Category: Pueblo

Bell Game Live Blog

Here’s my recap and take on the final seconds.

Final score 27-24. Cats win but very controversial finish. Bell rings blue. 🙁

Bullshit. Refs wind the clock and time expires on the Bulldogs. Dog coaches throwing hats and yelling at the refs. Refs sprint off the field.

Pass complete! Plus penalty for late hit. Dog 1st and goal!

Dogs spike the ball to stop clock. 16 seconds.

1st down at the 32. 18 seconds

Why do they roll left everytime? 3rd down.

Dogs at Cats 42.

42 seconds to play

Dogs ball!

Ranson keeper is close. Measuring.

4th down. Cats call time out. 4th and 3. I don’t think they will punt.

3rd and 6. Gotta to have a stop.

1:42 on the clock. 2nd down and 9 for Cats.

Onside kick fails. Cats ball at the 50.

Refs picked up the flag. Cats lead 27-24. 1:48 left.

PAT good but flag down.

Touchdown Bulldogs!

Incomplete pass. 3rd and goal.

2nd and goal from the 7. QB keeper loses 3. 1:59 to play. Time out Dogs.

Dogs have 1st and goal at the 4.

Centennial side half empty but it ain’t over yet.

Dogs driving. At the 25. Only 3 min to play.

Another rollout left pass off balance. Pass interference by Dogs to prevent INT.

Another horrible kick. Dogs ball on the 50.

Ranson throws a nice fade to the corner for a TD. PAT good. Cats 27-17.

Cats have 4th and goal from the 8.

4:51 to play

1st and goal Cats.

Terrible outside containment. Cats rumble to the 26.

After return and face mask penalty Cats takeover at midfield.

6:26 to go in the game.

PAT good. Cats 20-17.

Touchdown Bulldogs!

Pass complete downfield. 1st down from Cats 11.

Dogs ball on Cats 40.

Central fans getting cocky.

Ugh. Half back pass underthrown and picked off by Cats at the 12.

1st down in Cats territory.

4th and short. Dogs will go for it.

End of Q3. Cats 20-10. Dogs ball at 46. 2nd and 5.

Cats fumble and Dogs recover! Dogs at the 28.

Cats ball on the 47.

Dogs throw a pick and looks like a late hit by Dogs.

3rd and long for Dogs

Complete pass to the Cats 42.

Dogs get a much needed 1st down. Ball at 34.

Dogs D can’t contain Ranson. He scores again and PAT is good. Cats lead 20-10.

Cats have 1st and goal from the 10.

Ranson breaks another long run. Cats at the 40.

Dogs punt. It’s perfect and downed on the 1 yd line.

Central tries another onside kick. Dogs ball on the 48.

Ranson runs 55 yds for a TD. Missed PAT. Cats up 13-10.

Cat ball on 39.

2nd half about to start. Bulldogs kicking off.

Halftime. Dogs 10-7.

Ranson out just 1 play. Cats have 3rd and long. 23 seconds left. Ball at midfield.

Cats at midfield. Ranson hit hard while passing. Still down. 44 seconds left in half.

Cats ball on 35.

It’s good! Dogs now on top 10-7.

4th and goal. Dogs to attempt FG.

Holding call negates TD.

1st and goal! Dogs going up tempo!

Dogs have 4th and 1 on the 11. Palumbo calls time out. Almost lost another fumble with QB trying to take back handoff.

Pass complete! Dogs driving.

Dogs sack Ransom! Dogs ball on 41.

Cats punter is so bad I think they’re going for it. Cats time out.

Dogs dodge a bullet. Long completion by Cats negated by penalty. 4th and 7.

Fumble. Cats recover. QB and RB terrible exchange.

Cats punter sucks. Dogs ball on the 45.

4th down. Cats in punt formation.

Time out. Cats 3rd and 4 from their own 8 yd.

Cats 1st down from their own 1 yd!

We’re tied. 7-7 w 11:50 to go in Q2.

Touchdown Bulldogs!

End of Q1. Cats 7-0. Dogs 3rd and 5 from the 9 yd.

