an astonishing act of statistical chutzpah in the indiana schools

7/30/2019 An Astonishing Act of Statistical Chutzpah in the Indiana Schools

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An astonishing act of statistical chutzpah in the

Indiana schools grade-changing scandal.

ByJordan Ellenberg|Posted Friday, Aug. 2, 2013, at 12:27 PM

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/do_the_math/2013/08/tony_bennett_education_an_astonishing

_act_of_statistical_chutzpah_in_the.single.html

Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennettresigned Thursdayamid claims that, in his former position as

superintendent of public instruction in Indiana, he manipulated the states system for evaluating school

performance. Bennett, a Republican who created an A-to-F grading protocol for Indiana schools as a way to

promote educational accountability, is accused of raising the mark for a school operated by a major GOP donor.Bennett calls that charge, which arose fromemails among Bennetts staff obtained by the AP, malicious and

unfounded and franklyso off base. He offered a different explanation for why the grades for Indianapolis

charter school Christel House Academywhose mark soared from a C to an Aand 12 other schools were

changed at the last minute. According to Bennett, he was just correcting a simple math mistake.

Bennetts explanation is perfectly mathematically reasonable, and it would get him off the hook. The onlyproblem is that the story hes telling appears to be totally false.

Bennett told AEIs Rick Hess, As we were looking at the grades we were giving our schools, we realized thatstate law created an unfair penalty for schools that didn't have 11th and 12th grades. Statewide, there were 13

schools in question had unusual grade configurations. The data for grades 11 and 12 came in as zero. When we

caught it, we fixed it.

Bennetts stated rationale makes sense. Heres an analogy. Youre teaching a course with three exams, and each

students overall exam grade for the class is computed as an average of her three individual exams

(1/3) * (exam 1) + (1/3) * (exam 2) + (1/3) * (exam 3)

But what happens if a student misses exam 3, with a justified absence, and the test cant be made up? Then we

have whats called a missing data problemwe have to infer something about the students performance

without the full complement of data we have for everybody else. One natural approach is to compute thatstudents overall exam grade as the average of the exams she didtake:

(1/2) * (exam 1) + (1/2) * (exam 2).

What youshouldntdo is give the student a zero for the exam and average it into her grade.

Christel House had started out as a middle school and was adding one high school grade each year; for the2011-12 school year, it served students through the 10

thgrade. High schools,according to Indiana statute, were

to be graded on four metrics, averaged like so:

30% * (English scores) + 30% * (algebra scores) + 30% * (graduation rate) + 10% * (college and careerreadiness score)

But, as Bennett said inan official statement, Christel House only served students in grades K-10, thus thegraduation rate and college and career readiness measures could not be calculated because the school did not

serve grades 11 and 12. So it faced a missing data problem, like the student who had to miss an exam.
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Indeed, it wouldnt be fair to count those scores as zero! The obvious fix, just as with the student, is to grade

such a school on the two scores that it does have:

50% * (English scores) + 50% * (Algebra scores)

Does that mean Bennett really did get railroaded, and he was just fixing an obvious error?

Nobecause the fixed version of the grade was what Indiana was already usingbefore Bennett started

tinkering with the gears. When you dig into the numbers, the story about the unfair zeroes looks like a completefabrication.

Christels ninth- and 10th

-grade students got brutally low scores on the English and math tests, with only 70

percent passing English and just a third passing math. Heres how Jon Gubera, then the Education Departmentschief accountability officer, described Christels performance inone of the emails released by the AP:

OK, here is their breakdown ...

They served grades K-10 in 2011-12 so they are a combined school but do not have any graduates. So

their grade is a combination of the standard E/MS model and the HS 9&10 model which only counts ECA

proficiency.

E/MS results: 3.00 on E/LA (no growth bonuses) and 4.00 on math (bottom 25% bonus) = 3.50 points (B)

HS results: 2.00 on E/LA (70% pass rate) and 0.00 on math (33% pass rate) = 1.00 points (D)

Final Combined results: E/MS 3.50 x .76 (76% of school is in grades 3.8) = 2.66 + HS 1.00 x .24 (24% of

school is in high school) = .24. Thus overall grade is 2.66 + .24 = 2.9 (C).

