Background
Back in August, 2019, WCPSS staff and the voter-elected School Board gave parents who complained about MVP the collective middle finger when they denied parents' complaint (and subsequent appeal) about the program. One concession WCPSS made was that they would throw another $125k of taxpayer money at the problem by commissioning an "independent" survey to look at the program and/or its implementation. They later hired Florida-based MGT Consulting for this task.
MGT conducted their review in the October - November timeframe and that included a 9-question online parent survey which ran October 29 - November 13. The first few hours of the survey being online was met with outcries from parents, as there were no spaces allowing write-in comments. MGT quickly fixed that, citing what I remember to be a technical issue.
MGT's Report
The results of the review were presented to the Student Achievement Committee (and hence, the public) on December 16, 2019. My synopsis of the report was this: MVP is great and wonderful! In fact, it's so great and wonderful, we only need to perform SEVEN major corrective actions to make it work! The presentation by MGT was quite a sales pitch, and presented all aspects of MVP in only the most positive of light. It was as though they were given marching orders such as: We're going to keep MVP. Please make sure your report doesn't contradict that.
Anyway, all positives were emphasized, and any negatives were glossed over and dismissed as though they were known issues already being diligently worked by the WCPSS curriculum staff.
One such area glossed over was the parent survey feedback. MGT reported that 3125 surveys were submitted. They boiled the survey responses down to one summary chart, which only showed the most chosen response for each of the 9 questions! I thought the detailed report may have done the analysis more justice, but it did not. In my opinion, this is very amateurish at best, and statistical malpractice at worst!
Public Records Request
The next day, I submitted a public records request to WCPSS. I wanted to see the full survey responses because frankly, I believed that the feedback from as many as 3125 parents deserved more attention and consideration than it was given.
I'll spare you the details, but would you believe I had to fight quite hard to get those results, including emails and School Board speeches? I felt WCPSS was trying to use a 3rd party to hide public records paid for (and written by) the taxpayers. Eventually, WCPSS and MGT relented, and on April 17, 2020, I received a 207 page PDF file. Original version of survey responses (received 4/17/20, 207 pages)
The first thing I did was search for my own input, as I had saved of copy of my own survey answers. My input was NOT there. I eventually determined that the survey responses sent to me was a snapshot taken at November 2, 2019 11:23 AM EDT, as noted in the file itself. This was 11 days before the survey ended, and seemed to only reflect the input of about ~2425 of the 3125 total survey responses reported by MGT. Seven hundred parents, including me, were not represented in this file.
I reported this to Tim Simmons at WCPSS, and he promised to follow-up. On June 5, 2020, I received the updated file, which I am calling version 2. Version 2 of survey responses (received 6/5/20, 292 pages)
This file is better in some ways. It is better labeled. It also has fewer odd characters missing, which seemed to confuse the original version. It also addressed what appeared to be an error related to the comments for question 5, which were omitted from the original version. One shortcoming of version 2 is that it omitted the write-in comments for question 1, which totaled about 18 pages in the original version. I assume that is a careless oversight. Whatever. Any single page in either of these documents is as damning of MVP as any other. What's another 18 pages when WCPSS has not heeded the massive volume of MVP rebuke (data, reports, surveys, walk-outs, evidence, public comment, protests) already provided them?
Update 6/22/20: WCPSS Tim Simmons provided me an addendum with the missing comments for question 1 that were omitted from the Version 2 file. See MGT Parent Survey V2 - Q1 Comments for the additional 20 pages.
Table of Contents for Final Version
| Question | Original Version Received 4/17/20 | Version 2 Received 6/5/20 |
| How did you first learn about the MVP Math Curriculum? | Labelled as Q2 Pages 1 - 31 | Labelled as Q1 Pages 1 - 9 |
Answers to “Other (please specify) | Labelled as Q2_4_TEXT Pages 1 - 12 | Pages 1 - 9 |
Write-in comments | Labelled as Q14 Pages 13 - 31 | OMITTED but provided in Addendum |
| What is the difference between the MVP math curriculum and the previous math curriculum? | Labelled as Q3 Pages 32 - 65 | Labelled as Q2 Pages 10 - 62 |
| Which statement best describes the level of rigor / challenge provided by the MVP math curriculum? | Labelled as Q5 Pages 66 - 100 | Labelled as Q3 Pages 63 - 112 |
| Which statement best describes your experience with the WCPSS mathematics resources website? | Labelled as Q7 Pages 101 - 124 | Labelled as Q4 Pages 112 - 140 |
| Which statement best represents your child's experience with the MVP math curriculum? | Labelled as Q8 Pages 125 - 126 Write-in comments OMITTED “WIDGET_ERROR.MISCONFIGURED” | Labelled as Q5 Pages 140 - 185 |
| Which statement best describes your child's performance on math assessments since the implementation of MVP Math Curriculum? | Labelled as Q9 Pages 127 - 145 | Labelled as Q6 Pages 185 - 211 |
| I have received updates, resources or other communication from my child's teacher about the MVP math curriculum. | Labelled as Q10 Pages 146 - 159 | Labelled as Q7 Pages 212 - 230 |
| Since the MVP math curriculum was implemented in my child's school, I have had to spend more time helping them at home. | Labelled as Q11 Pages 160 - 185 | Labelled as Q8 Pages 231 - 261 |
| Since the MVP math curriculum was implemented in my child's school, my child has spent more time working on math assignments/homework. | Labelled as Q12 Pages 186 - 207 | Labelled as Q9 Pages 262 - 292 |
After I read a good bit of the document, I saw a trend. There were many superlatives which seemed to characterize parents' ire towards MVP. I decided to make my own graph showing the frequency of such words and word forms.
I believe this bar chart to be much more informative about the parent surveys than the chart MGT produced.
Summary of Select Superlatives
Note 6/22/20: This chart is based on the Version 2 file and does NOT include the words found in the addendum provided on 6/22/20.
I hope this report was informative. Please be sure to vote this November. All School Board seats are on the ballot and most of them need to be replaced.
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