Long pass complete at 12 yd. Dogs threatening.

Cats try onside kick? Weird. Dogs 1st down on 45 yd line.

Picture perfect throw from Ransom. 7-0 Cats. WR couldn’t have been more open.

Bulldog injured. 2:43 left in Q1. No score. Cats have 2nd and 11 from the 17 yd line.

Ransom breaks a long run. Cats in the red zone.

Dogs 3 and out. Another punt. Central 1st and 10 at their 11.

No score. 5:58 left in Q1

4th down. Terrible punt. Dogs take over in Cat territory.

Dogs punt. Central ball on own 10.

Bulldogs driving. In Cats territory. 1st 10 from the 42.

Kickoff! Bulldogs 1st down from the 6 yd line.

image

Pre kickoff. Beautiful evening. 69 degrees and breezy. New scoreboard is spectacular.

I’m going to try posting live from the game. Check back @ 7pm for updates.

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The 115th Bell Game

POST GAME: I attended the game and wrote a recap with my take on the controversial final seconds.

Last year I wrote a post in preparation for the 2014 Bell Game and produced a graphic illustrating the rivalry’s glorious history. This year I’ve updated the same graphic to include Centennial’s 5th straight victory in 2014.

BellGameGraphic-2015

Central leads the all-time series 57-51-6. Central also leads the Bell Game series 34-29-3. Centennial leads the Dutch Clark Stadium era series 22-13-0.

Hopefully Centennial will make it 6 straight. Go Bulldogs!

 

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The Tumbleweeds Strike Back

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ve probably seen my Why Pueblo post or perhaps you saw my Funding the City of Pueblo post where I proposed setting up a toll booth on Hwy 50 and charging $1 per eastbound vehicle. The toll booth idea made it’s way into the local print version of Fox News and generated some hate mail, perhaps because I pointed out that Pueblo West is located in the middle of a vast desert/prairie landscape where the wind blows the never-ending supply of dust around non-stop. Anyone with a green lawn in PW would probably be arrested on eco-terrorism charges in most of Europe, Canada, New Zealand and other civilized corners of the world.

According to local natural historians, the only life forms inhabiting the PW landscape 100 years ago were scorpions and tumbleweeds.

Well, it looks like the tumbleweeds have launched a counter offensive. Click this link for graphic details of the onslaught.

http://www.koaa.com/news/tumbleweeds-take-over-pueblo-west/

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The Bell Game

This Friday at 7pm Centennial High School and Central High School will meet at Dutch Clark Stadium to play the 114th game in their historic football rivalry, dating back to 1892. I’m not sure if it’s true but The Bell Game is thought to be the oldest High School Football Rivalry west of the Mississippi River.

As a Pueblo resident, it’s the biggest local sporting event of the year and a wonderful community tradition. Dutch Clark will be packed with fans wearing Red for Centennial or Blue for Central. I’ll bet for many who attend it’s the only live sporting event they go to all year. The Bell Game is special and it’s part of what makes Pueblo a unique and wonderful place to live.

On Tuesday, the Pueblo Chieftain wrote an article about the Bell Game and printed a list of the 113 games played with final scores through the years. As a data visualization person, I wanted to see something more colorful so I produced the following graphic to commemorate the 114th Bell Game. No scores because the only thing that matters is who wins. Hope you like it!

BellGameGraphic

A few notes. The first actual “Bell Game” (winner awarded the Bell until the following year) was played in 1950 (denoted by the gold outline and “B”). In 1980 the Pueblo Public School Stadium was renamed “Dutch Clark” Stadium commemorating the legendary Central High School graduate and NFL Hall of Fame inductee (denoted by “DC”). In the 1930s and 1940s more than one game was played in some years, represented in the graphic by a color gradient as appropriate (tie games shaded grey).

Central leads the all-time series 57-50-6. Central also leads the Bell Game series 34-28-3. Centennial leads the Dutch Clark Stadium era series 21-13-0.

As a 1986 Centennial High School graduate, I’ll be sitting on the east side of the stadium, wearing red and singing “On Centennial” each time the marching band strikes up the old fight song…or at least until my kids tell me to shut up.

