread out county. AND OF COURSE WE WOULD HAVE TO TAKE ALL OUR SCHOOL BUILDINGS -- GOODBY BLAIR, BERKELEY, AND MATTHEW WHALEY. I'm sure the county would be much happier not having to deal with those silly picky city folks!!! Maybe we should initiate this sooner rather than later.

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+8 #6 Guest 2011-03-12 13:35

Wow, #2 City not a Priority:

First, what an attitude toward your fellow citizens!!!
No it isn't a Priority, but any intelligent person could understand the request for this info. Once the data is available then we will DEAL WITH IT. How can solve problems if we are clueless like you want us to be?
I would think JCC would want this info too. How can you know where to put resources??

p.s. read the article & you will see this question has come up in years past so the real criticism should be WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG?

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+16 #5 Guest 2011-03-12 09:43

Fact is, "student performance" was on the agenda for the joint JCC/W/SB retreat. Council had asked for the information prior to that meeting and it never got it. I feel like the information is being with held because we’re not going to like the results. It would be helpful to simply know how ALL the children are performing relative to out neighboring communities and the State. Just hearing that the information isn’t available makes me even more suspect and frustrated – WHAT ARE THEY HIDING

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+7 #4 Guest 2011-03-12 09:27

I sooooooo agree with Mr. Pons!

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