Hypothesizing Exercise 14: ranking schools
©2003 Edward G. Rozycki
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edited 9/25/04
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HYPOTHESIZING
EXERCISES
The STUSORT, a nationally known set of secondary school achievement tests, is updated annually for statistical reasons to remove any items that more than 50% of those tested have gotten correctly. Despite test publisher warnings to the contrary, the School District of Agapolis uses the results of the STUSORT annually to rank schools relative to each other, to measure their improvement over the year and to reward their principals. Although the tests have been adjusted many times to be culturally unbiased, their use by the School District still generates controversy because among the school children of Agapolis, a strong correlation exists among STUSORT score, ethnicity and SES.
Student's Directions
A. What is the basis of this correlation? Devise several competing hypotheses.
B. Can you combine two or more hypotheses within a more powerful hypothesis?
C. For each hypothesis determine what information you would need to disconfirm its competitors.
D. You will be given additional information. Use it to rule out some of the hypothetical alternatives.
Additional Information (to be supplied by Instructor)
A. Agapolis, an old city, has many de facto segregated public schools.
B. In the public schools, the higher the segregation, the lower the SES tends to be.
C. After several years of using the STUSORT to rank schools, no perceptible change in the ranking has been seen.
D. Principals in low ranking schools tend to be removed, opening up positions for first time principals.
E. Principals in high ranking schools are rewarded with job security, salary increases, more money and new programs for their schools.
Additional Questions (to be answered after all information is in)
1. What objection can there be to using STUSORT to rank schools and provide incentive for improvement?
2. What are the consequences of using STUSORT to reward school quality?
3. The common explanation for the way schools are provisioned is racism. The reaction that follows is to target special efforts at the lowest level schools to counter this "racism." What is the likely effect?
4. What other ways of evaluating the schools would provide more incentive?