The annual silliness of achievement test report cards

Instead of ranting about the uselessness of Oregon's annual report card of so-called school performance, let me just state the case, as rationally as possible, that exceptional test scores, which the report cards use almost exclusively to rate schools, correlate perfectly with favorable demographics, meaning wealth and ethnicity.  In other words, the richer and whiter the school, the better the test scores. Here's what happened in Portland Schools:

• Elementary Schools-- Thirteen of sixty-one had exceptional scores on tests of reading, writing, and math.  All thirteen are located in relatively wealthy (and white) neighborhoods.
• Middle Schools-- Only one of nineteen garnered an exceptional test score rating, West Sylvan, on the white and wealthy West side.  Seven others got strong ratings.  All are either located in wealthy areas, or they are magnet schools.
• High schools-- One of twelve got an exceptional test score rating, Lincoln, which draws the bulk of its students from West Sylvan. (Surprise, surprise!)   Four of the twelve got low or unsatisfactory ratings.  You don't need me to tell you where they are.

Test score performance declines rather precipitously from grade school to high school.  It doesn't take a deep thinker to figure out why.  In grade schools, students are taught, directly, to read, to write, and to compute.  In high schools, students take English classes, in which they study literature, not reading.  Much of what they're given to read ("classic literature") is incomprehensible and unappealing to the majority of students. 

Math is only required for three years.  At the high school level, math is, simply put,  difficult.  Most of the parents who shake their heads at the school report cards are clueless when it comes to helping their kids with math homework.

The bottom line is this: student performance on standardized tests has little to do with the schools they attend, or the teachers that teach them.  So again I ask, why do we persist in the folly of labeling schools as either good or bad?

Repeat after me: Test scores are about the students, NOT the schools!