Bottom line: their terrible 10th grade Algebra I results (33% passing) was the principal factor in earning

a C grade."

Christels grade 38 scores came to a 3.50, or a B, and their high school scores, thanks to the algebra fiasco,

were a 1.00, or a D. The schools score is then an average of the grade 38 scores and the 910 scores, weightedaccording to the proportion of students in each group.

Where are the zeroes for the graduation rates and readiness score that got averaged into Christels scoretheunfair penalty that Bennett claimshe fixed? Theyre not there, because thats the part that Bennett, as far as I

can tell, simply made up.

Guberas computation wasnt satisfactory for Bennett, because it didnt give Christel an A, andjudging by the

emails obtained by the APhe had already told Christel administrators they were getting an A. No mere

numbers were going to make a liar out of him!

Whats more, Bennett wrote in one of the emails, the low grade for Christel meant legislative leadership as

well as our critics of A-F are going to use this against us to undo our accountability metrics through legislation.He went on: If you cant tell, I am more than a little miffed about this. I hope we come to the meeting today

with solutions and not excuses and/or explanations for me to wiggle myself out of the repeated lies I have told

over the past 6 months.
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Bennetts staff swung loyally and swiftly into action; within a day they had found what they called a loophole

in the state law that allowed them to change Christels grade. The statute clearly states that high schools without12

th-graders get a score made up half of the English score and half of the algebra score. Whats more, the law

said schools that combined high school grades and lower grades should use a weighted average of the

elementary/middle school measures and the four high school measures.

Heres where Bennetts team found the loophole big enough to drive a charter school through. A normal person

would do exactly what Chief Accountability Officer Jon Gubera didgive Christel the weighted average of its

elementary/middle school score, according to the rules for elementary/middle schools, and its high school score,according to the rules for high schools.

But Bennett had a better idea. Christel was, technically speaking, not a high school, so the statutory formula for

the high school grades didnt apply. But it also didnt have all four high school measures, so, he argued, the

rules for combined schools didnt apply either. There were just 13 schools in the state that had both middleschool and high school grades but no seniors. For these schools, Bennett reasoned, the Indiana education

poobahs should have a free hand to set the grades however they pleased. You can guess what happened next:

Bennett ruled that the ninth- and 10th

-graders in these schools didnt count at all. So it was that the offending

algebra grades vanished in a puff of bureaucratic smoke. (Anne Hyslop at Ed Money Watchhas an even moredetailed accounting of the process, if you like watching sausage get made.)

This was an act of astonishing statistical chutzpah. Suppose the syllabus for my math class said that the finalgrade would be determined by averaging the homework grade and the exam grade, and that the exam grade was

itself the average of the grades on the three tests I gave. Now imagine a student gets a B on the homework, gets

a D-minus on the first two tests, and misses the third. She then comes to me and says, Professor, your syllabussays the exam component of the grade is the average of my grade on the three testsbut I only tooktwo tests,

so that line of the syllabus doesnt apply to my special case, and the only fair thing is to drop the entire exam

component and give me a B for the course.

I would laugh her out of the office. Or maybe suggest that she apply for a job as a state superintendent of

instruction.

The saddest part is that Im guessing Bennett sincerely felt he was doing the right thing. In his mind, he knew

Christel was a great school, so if the scores said otherwise, the scores had to be wrong. In this respect,ironically, he ends up echoing his policy opponents, adopting the position that a mechanistic testing and scoring

procedure cant be allowed to override firsthand knowledge about teachers and schools.

Saying this out loud wasnt an option, so any test scores that seemed to indicate learning problems at Christel

had to be eliminated from the spreadsheet with extreme prejudice. (I attempted to reach both Tony Bennett and

Jon Gubera and have not received a reply from either man. If I do hear back, I will add an update to this story.)

