Quick Hits (4.14.2011)

The Los Angeles Times reporting on L.A. Unified’s decision to publicly release schools’ ‘value-added’ scores: “In a dramatic turn for the country’s second-largest school district, Los Angeles Unified released school ratings based on a new approach that measures a school’s success at raising student performance — the first in a series of high-stakes moves that will thrust the district into the center of the national debate over education reform. …Next month, the district will take the more controversial step of providing thousands of teachers with confidential ratings of their performance using the same approach, known as value-added. The district is also negotiating with the teachers union to include such measures in teachers’ formal performance reviews, an effort the union bitterly opposes.” (Los Angeles Times)

Inside Higher Ed reporting on a proposal by the Western Association of Colleges and Schools to measure and report student outcomes: “But perhaps no change would be more dramatic than a proposed requirement that colleges benchmark their own learning outcomes and measures of student success (i.e., retention and graduation rates) against those of their peers. One WASC document summarizing the commission’s goals suggested that each institution would work with WASC to set a “target graduation rate” (and potentially different rates for different subgroups) that it would “be expected to meet or exceed.” (Inside Higher Ed)

A quote from a New Yorker cartoon on school choice: “It wasn’t our first choice of schools, but we had a Groupon for it, so what the hell.” (h/t This Week in Education)

Sarah Butrymowicz on the NAEP’s High School Transcript Study: “Though the overall picture seems brighter now than it did two decades ago, racial gaps still exist — both in the percentages of students taking more rigorous curricula and in performance on NAEP exams. For instance, white students taking rigorous curricula scored, on average, 191 on the 12th-grade NAEP test in mathematics, compared to an average of 198 among Asians/Pacific Islanders. Black students averaged 167, while the average for Hispanic students was 172. …Still, black and Hispanic students who enrolled in rigorous classes performed better on NAEP than their white peers who followed a “mid-level” curriculum.” (HechingerEd Blog)