Top to Bottom Test Scores Not 'Apples to Apples,' Officials Say

A Michigan Department of Education "top to bottom" ranking of state schools may not be the best way to judge Farmington Public Schools (FPS), district officials say.

Assistant Superintendent Catherine Cost said Tuesday that the list, which was released on Friday, uses a "very complex system. The formula they used for calculations was very detailed. We have not seen them applied to schools in the past."

School officials are trying to figure out how, for instance, Wood Creek Elementary could be ranked near the bottom of the list after significantly improving results on standardized math tests. Wood Creek also ranked in the 80th percentile in MEAP (Michigan Education Assessment Program) testing.

"The ranking (in the 19th percentile) doesn't reflect that," Cost said. "We don't believe it represents Wood Creek's level of achievement."

But that's not the only problem with the list.

The most frustrating aspect, Cost said, is "these are based on the previous year's data, which included schools that were closed. We can't even compare apples to apples, because the schools are different."

At the end of the 2009-2010 school year, the district closed four schools. So the students whose performance was measured in each building are not all the same as those measured in 2010-2011, Cost said.

She said parents can look at their child's level of achievement and how he or she is doing on MEAP and Iowa Basic test scores as easier-to-understand ways to gauge a school's progress.

But officials still find value in the numbers, as another set of data that will "give us more useful information to see how we can help our students," Cost said.