Bennett told AEIs Hess, I'm a track and field guy. I run, I try to keep my weight down at about 190. Christel

has been a track-performing school for a number of years. If I get on the scale one day, am doing everything thesame, and am still wearing my same clothes and they fit, and the scale suddenly reads 215, I am going toquestion what's going on.

But Christel wasnt doing everything the same. It didnt have a 10th

grade before, and then it did, and whatever

it was doing to teach those new 10th

-graders math, it didnt lead them to pass algebra.

Bennett could, and should, have faced up to that fact, given the school the C it earned, and delivered them some

honest tough love: Youre still doing well at the stuff youve always done well, but you obviously havent

succeeded at the new stuff youre trying to do. We believe you can do it, but until you do, your grades going tosuffer. Isnt that what accountability in education means, if it still means anything at all?
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Do the Math: Christel Houses Grade Doesnt Add

Up

Author(s): Anne Hyslop

Published: July 31, 2013

Issues:

Data and Data Systems

School Accountability

School Choice

Education

Mel Horowitz: You mean to tell me that you argued your way from a C+ to an A-?

Cher: Totally based on my powers of persuasion, you proud?Mel Horowitz: Honey, I couldn't be happier than if they were based on real grades.

Turns out weve all beenClueless when it comes to Indianas A-F school grades. Former Indiana (and currentFlorida) schools chief Tony Bennett has been under fire for released emails that show he and officials at the

Indiana Department of Education altered the grades for certain schools prior to the very-public release of the

new accountability measureslast fall. Whats particularly worrisome is that the change to the gradingmethodologywasnt so public. In fact, it was never announced. And from the emails obtained by AP reporter

Tom LoBianco, its clear that Christel Houses initial grade set off afirestorm of panicat the IN DOE.

In apress calland separate interview with AEIsRick Hess, Bennett explained the matter by saying that

Christel House Academy and a dozen other schools were unfairly penalized due to their unconventional grade

configurations. Because they didnt serve students in grades 11 or 12, these schools were missing key dataelements for the high school calculationnamely, graduation rates and college readiness indicators, which

typically count for 40 percent of the high school model. In Bennettswords:

The backstory is simple here, Rick. In our first run of the new school calculations in Indiana, we turned up an

anomaly in the results. As we were looking at the grades we were giving our schools, we realized that state law

created an unfair penalty for schools that didn't have 11th and 12th grades. Statewide, there were 13 schools in

question had unusual grade configurations. The data for grades 11 and 12 came in as zero. When we caught it,we fixed it. That's what this is all about. Because Christel House was a K-10 school, the systems essentially

counted the other two grades as zeroes. That brought the school's score down from an "A" to a "C".

Turns out its not quite that simple. The state hasseveral variationsof its grading rubric to apply to different

school situations and set-ups. The basic models are 1) elementary and/or middle school grades and 2) high

school grades. Then, there is a combined model for schools that have students in grades preK-8 and grades 9-12like Christel House, which served students through 10

thgrade in 2011-12. The grade point averages for the 3-

8 portion of the school and the 9-12 portion of the school are weighted according to the percentage of enrolled

students in each grade span to arrive at one final, combined grade. (The final scale: 3.514.00 points = A; 3.003.50 points = B; 2.002.99 points = C; 1.001.99 points = D; 0.000.99 points = F)

Within the two basic models (ES/MS and HS), there are also deviations for special circumstances. Typicallyhigh school grades are calculated with a 60% weight on proficiency in end-of-course exams in Algebra I and

English 10 (with potential bonus points for increases in proficiency rates from grades 8-10 and grades 10-12),

30% weight on graduation rates, and 10% weight on college readiness indicators. But some high schools aregiven special consideration: small schools, HS feeder schools (grade 9 only), 9-10 schools, and 11-12 schools.
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In the9-10 model, proficiency rates make up the entire school grade, split evenly between Algebra I and

English 10, and the bonus points do not apply.