Go Bulldogs!

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Rethinking School Assessment: 10th Grade Math TCAP Performance in Pueblo

This will probably be the last post in my series on TCAP scores and Pueblo Schools. If this is the first you’ve seen of the series you might want to go back and read the first 4 posts:

In this post I continue my assessment of TCAP test performance by looking at Pueblo’s High Schools. Let’s get straight to it.

There are only 6 public High Schools with sufficient data so the Gold, Silver, Bronze thing doesn’t make as much sense here but it’s too late to change it up. Instead of 3 honorable mentions I will only recognize 1 runner up because, hey, in the education landscape after passage of No Child Left Behind there have to be losers, right?

  • Gold Medal: Centennial HS
  • Silver Medal: Pueblo County HS
  • Bronze Medal: East HS
  • Honorable Mention: Central HS

Congratulations to the hard-working teachers at these High Schools!

PuebloSchoolsTeachingEffectiveness-Math10

As a Centennial graduate I’m proud to see my Bulldogs on top (TCAP Bell rings Red!) but it’s a bit disappointing that none of the area high schools outperformed relative to the trend line. A more nuanced look at TCAP performance and school/district evaluation would look at how performance, again relative to the trend line, improves or declines year over year. Looking only at absolute scores is not fair to the teachers in low-income schools and school districts.

My approach may not be a perfect solution to the thorny problem of public school assessment but, in my view, it beats the hell out of what I see going on now. Rewarding or punishing school districts without any consideration for socioeconomic variability makes no sense.

If you agree, post a link to these articles on the CDE Facebook page or on Twitter. In addition, you might consider (warning: you’ll have to endure a horrible website replete with pop-up ads if you follow this link) sending a letter to the editor of the Pueblo Chieftain letting them know their reporting on local TCAP results was completely misleading.

 

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Rethinking School Assessment: 7th Grade Math TCAP Performance in Pueblo

Did anyone notice the Chieftain softening its tone in their editorial this morning? They acknowledge that “external, socioeconomic factors” can impact student performance. Of course, they can’t admit any error in their rush to judgement so they quickly remind us that even if a child is deprived of adequate food, shelter and a supportive family it “does not preclude him or her from learning entirely” as if to say, now that we’ve acknowledged students don’t do as well if they’re hungry we feel entitled to revert back to our grumpy stance regarding the failures of D60 since their union is, generally speaking, opposed to our political agenda.

Sort of like the Grinch giving Suzy-Who a drink of water and sending her back to bed before continuing to rob her home.

Oh well. I suppose I should be happy they included the word “socioeconomic” in the conversation. In any case, if you missed my first few posts in this series go back and read these before exploring my Middle School rankings further below.

And now, here are my rankings of Pueblo’s public Middle Schools in terms of Math Teaching Effectiveness as demonstrated during 2014 TCAP testing. If you haven’t already you’ll want to be sure and read Part 3 to better understand the methodology for coming up with the TEI values.

  • Gold Medal: Goodnight Elementary School (D60)
  • Silver Medal: Pleasant View Middle School (D70)
  • Bronze Medal: The Connect (D70)
  • Honorable Mention: Corwin International (D60), Craver Middle School (D70) and Beulah Middle School (D70)

Congratulations to all the hard-working teachers and staff at these Middle Schools!

And, I’ll repeat my suggestion…

Note to School Administrators: Let’s reward the teachers at these schools with more resources and higher compensation levels. And let’s involve these teachers when it comes time to plot a strategy and implement tactics to raise performance at schools on the bottom of the list.

PuebloSchoolsTeachingEffectiveness-Math07

 

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Rethinking School Assessment: 3rd Grade Math TCAP Performance in Pueblo

In recent posts I have argued for a more nuanced approach to evaluating school performance in Pueblo. I also illustrated the strong negative State-wide correlation between % students who qualify for free or reduced lunch and Math TCAP scores.

