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Community Corner

The secret organization "Rockwood Stakeholders for Responsible Solutions" attacks our career school administrators to serve their self-important needs.

The week before Thanksgiving, across the Rockwood School District, parents of the ~20K students enrolled in our public schools received yet another mass email broadside from the self-important Rockwood Stakeholders for Responsible Solutions (RSRS) group.  The RSRS group, possessing a secret membership while also seeking public donations at their vitriolic web-site "rsdstakeholders.org", has been a gadfly within the school district, stooping to make mean-spirited and personal attacks against the RSD administrators and members of the School Board in an attempt to fuel their self-serving need to feel important.  While there is a useful element to holding a spotlight to a large organization like RSD, with its 30 schools, thousands of employees, and >$200 Mil budget, in a manner similar to the news media holding the government up to public scrutiny, the RSRS does not ride a white horse.  The RSRS group continually harasses our officials, taking-up their time with frivolous demands for attention and access, claiming they, the unelected RSRS leaders, represent the public, you and me.  Call me crazy for thinking this way, but isn't this is what the elected School Board is for?  

Indeed, this self-styled "watchdog" organization does not discriminate fact from fiction.  Well, maybe they understand, but they do their best to ensure the community does not, spreading misinformation to the detriment of RSD.  In some instances it appears that RSRS lacks the intellectual discipline needed to understand the relevance of the many "facts" they present, while at other times information is presented in a distorted manner to suggest a sense of scandal where none exists.  Some of these comments are so wrong they serve only to mimic Chicken Little, screaming foul (sorry for the pun) to whomever will listen.

This recent email broadside is an example, where they lead-off with a couple of paragraphs that essentially verbatim restate information already provided to the public by RSD, seeming to provide the illusion they are somehow affiliated with RSD, perhaps serving as a PTO-type of organization.  Then, having laid-out this illusion in their broadside, further down they add a paragraph suggesting that RSD manipulates the public, in this case insinuating that RSD is holding back negative information, perhaps as a cover-up.  The nature of this particular "scandal" is that our district's ACT scores show that 43% of the RSD students scored sufficiently well to be considered "prepared for college".  As you might imagine, the >2000 RSD students included in this result represent a range of academic talent and capabilities, and not all are destined for college (maybe in fictitious Lake Woebegone they would).  So thanks to the RSRS group the school district's cover-up is exposed (although RSD itself released this data) and we read that that 43% of our ACT-test taking students scored at the level of "prepared".   But what does this mean?  Is this good news or bad news for how RSD is preparing our kids?  Let's find a comparator for our 43% found to score "prepared for college" so we understand what this means.

With less than a moment's searching I find this article http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-21/local/41431944_1_act-test-takers-minimum-scores-college-readiness, which says that, nationally, only 26% of seniors scored at the "prepared" level.  The article goes further to discuss scores for students in Maryland and Virginia.  I have lived in both regions and this could be a tough comparison for Rockwood; for example, in national rankings among the 50 states using standardized test scores, Maryland ranks in the top five while Missouri schools fall below the median.  But what I find in this article is that only 33% of Maryland and Virginia students in public and private schools have ACT scores representative of being "prepared" for college.  So RSD's 43% is not bad.  Quite good, really.  This is way above the national average.  But hold on, this is the kicker: only 21% of Maryland's and 26% of Virginia's students took the ACT while 100% of RSD's juniors took it.  What this means is that many students in these states who are not destined for college do not take the ACT and we can rightfully believe that their inclusion would serve to drag-down the MD and VA averages.  There's more: RSD's results represents juniors taking the ACT test as part of a practice and benchmarking exercise, while the national average and MD and VA data is for college-bound seniors.  

In fact, the RSD results are commendable.  No, not every child is testing at the level that predicts readiness for college and this remains a laudable goal.  But our school district's students are demonstrating a level of preparedness that is far beyond that seen in overall higher performing state educational systems.  And RSD includes every child in the testing pool, making our results truly representative, so our 43% of students testing at the "prepared" level is a true 43% of our students.  I commend RSD for this scholastic achievement and for the rigorous and transparent circumstances in which it was done. Now for contrast, read the diatribe included on the RSRS email broadside, or follow the above link to their web-site to examine their attack, and then decide for yourself if they are misrepresenting the data.

I bring this up as an example of the insidious and negative nature of the RSRS group's attacks on our school officials.  Many in our community express concern that their attacks against members of our elected school board who do not "toe" their party-line will result in providing RSRS undue influence in matters concerning the educating of our children. 

If you are unhappy about this what can you do?  Well, very little, actually. Our great nation ensures their freedom to speak freely and this serves the greater good, if only to draw the spotlight to something we all care deeply about - our schools.  But, dear reader, recognize that the right to free speech does not require honest or accountable speech, so be prepared to fact-check their statements and you will find that much of what they say misrepresents an accurate accounting.  Also, when you receive the next mass email broadside from RSRS, you can select to "unsubscribe" which by law they must do.  Read their material with a critical eye.  And be aware that they claim to RSD that they represent you.

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