Confused yet? Bear with me. Christel House should have been evaluated using a mixture of two of the models:

the 9-10 model and the combined ES/MS + HS model. Except they werent. Because Christel House wouldnthave gotten an A that way. In fact, one of the released emailswalks through the calculation(using

preliminary, rather than final, achievement data). Under this method, Christel House earned a C grade, a

HUGE problem for us according to officials. And it set off the panic within the Indiana Department of

Educationat2:30 in the morningon September 13.

However, state officials soonthat same day, in factcame upon a solution. Or in their words, a loophole, inthe combined model calculation. Heres the original definition (as written in one of theemails):

(j) A schools grade shall be determined by:(i) Multiplying the average of the ELA and Math points for the EMS grades by the percentage of all

students

(ii) Multiplying the sum of the four weigh ted scoresfor the high school by the percentage of students.

Those three bold words contain the loophole Will Krebs, then Director of Policy and Research, found later that

daydubbed option one. Because Christel House didnt have four weighted scores for its high school, theargument was that the combined school methodology was invalid. Without graduation rates and college

readiness indicators, the school only had two of the four weighted components. Jon Gubera, ChiefAccountability Officer,signed offon this option the following morning writing, Option one works. This

would eliminate the HS points and ensure Christel House receives at least a B.

So what does that mean, exactly? In truth, Christel House was never evaluated on its poor high schoolperformance. Instead, allof the high school data were thrown outa little detail Bennett failed to mention.

Christel Houses A is based on the ES/MS model only. As you can see below, Christel Houses grade was

clearly inflated. The initial data run showed the school with a C grade. Using the combined methodology sans

loophole with its final performance data, however, the school would have actually earned a B. Yet the

school still received an A from the state and was treated as only having elementary and middle school grades.Further, there is no indication anywhere on the statesschool report cardthat Christel Houses grade fails to

reflect the schoolspoor high school math performance.

According to theIndianapolis Star, Bennett refused to allow two regular public schools facing state takeover touse a similar "loophole" a year earlier. In both cases, poor middle school performance (where the school had

recently expanded) penalized the high school. If their grades could not be separated, why was Bennett so eager

to make an exception for Christel House?
http://doe.in.gov/sites/default/files/accountability/fdetailed-results.pdfhttp://doe.in.gov/sites/default/files/accountability/fdetailed-results.pdfhttp://doe.in.gov/sites/default/files/accountability/fdetailed-results.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed2.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed2.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed2.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed1.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed1.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed1.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed2.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed2.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed2.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/choptions.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/choptions.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/choptions.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/choptions.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/choptions.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed3.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed3.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed3.pdfhttp://compass.doe.in.gov/dashboard/reportcard.aspx?type=school&id=5874http://compass.doe.in.gov/dashboard/reportcard.aspx?type=school&id=5874http://compass.doe.in.gov/dashboard/reportcard.aspx?type=school&id=5874http://compass.doe.in.gov/dashboard/eca.aspx?type=school&id=5874http://compass.doe.in.gov/dashboard/eca.aspx?type=school&id=5874http://compass.doe.in.gov/dashboard/eca.aspx?type=school&id=5874http://www.indystar.com/article/20130731/NEWS05/307310091http://www.indystar.com/article/20130731/NEWS05/307310091http://www.indystar.com/article/20130731/NEWS05/307310091http://edmoney.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/articles/INgradingsheet.pnghttp://www.indystar.com/article/20130731/NEWS05/307310091http://compass.doe.in.gov/dashboard/eca.aspx?type=school&id=5874http://compass.doe.in.gov/dashboard/reportcard.aspx?type=school&id=5874http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed3.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/choptions.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/choptions.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed2.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed1.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed1.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed1.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed2.pdfhttp://doe.in.gov/sites/default/files/accountability/fdetailed-results.pdf


6/6

These kinds of shenanigans are unacceptable and have chipped away at public faith in the legitimacy of school

accountability systems over the last 10+ years of No Child Left Behind. Christel Houses grade is simply morefalse advertising from states and local districts that have along historyof finding loopholes in accountability

systems andexploiting them. In fact, Indiana officials questioned whether using the loophole in this case would

encourage other schools to adopt a grade 6-10 model to avoid accountability. Guberareplied: Not in the

immediate if we dont advertise this everywhere.