It’s clear to me that student household income plays a very important role in determining school performance on Math TCAP. But, it’s not at all clear to me how this is taken into account by the Colorado Department of Education. It’s certainly not evident in this “mission statement” that economic disparities will play any role in assessment.

The Transitional Colorado Assessment Program (TCAP) is Colorado’s standards-based assessment designed to provide a picture of student performance to schools, districts, educators, parents and the community. The primary purpose of the assessment program is to determine the level at which Colorado students meet the Colorado Model Content Standards in the content areas assessed. The TCAP is collaboratively developed by the Colorado Department of Education, the Colorado teaching community and CTB/McGraw-Hill. The data should be used to keep abreast of individual student, school, and district progress toward attaining higher student achievement levels. The fact that TCAP is based on the Colorado Model Content Standards will ensure that all districts are held to the same challenging standards that Coloradans expect for their students regardless of whether they live in urban, suburban, or rural areas.

– See more at: http://www.cde.state.co.us/assessment/coassess-about

Do we plan to only reward school districts with the highest student household incomes? Do we plan to ignore all the tremendous work being done by teachers who are willing to take on the challenges presented by low income schools? What will we do when the State takes over some of the lower-income school districts only to find that they can do no better? At that point won’t it be too late for the school district, the teachers, the parents and the students?

Well, here’s one way to evaluate individual schools and school districts that takes into account economic circumstances.

Using the scatter plots and regression equations I developed using the Math TCAP data, I’ve produced “predicted” TCAP scores using % Free and Reduced Lunch as the independent variable. These predicted scores are represented in the “y-hat” column below. Actual scores (2014 % Prof & Adv) are then compared to predicted scores to calculate a residual value (i.e., actual score minus predicted score). Positive residuals indicate schools where test performance is exceeding expectations. Likewise, negative residuals indicate schools where test performance is below expectations. For easier interpretation I’ve then added the residuals to 100 producing a “Teaching Effectiveness Index” or TEI shown in the right-most column in the table below.

Using this approach, I’ve ranked 33 public elementary schools in Pueblo. The top 3 schools are all from District 60. So are the bottom 5.

So the narrative you’ve been hearing about District 70 good, District 60 bad is based on a lazy analysis of the TCAP results and lacks credibility. The reality is far more complicated. Both school districts are doing a great job in some places and not so great in others. Of course, that story doesn’t sell as many newspapers. The Pueblo Chieftain should apologize to readers for recklessly throwing D60 and, with it, the City of Pueblo, under the bus. Instead of using test scores to malign entire school districts who have been dealt a difficult hand why not use score results to highlight the accomplishments of individual schools where teachers and their students are beating the odds? Isn’t that the whole idea behind assessment?

Well, that is exactly the idea I have in mind. So, without further ado, here are my awards for outstanding teaching effectiveness in elementary mathematics.

  • Gold Medal: South Park Elementary School (D60)
  • Silver Medal: Ben Franklin Elementary School (D60)
  • Bronze Medal: Sunset Park Elementary School (D60)
  • Honorable Mention: Vineland Elementary School (D70), Haaff Elementary School (D60) and Carlile Elementary School (D60)

Congratulations to the teachers and staff at these top schools for their outstanding performance!

Note to School Administrators: Let’s reward the teachers at these schools with more resources and higher compensation levels. And let’s involve these teachers when it comes time to plot a strategy and implement tactics to raise performance at schools on the bottom of the list.

PuebloSchoolsTeachingEffectiveness-Math03

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Math TCAP Performance Highly Correlated with % Free-Reduced Lunch

In my initial post on the topic of TCAP scores I pointed out that Pueblo District 60 Schools (D60) have more students who qualify for Free Lunch than the total number of students in all of Pueblo County District 70 (D70). I also said D60 has a more difficult task not only due to the fact that they are a much larger school district overall but also because D60 students come from households with far lower incomes, on average.

Some readers may not be convinced that lower economic status translates into lower test scores. Let’s see if I can convince those folks that there is indeed a strong relationship between household income and academic performance.

