The Cranky Taxpayer

On August 23, 2007, the Education Department posted the 2006-07 SOL scores for each school, each school division, and the state on the web. These scores should not reflect the "adjustments" that inflate some of the accreditation scores by as much as 18 points.

The data now come as glitzy "Report Cards" but the Department no longer posts a spreadsheet with all the data. That means if you want to compare divisions you have to pull down multiple sets of data. And if you want to compare all the divisions, you have to pull down all 132 report cards. This is a cosmic pain. If you want the data but not the pain, the division scores are here (xls) and here (xlsx).

Richmond's 77 on the English test places it in a ten-way tie for 9th from the lowest score:

Division	English
Petersburg	61
Sussex	70
Roanoke	73
Alexandria	75
Northampton	75
Harrisonburg	76
Westmoreland	76
Winchester	76
Brunswick	77
Colonial Beach	77
Covington	77
Cumberland	77
Essex	77
Franklin	77
Martinsville	77
Pulaski	77
Richmond	77
Rockbridge	77
Caroline	78
Danville	78
Grayson	78
Lunenburg	78
Manassas	78
Charlottesville	79
Fredericksburg	79
King & Queen	79
Northumberland	79
Prince Edward	79
Hampton	80
Hopewell	80
Louisa	80
Manassas Park	80
Norfolk	80
Portsmouth	80
Southampton	80
Wythe	80

Richmond's 72 on the math test places it in a two-way tie for sixteenth from the bottom on that test:

Division	Math
Petersburg	50
Charles City	60
Colonial Beach	63
Sussex	64
Covington	67
Caroline	68
Craig	69
Alexandria	70
Danville	70
Grayson	70
Manassas	70
Wythe	70
Roanoke	71
Northampton	71
Prince Edward	71
Richmond	72
Norfolk	72
Brunswick	73
Essex	73
Pulaski	73
Orange	73
Waynesboro	73
Mathews	73
Lunenburg	74
Hampton	74
Southampton	74
Giles	74
Suffolk	74
Amelia	74
Rappahannock	74
Middlesex	74

For contrast, here, sorted by total score, are the highest scoring divisions:

Division	English	Math	Total
Falls Church	94	90	184
Goochland	93	90	183
Poquoson	95	87	182
Salem	92	90	182
Mecklenburg	92	89	181
West Point	91	88	179
Scott	90	88	178
York	90	88	178
Powhatan	91	86	177
Charlotte	93	83	176
Botetourt	92	83	175
Appomattox	91	84	175
Loudoun	90	85	175
Roanoke Co.	90	85	175
Chesapeake	89	86	175
Lexington	89	86	175
Alleghany	90	84	174
Hanover	89	85	174
Virginia Beach	89	85	174
Chesterfield	90	83	173
Albemarle	89	84	173
Patrick	87	86	173
Rockingham	87	86	173
Franklin Co.	87	85	172

Here are the score distributions, with the points containing the Richmond score colored gold:

The orange curves are approximate Gaussian fits to the data (Excel calculates the mean and standard deviation but not the maximum value, which is my guesstimate). Richmond is 1.3 standard deviations below the mean English score and 1.0 standard deviations below the mean math score (the mean of the division scores, not the state average score, which is slightly higher on each test).

The math scores correlate quite well with the English scores:

Richmond is the gold square; Norfolk is the red diamond.

The state report covers three years. Combining the data with the report from last year we get a look at recent trends:

As you see, the math test got tougher last year and the falling water lowered all boats.

The raw scores are a moving target. The better comparison is the division score vs. the state average, which gives a measure of improvement, or lack of it, vs. the rest of the State:

This is not a pretty picture: Richmond's English score is eight points behind the state average, just where it was three years ago. Richmond's math score also is eight points behind the state average, one point worse than three years ago.

Costly Failure

Turning to the cost of these results: In March, 2007, the Education Department finally posted the 2005-06 expenditures by school division (Table 15 in the Superintendent's Annual Report).

I compiled these data on March 18, 2007, which was the 261st day of the fiscal year. The 2005-06 day school expenditure data (Table 15) had just been posted; the total disbursement data (Table 13) STILL were not available on the Education Department Web site.

From a Freedom of Information Act at the end of February I learned that

The Department has not reported the reasons for this testudinal activity to the Board
The Department has not reported the reasons for this testudinal activity to the Superintendent
The Department has not even drafted a report explaining why the data were so late.

Your tax dollars at "work."

Here are the expenditure (day school spending) data vs. enrollment for the Virginia school divisions. Richmond is the gold square; Norfolk is the red diamond; the green diamonds are, from the left, Hanover, Henrico, and Chesterfield.

Limiting the inquiry to Richmond, the suburbs, and several comparable, old cities, we see:

Division	$/ADM
Chesterfield	$ 7,858
Hanover	$ 7,937
Henrico	$ 7,953
Hampton	$ 8,932
Newport News	$ 9,317
Norfolk	$ 9,451
Portsmouth	$ 9,086
Richmond	$ 12,219
State	$ 9,766

or, in terms of a graph,

Restricting the inquiry to Richmond, Norfolk, and the State average:

	$/ADM	vs. State	vs. Norfolk
Richmond