Re: [UC] Penn Alexander 100% low-income?

[Meg Wise]

Title: Penn Alexander 100% low-income?

The School District's website includes economic data for all schools and lists Penn Alexander as 48% low income, making it actually one of the most affluent schools in the district.  As you note, it is impossible to compare schools when some of the data is obviously wrong.  How each entity (district, state, etc.) collects data, and how it could be so misreported, would be a good story for the Inquirer! Meg Wise -----Original Message----- From: Kimm Tynan Sent: Apr 13, 2010 12:25 AM To: UnivCity listserv Subject: [UC] Penn Alexander 100% low-income? Did anyone else notice that in the Inquirer’s Report Card on the Schools, Penn Alexander is identified as having 100% low-income students?  Does anyone else find this extremely hard to believe? I thought maybe it was an error on the Inky’s part, but I looked at the raw data on the state’s website, and it has Penn Alexander reporting pretty close to 100% “economically disadvantaged” students grades 3-8. This seems unbelievable to me.  But maybe there is a reasonable explanation?  I’m considering writing the Inquirer reporters or editors who put the report together to look into it, but thought maybe folks more knowledgeable than I might have some insight into this. Before I get accused of hating on the neighborhood or trying to tear things down or sour grapes or something, it is a significant matter to me.  As the parent of a three-year-old who is trying to research and compare future schools, I want to compare apples with apples, and I believe that schools with high percentages of low-income students have a much bigger challenge than schools with lower-percentages, and so test scores need to be considered in light of those factors.  This is not only my belief – the quintile scoring system compares “similar schools” based on percentage of low-income students.  So, not only would an error in this regard make my job harder, but it would, it seems to me, skew the “similar schools” comparison. I’m interested to hear what folks think about this. Kimm ---- You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the list named "UnivCity." To unsubscribe or for archive information, see .