Rather than focusing on Pueblo Schools I want to look at a bigger picture to better understand the relationship between test performance and economic status on a State-wide basis. So these data displayed in the charts below cover all over Colorado’s public schools. Many schools have too few test takers to be considered statistically significant so those small schools were eliminated from the data set. I also limited data selection to 3rd grade, 7th grade and 10th grade. These grade levels are the middle grade (or close to it) for typical elementary, middle and high schools, so I think it’s an appropriate subset to explore. If I look at every grade level I worry the quantity of data displayed starts to become too much to digest. In addition, I’m only looking at Math scores and, for now, omitting Reading and Writing scores for two reasons. First, again, it’s difficult to look at too much data all at once and might lead to confusion. Second, in my opinion, Math scores tend to minimize cultural bias and, as such, provide a more accurate reflection of actual academic capability.

On each of the charts below the horizontal (x) axis represents the percentage of students who qualify for Free or Reduced Lunch programs. The vertical (y) axis represents the Math TCAP test score results. Each point on the chart represents one school’s Math TCAP scores and their corresponding % of students who are eligible for Free or Reduced Lunch. I’ve also included a trend line with the associated regression equation and R-Squared value (included in the upper right corner of each chart). Don’t worry if the equations make you nervous – these details are only there for reference.

grade03-math-freelunch
grade07-math-freelunch
grade10-math-freelunch

As the charts clearly illustrate, or at least they clearly illustrate this to me, there is a very strong relationship between economic status and TCAP Math performance. As % Free-Reduced Lunch goes up, school TCAP Math performance goes down. Given the strength and consistency of this relationship, School District evaluation efforts and media coverage of local school performance results should focus on school performance within this context.

Furthermore, instead of blaming public school systems for failing our children perhaps we should consider blaming socioeconomic policy for producing too many students who are too hungry to succeed in school.

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Let’s Compare Apples to Apples When Evaluating Pueblo’s Public Schools

In recent editorials the Pueblo Chieftain has been singing the praises of Pueblo District 70 Schools (D70) and, in parallel both implicitly and explicitly, criticizing Pueblo District 60 (D60) for failure to achieve similar TCAP testing results. I needed a good set of data for my Statistics classroom so I decided to dig in to the TCAP data hoping to learn more about TCAP scores in general while exploring how well D70 was actually performing relative to D60.

The TCAP data are like most data sets produced by large government agencies, i.e., a big mess and far more difficult to interpret than necessary. But, I’ve seen a lot worse.

I downloaded the 2014 Math, Writing and Reading scores to see what I could learn. Boy, there’s a lot of data to sift through. Probably someone could do a doctoral dissertation analyzing the Colorado TCAP data. I don’t have time for that…at least not at the moment. So, for now, let’s look at the difference in economic circumstances between the two school districts.

The most readily available indicator of economic status by school and by district are the % Free and Reduced Lunch figures. Conveniently, the Colorado Dept of Education breaks down the testing results into 3 categories: (1) students qualifying for free lunch, (2) students qualifying for reduced lunch and (3) students who do not qualify for free or reduced lunch.

Here’s a table summarizing what I found:

freelunch

Anything stand out to you?

What jumps off the page at me is that D60 educates more children receiving Free Lunch than the total number of students in D70. Somehow, I missed that in the Chieftain’s reporting.

Let’s say you’re a teacher and the principal asks you to choose between 2 classrooms, both with 30 students. The principal reminds you that the fate of your job, the school and the entire school district depends on you getting your students to succeed on a set of culturally biased standardized tests. As a professional educator you know that academic success is closely correlated with economic status. In classroom A you have 19 kids receiving free lunch and in classroom B you have only 9 kids receiving free lunch. Which classroom would you choose?

If we’re going to hand out trophies to D70 and castigate D60 let’s be sure to provide appropriate context. D60 has, by far, the more difficult task. To read the Chieftain you might mistakenly assume both districts are in the same boat.

I plan to dig further on this. Next post will likely explore the relationship between TCAP scores and % Free-Reduced Lunch eligibility. So stay tuned and, in the meantime, don’t be so quick to throw D60 under the big yellow bus.

