Reports Show Royal Oak Schools Add Value for Students

A new report issued by Bridge Magazine last week shows Royal Oak students are not only achieving, but overachieving.

The analysis ranks districts based on schools' test scores adjusted for family income. The School District of the City of Royal Oak received a Value-Added Matrix (VAM) score of 101.28. Nearly 28 percent of children in the district are eligible for low-cost or free lunches each school day.

According to the analysis, a VAM score of 100 indicates students are achieving at expected levels for their income level. The higher a school's score, the better their students are performing on standardized tests.

Royal Oak Superintendent Shawn Lewis-Lakin said the scores generated from the database created by Bridge Magazine and Public Sector Consultants are one of several attempts to provide a context for evaluating school and district performance.    

"Royal Oak’s score of 101.28 is an indicator of the value we are adding for students," Lewis-Lakin said. "According to the parameters of this analysis, our students outperform expectations."

Lewis-Lakin added there is a variance among these types of analysis.   

"For example, a similar type of analysis completed by the Mackinaw Center, which looked only at high school performance, produced a Royal Oak High School score five points higher than the high school component of our district score in the Bridge study," Lewis-Lakin said. "It is important for us to dig deep into the data, to understand it, and to use it."     

The Michigan Public High School Context and Performance (CAP) Report Card, published by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in 2012, also provides an assessment of school performance by adjusting student standardized test scores to account for disparities in the socioeconomic status of student populations.   

The Mackinac Report produces a CAP score. If the CAP score is above 100, the school exceeds its projected performance; below 100, the school falls short.

"Any data we receive on student learning is good to the extent that we can and do use it to improve student learning," Lewis-Lakin said. 

Bridge Study

Mackinac Report Card

School

CAP Score

Royal Oak High School                                      

102.2

Clawson High School 

94.9

Berkley High School 

100.0

Lamphere High School 

92.7

Madison High School 

98.8

Birmingham Groves High School 

103.4

Troy Athens

102.5