This just illustrates the problem. Christel House is an A school but only for its elementary and middle

school program. Yet that isnt the story Bennett and his staff are telling. This grade inflation is particularlyunfortunate in Indiana, where parents and families have agreater degree of school choicethan in most states

and rely on information like A-F grades to determine where to enroll their children.

The thing is, Tony Bennettknows this:

This kind of system has to make sense for the end user, in this case, the family Back in Indiana, we were

trying to build a new system. It's an interesting parallel. My recommendation to the Florida board was, "If your

system doesn't fully make sense, then how do you defend it?" If the results come out suspect, then, in the end,

you can really question the integrity of the system.

Commissioner Bennett, Christel Houses inflated grade is suspect, and Im questioning the integrity of thesystem. Accountability systemseven those required from the U.S. Department of Educationcan be done

right, but Tony Bennett unfortunately just made it that much harder tomake the casefor them.

Note: To see option 1 in action for yourself, check out theattached speadsheetfrom Indiana's Office of

Accountability. Christel House Academy appears on the Elementary/Middle School tab, but not on the High

School or Combined School tabs.
http://www.educationsector.org/publications/pangloss-index-how-states-game-no-child-left-behind-acthttp://www.educationsector.org/publications/pangloss-index-how-states-game-no-child-left-behind-acthttp://www.educationsector.org/publications/pangloss-index-how-states-game-no-child-left-behind-acthttp://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/95699/education-policy-repeal-nclb-race-to-the-top-federal-stimulushttp://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/95699/education-policy-repeal-nclb-race-to-the-top-federal-stimulushttp://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/95699/education-policy-repeal-nclb-race-to-the-top-federal-stimulushttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/choptions.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/choptions.pdfhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/choptions.pdfhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-in-indiana-school-choice-records-a-major-victory/2013/04/01/871d457a-9aef-11e2-a941-a19bce7af755_story.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-in-indiana-school-choice-records-a-major-victory/2013/04/01/871d457a-9aef-11e2-a941-a19bce7af755_story.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-in-indiana-school-choice-records-a-major-victory/2013/04/01/871d457a-9aef-11e2-a941-a19bce7af755_story.htmlhttp://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2013/07/straight_up_conversation_fla_supe_tony_bennett_on_the_indiana_school_grading_furor.htmlhttp://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2013/07/straight_up_conversation_fla_supe_tony_bennett_on_the_indiana_school_grading_furor.htmlhttp://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2013/07/straight_up_conversation_fla_supe_tony_bennett_on_the_indiana_school_grading_furor.htmlhttp://edmoney.newamerica.net/blogposts/2013/the_federal_role_in_education_mend_it_don_t_end_it-88213http://edmoney.newamerica.net/blogposts/2013/the_federal_role_in_education_mend_it_don_t_end_it-88213http://edmoney.newamerica.net/blogposts/2013/the_federal_role_in_education_mend_it_don_t_end_it-88213http://edmoney.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/articles/IN_final_detailed_results_080113.xlsxhttp://edmoney.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/articles/IN_final_detailed_results_080113.xlsxhttp://edmoney.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/articles/IN_final_detailed_results_080113.xlsxhttp://edmoney.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/articles/IN_final_detailed_results_080113.xlsxhttp://edmoney.newamerica.net/blogposts/2013/the_federal_role_in_education_mend_it_don_t_end_it-88213http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2013/07/straight_up_conversation_fla_supe_tony_bennett_on_the_indiana_school_grading_furor.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-in-indiana-school-choice-records-a-major-victory/2013/04/01/871d457a-9aef-11e2-a941-a19bce7af755_story.htmlhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/choptions.pdfhttp://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/95699/education-policy-repeal-nclb-race-to-the-top-federal-stimulushttp://www.educationsector.org/publications/pangloss-index-how-states-game-no-child-left-behind-act

an astonishing act of statistical chutzpah in the indiana schools

Documents