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Pueblo Fails to Provide Adequate Public Transportation to CSU Campus

I teach business statistics at CSU-Pueblo and at the beginning of classes this year I asked my students to complete a brief survey. I’m using the results to demonstrate a few basic concepts in class as familiar data seems to improve conceptual comprehension.

One of the questions I asked in the survey was, “What mode of transportation do you typically use to commute to the CSU-Pueblo campus?”

This was a multiple choice question with 6 different response options:

  1. Walk
  2. Bicycle
  3. Ride the Bus
  4. Drive my car
  5. Carpool
  6. Other

I received 110 survey responses and I was somewhat surprised by the results.

TransportationSurveyResponses

I certainly expected most students would be driving to campus but I was very surprised to find so few taking the bus. The students are mostly Juniors but there are plenty of Seniors and Sophomores as well (only a handful of freshman) so most of the responses were from students who probably spent lots of time on campus last year. I realize campus is on the city periphery but I just assumed that some students, most of whom barely have enough money to pay for tuition, rent, food and books, would take the bus to campus rather than pay for a car along with insurance, parking and gas expenses. But, only 1 person out of 110 respondents takes the bus.

I decided to look at the Pueblo Transit Bus Routes to better understand how well the bus system serves the CSU-Pueblo community. What I found leads me to believe that students, staff, faculty and others who need to get to CSU-Pueblo on a regular basis don’t take the bus because the system is too inefficient by design. By that I mean the Pueblo Transit bus routes won’t allow someone to get to CSU-Pueblo efficiently enough to make it a feasible transportation option.

To illustrate my point, I used the Pueblo Transit bus route maps and time tables to find out how long it would take to get to CSU-Pueblo from each of the four public high school locations in Pueblo. Here’s what I estimate in terms of travel duration for a one-way trip from the listed High School to CSU-Pueblo.

Aside from the direct run from nearby East HS to CSU-Pueblo these rides all take well over 1 hour one way. From a time standpoint it would be more efficient to walk from Centennial HS!

Who has time for a 2 hour and 50 minute round trip commute?

In an environment when CSU-Pueblo desperately needs to grow enrollment any barrier to student attendance is a problem worth addressing. I have to believe that Pueblo is home to many young people who would love to go to college if they could afford to attend. Tuition is one piece of the puzzle but transportation accessibility is another critical piece, particularly if you recognize that most of these students must work part-time and full-time jobs in order to afford the high cost of a college degree.

Let’s say you live near Central HS and work at the Taco Bell on the corner of Abriendo and Michigan. You are able to walk to work but in order to make it on time to classes and back for work shifts you have to drive. But, you can’t afford to purchase a car and still have enough for rent, food, obscene utility bills, tuition, books, etc. So, what do you drop? Probably you decided to opt out of college because it requires a car and too much money for tuition and books.

As I’ve stated in a previous post, the City of Pueblo and CSU-Pueblo have got to work together to improve our shared prospects and to provide better amenities for young people.  The millennial generation does not want to drive everywhere. They want affordable, walkable neighborhoods, reliable public transportation and access to cultural amenities. But, if they come to CSU-Pueblo, they find themselves on a desert outpost where it’s not even possible to grab a burger and a beer without getting in a car. In the immortal words of ESPN’s Chris Berman, “Come on, Man”!

How can we ever hope to grow Pueblo’s economy if we’re not willing to make it more appealing to the younger generation, our future tax payers? How can we ever grow enrollment at CSU-Pueblo if we don’t provide an appealing, accessible environment where young people want to live?

Public transportation is only one, relatively small piece of the puzzle. But a small investment in public transportation would pay much larger long term dividends than the enormous investments we’ve made in the new Justice building or the investments that many seem to want to make to expand the Convention Center. By the way, why are our local leaders so anxious to spend so much money on new construction in a floodplain?

Many of the college students at CSU-Pueblo will graduate and head north to Denver Metro where they are more likely to find decent entry level jobs along with walkable neighborhoods and reliable public transportation. Shouldn’t we begin to make small investments in Pueblo to keep some of them here?

 

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