CSD Is Georgia’s Highest Performing School District on SAT

Decatur Metro | October 8, 2014 | 12:42 pm

From CSD…

Decatur, GA (2014)- Recently-released Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores show Decatur High School seniors continuing to score above the state and nation. With a composite score of 1583, City Schools of Decatur had the highest system level SAT composite score (mathematics, critical reading and writing combined) in the state. Decatur High School is the 30th highest performing high school of 414, ranking in the top 7% of all high schools in the state.”We continue to be excited about the performance of all students in Decatur,” said Superintendent Dr. Phyllis Edwards. “Closing the achievement gap and encouraging all students to take rigorous coursework continues to be a strong focus for City Schools of Decatur.”

Participation rates vary widely in Georgia high schools. Some schools have less than 40% of their students take the SAT. With its 3% increase over 2013 in participation, Decatur High School had a 98% participation rate in 2014. Trends from the past five years of performance on the SAT show Decatur High School increasing significantly in relation to Georgia and the nation in all three subject areas.

SAT 5-Year Performance
CSD
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Critical Reading
516
516
539
520
540
Mathematics
503
503
514
512
526
Writing
494
499
517
496
517

 

GEORGIA
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Critical Reading
488
485
488
490
488
Mathematics
489
487
489
487
485
Writing
474
473
475
475
472

 

NATION
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Critical Reading
500
497
496
496
497
Mathematics
515
514
514
514
513
Writing
491
489
488
488
487

 

We are very proud of the hard work from our students and teachers at Decatur High School,” said Principal Noel Maloof. “This hard work is reflected in both our scores and the increased participation rate on the SAT. We will continue to educate our students at this level and maintain our commitment to closing the achievement gap through a rigorous and supportive program.”Critical Reading is up 24 points over five years, with Math and Writing both being up 23 points each over five years of data. Black students at DHS are up 26 points over five years in Critical Reading, up 9 points over five years in Math, and up 8 points over five years in Writing.

“When we look at trend data from 2007-2014, this year marks our strongest performance with an overall score of 1583, with the highest participation ever,” said Director of Secondary Education Lauri McKain. “When looking at the scores over time, we have maintained our performance while driving up participation. This is due to the fact that we are working to have all students actively explore and prepare for acceptance to post secondary institutions.”

The College Board, administrator of the SAT, is a non-profit membership association whose mission is to connect students to college success and opportunity. The association is composed of more than 5,200 schools, colleges, universities, and other educational organizations. For more information, visit www.collegeboard.org.

 

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24 Responses to “CSD Is Georgia’s Highest Performing School District on SAT”

  1. CH says:
    October 8, 2014 at 12:56 pm

    Yay, although I’m not someone who is really into test scores. But still, the best in the state!

  2. decaturite16 says:
    October 8, 2014 at 1:07 pm

    A subtlety here: CSD had the highest score, but Decatur High alone was 30th.

    • immodest proposal says:
      October 8, 2014 at 1:34 pm

      Does that say more about DHS or the disparity between schools in the other districts?

      • At Home in Decatur says:
        October 8, 2014 at 2:47 pm

        This. Plenty of high schools scored higher but their scores were offset by lower-scoring high schools elsewhere in the district.

        As COD becomes increasingly wealthy and highly educated, it’s not surprising to see student SAT scores rise. But that’s not a putdown of DHS and its fine teachers, students, parents, and staff. There’s high schools in wealthy school districts that don’t perform well.

        • Mike says:
          October 8, 2014 at 7:18 pm

          This is really a poorly written story from a press release that seems more advertisement than factual. Comparing DHS to the average from all high schools from in Fulton, Gwinnett, Dekalb, or other GA counties seems an inappropriate comparison. And without knowing participation rates, how can you really compare score performance between individual schools? Perhaps a proper characterization is that DHS is clearly trending upwards, in contrast to the rest of Georgia. Claiming “best” is just not meaningful given the comparisons and data provided.

  3. GM says:
    October 8, 2014 at 1:08 pm

    Seems particularly noteworthy given the high participation rate. At schools with lower participation rates, the students who take the test might constitute a self-selecting pool with relatively higher test-taking abilities.

  4. No Decaf says:
    October 8, 2014 at 2:18 pm

    Until someone makes a chart that compares high schools by score and participation rates, I don’t think this means much.

  5. Oakhurst says:
    October 8, 2014 at 5:01 pm

    This is a misleading headline. Decatur seniors did well, but we were not the top scoring high school in Georgia (CSD’s ranking is something different and surely not an apples to apples compared to systems with many high schools). Still, strong results from Decatur!

  6. Rick Julian says:
    October 8, 2014 at 5:15 pm

    bottim line: is this something I can brag and feel superior about on FB?

    ok, good.

    • Brian says:
      October 8, 2014 at 6:34 pm

      No, it’s not.

      • Brad says:
        October 8, 2014 at 6:49 pm

        I might be picking the wrong fight here, but I’d love to see a scatter plot of participation rate and average SAT score for the top 50 public schools — I’d bet we are above the trend line. Anyone know if there is a good data source for this — if so, point me to it and I will do the analyses.

