Macomb schools perform miserably in new comparisons

(Chippewa Valley High School)

A new report card issued for Michigan high schools found about two-thirds of Macomb County schools received either a D or an F.

The report issued by the Midland-based Mackinac Center presents an “apples to apples” standard, grading each school by adjusting student test scores to reflect family income.

Under this “Context And Performance” grading system, none of the 30 high schools in Macomb County the county received an A when compared to the rest of the state, and only Center Line High School received a B. With the standard set at 100, Center Line received a CAP score of 103.7.

Only five Macomb high schools surpassed their projected performance: Center Line, Sterling Heights Senior High School, Fitzgerald Senior High School, Mount Clemens High School and Roseville High School. Twenty-two of the high schools received a D or F. The average CAP Score for the county was a 95, which corresponds to a D. 

Four years’ worth of Michigan Merit Exam and ACT test scores were adjusted based on the percentage of students in a high school who qualified for a free or reduced-price lunch. A high school’s CAPs score indicates how far above or below projections a high school performed given its student population’s socioeconomic status.

“Education research consistently shows that socioeconomic factors have a significant impact on standardized test results,” said Michael Van Beek, the Mackinac Center’s director of education policy, who co-authored the report with two University of Arkansas professors. “This is (a) first-of-its-kind attempt in Michigan to take this reality into account, and it helps us identify outstanding schools that by most measures would appear mediocre.”

The CAP report card categorizes scores by the size of the locality where a school is located.locale, enabling easy comparisons among and within city, suburban, town and rural areas. High schools located in towns had an average CAP Score of 101.5, the highest of the four locale groups, followed by rural high schools with a score of 101. Suburban high schools were next at 100, and city high schools were last at 98.9. However, high schools in midsize and small cities averaged higher CAP Scores than any suburban locale subgroup. Rural remote high schools averaged the highest overall CAP Scores among locale subgroups at 103.9.

The Macomb high schools that received an F were New Haven, Lakeview, Chippewa Valley, and two charter schools -- Arts Academy in the Woods (Fraser) and Conner Creek Academy (Warren).

The top-scoring individual high schools in each major locale group were:

* City: Cesar Chavez High School (Charter-Detroit), 135.4 CAP score

* Suburb: Star International Academy (Charter-Dearborn Heights), 140.8 CAP score

* Town: Calumet High School (Calumet), 114.2 CAP score

* Rural: North Huron School (Kinde), 123.3 CAP score

You can read more about the report at www.mackinac.org/CAP.