A lingering breeze from Katrina

It is always good to hear news about students excelling, even if the measurement is on standardized test scores. And it is nice to hear praise for public schools and their teachers, even when it comes from Gov. Rick Perry’s administration. But a Texas Education Agency study about the academic progress of Hurricane Katrina refugees who relocated to Texas has raised questions, nevertheless.

According to the TEA, 46,504 young evacuees from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida enrolled in Texas public schools, mainly in the Houston area, after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, causing extensive damage, in August 2005. About 18,000 of the refugees were still enrolled in Texas schools in 2007.

The TEA study, released this week, tracked a group of Katrina students who were in grades 3, 5 and 8 in 2006 and were still enrolled in Texas schools in 2009. The study, based on TAKS scores, concluded that the Katrina students had made “significant academic progress” during the past four years and were performing slightly better than a demographically and economically matched set of Texas students.

State Education Commissioner Robert Scott, a Perry appointee, said he was proud of the schools and educators who took the refugees in because “they have made a real and lasting difference in the lives of these children.”

The findings were quickly questioned by Ed Fuller, a University of Texas researcher, who, in an interview with the Austin AmericanStatesman, said the study had serious “methodological flaws.” For one thing, he noted, using the Katrina students’ firstyear scores as a starting point may have overstated their gains because the firstyear scores probably were lowered by the trauma of the hurricane and their relocation. Many of the evacuees also may have missed a significant chunk of the school year.

Fuller’s concerns may be valid, but most of the Katrina students in the study are prospering now, and that is good news for them, their parents and their teachers. It also is a bit of positive educational news for a governor whose overall record of support for teachers and the public schools has been dismal.

Perry’s Democratic opponent, Bill White, was hammering the governor this week on one of many critical education issues – the state’s high dropout rate. On that one, Perry’s head remains firmly stuck in the sand. If the governor’s office is to be believed, the dropout rate is as low as 10 percent. But as a story in the Houston Chronicle points out, more knowledgeable groups say the student attrition rate is 30 percent or more and even approaches 50 percent in urban school districts with heavy concentrations of minority students.

One more Katrina note: Perry, you may recall, received (mostly) positive reviews for his response to the evacuees in the immediate aftermath of Katrina. So did Bill White, then the mayor of Houston. While FEMA, the federal disaster agency, was sitting on its hands, the Astrodome in Houston was being opened up to refugees and buses were being dispatched to Louisiana to pick them up. And, that was just the beginning of the chore, particularly for Mayor White and Houstonarea school districts.

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/resources/studies/KatrinaAnalysis2010.pdf

http://www.statesman.com/news/texaspolitics/teasstudyonkatrinastudentsraisesquestions535792.html

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6948676.html