  7. smalltowngal says:
    October 8, 2014 at 7:55 pm

    This is an excellent illustration of how nothing meaningful can really be distilled into a sound-byte headline. Once I realized the article was not going to identify the student(s) who achieved the highest scores in the state, the following questions occurred to me:

    What does “highest performing” mean? Obviously, it doesn’t mean “highest system level composite score” because the article claims CSD has that but ranks 30th statewide. So I’m confused.

    Do the statewide and national numbers include independent schools or public institutions only? For that matter, which students are represented in the CSD system wide scores? Do those numbers include independent school students who live in the district? (Is that the distinction decaturite16 refers to?)

    Absent the context of participation rates, this is nothing more than cocktail party bragging fodder. BTW, the third paragraph is upside down. Get that 98% number front and center! Then explain why it’s the sparkle on the crown.

    AND ANOTHER THING… You people have your hair on fire about CSD becoming ever more over-crowded, but you’re okay with trumpeting this kind of quality and high achievement right out in public where anybody can find out and want to move to Decatur, too (or get themselves annexed in)? Sheesh.

    • At Home in Decatur says:
      October 9, 2014 at 8:30 am

      Totally agree that bragging is good politics but poor enrollment control! We should be quiet about this and when asked, kind of mumble “oh, we did okay, I guess”.

    • Scott says:
      October 9, 2014 at 9:14 am

      My recommendation for CSD: Appropriate approximately 1% of pending construction budgets towards an aggressive PR strategy touting ONLY these stories: Overcrowding / inevitability of trailers; iPhone theft victimization; after school pot smoking on the square; and the SAT score of whatever kid came in last.

      There. I just saved everyone almost 60 million dollars.

      • CH says:
        October 9, 2014 at 10:03 am

        The school overcrowding – which will only get worse – is not a joke.

        • Scott says:
          October 9, 2014 at 10:32 am

          I may be joking but “demand accommodation” is not the only way around a problem. Demand reduction is equally viable and is practiced all the time — via policies that further control and/or disincentivize growth; focus on consumer segments such as young professionals and empty nesters who have limited impacts on schools; and yes, resisting the urge to trumpet one’s successes too loudly at the same time the system is experiencing or approaching overcrowding.

      • Howdy Neighbor! says:
        October 9, 2014 at 10:27 am

        I think everything should be a joking matter!
        I agree with Scott, we are bragging ourselves to death. This article doesn’t address schools, but it is the same phenomena: It is possible to be a victim of your own success.

        “The Cost of being Cool”
        And thus Portland fell into the so-called amenity paradox, coined by urban affairs professors at Portland State University to describe “cities where the same amenities that attract people end up eroding what made a city desirable in the first place.”

        http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/01/the-cost-of-being-cool/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

    • hmmm says:
      October 9, 2014 at 10:20 am

      This whole press release is pure spin — the “district” is highest performing only because there is just one school. That school itself is 30th in the state; not bad, but certainly not headline-worthy unless it moved up from 50th or something.

      It is my understanding that the comparison (and the students reported) are only from public schools. I haven’t seen participation rates by school or district, although the College Board website has total numbers of participants by state. I did read on the AJC that Georgia has a higher participation rate than many other states.

  8. gzhampton says:
    October 8, 2014 at 8:51 pm

    City of Decatur residence need to adopt or sponsor more kids to go to City of Decatur schools. This way all children from not so rich and wealth areas of life can have the best education possible. The kids can come the future leaders of the World someday.

    • Mic says:
      October 9, 2014 at 7:45 am

      Just approve all the annexation proposals. Then go ahead and annex the Methodist Children’s Home. Goal accomplished.

    • parker says:
      October 9, 2014 at 10:18 am

      I’m not sure that I agree that CSD schools are that transformative for less-wealthy students. Just looking at the 2011 report cards for Winnona Park and Avondale Elementary on the Ga DOE site (the most recent one available), it seems like economically disadvantaged kids from Avondale did a lot better on the CRCT Math test (46.7% met the standard, 30.7% exceeded) than did Winnona’s economically disadvantaged kids (29.4% met, 17.6% exceeded, and 52.9%(!) did not meet). The main difference seems to be that the percentage of economically disadvantaged students at WPES (19.5% of the AYP grade levels) is so much lower than that at Avondale (95% of the AYP grade levels).

      I know that’s only one test and only two schools, but it’s still a little bit telling (in Reading WPES’s ED kids did better, but not by a whole lot, and fewer exceeded the standard).

  9. At Home in Decatur says:
    October 9, 2014 at 10:12 am

    Seriously, I’d like to see the SAT scores broken down by income level. My guess is that income level has been rising among black CSD families as well as white. If that’s true, my guess is that some of rising income level is due to higher income black families moving into COD and some of it is to fewer lower income black families living in DHA housing as it undergoes renovation.

    But I’m not sure that income data, free lunch eligibility, or other markers of income level are provided with SAT scores.