Is “school quality” a code word for “student quality”?

[Anonymous]

Which is a dog whistle for how white a school is?

[Anonymous]

Of course.

As are "like minded peers" and "cohort".

[Anonymous]

No, it’s not, not unless you believe black kids can never be good students. Banneker is a great school. Plenty of other DCPS schools have cohorts of grade-level kids.

[Anonymous]

Yes, yes, 1,000x yes! I wish I'd realized this when my kids were little, and I bragged about how great the schools in Arlington are. They're just rich and white; there's nothing else special about them.

[Anonymous]

You mean white and/or Asian. Don't act like only white schools get ranked well.

The lower the FARMs score, the better a school does on tests and the better the school is ranked.

What's upsetting is that my school is ranked extremely poorly based on a flawed metric. My school is half middle class/UMC and 1/4 of the school is brand new immigrants who don't speak English (which is harder because of the language issue). Because the poor students and the middle class students' scores are so far apart, my school has a 1/10 equity score. Our overall scores aren't terrible, but the equity score is really tanking it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, yes, 1,000x yes! I wish I'd realized this when my kids were little, and I bragged about how great the schools in Arlington are. They're just rich and white; there's nothing else special about them.

Same for NWDC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which is a dog whistle for how white a school is?

Nice spin-work. Impressively, you’ve simultaneously managed to show us your racist views on POC kids’ capabilities and hatred of whites. Try getting off the internet and volunteer.

Green (as in a family’s financial picture) is the color that makes schools better. Never forget it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which is a dog whistle for how white a school is?

Nice spin-work. Impressively, you’ve simultaneously managed to show us your racist views on POC kids’ capabilities and hatred of whites. Try getting off the internet and volunteer.

Green (as in a family’s financial picture) is the color that makes schools better. Never forget it.

Very well put, PP. I agree.

[Anonymous]

White and/or Asian.

[Anonymous]

So many of you have fleas you hear all these dog whistles the rest of us humans of all colors miss.

[Anonymous]

Teachers and administrators matter. But so do peers. If an advanced student is in a high school English class with dozens of kids who are reading at a 5th grade level, she's not going to learn much even with the greatest teacher ever. At the same time, being in a class of academic peers will help but not make up for poor teaching.

In DC, there's a strong correlation between race and socioeconomic class, which in turn correlates with academic success. Outside of selective schools, in DC race is a very strong (but still imperfect) predictor of school quality. I'd love to hear of a counterexample, but after 20 years in the city, I'm not aware of one.

[Anonymous]

It means high SES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You mean white and/or Asian. Don't act like only white schools get ranked well.

The lower the FARMs score, the better a school does on tests and the better the school is ranked.

What's upsetting is that my school is ranked extremely poorly based on a flawed metric. My school is half middle class/UMC and 1/4 of the school is brand new immigrants who don't speak English (which is harder because of the language issue). Because the poor students and the middle class students' scores are so far apart, my school has a 1/10 equity score. Our overall scores aren't terrible, but the equity score is really tanking it.

Similar problem at our school. A school is “dinged” is one subset doesn’t do as well as another subset, which is really unfair to schools who serve a large immigrant population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It means high SES.

+1 it's about SES, not race. My child is at a "good" APS elementary. In my opinion, the learning that happens at school leaves much to be desired, most of the 7hrs/daily are wasted. What the "good" schools show is how much time/effort/resources parents dedicate to children outside of school. This is tied to $, not race.

[Anonymous]

No, I think quality refers to any awards or rankings the school received. Are they on any best of the best lists, etc.. Banneker is highly regarded as a quality school and Dunbar for athletics but not academic quality. Quince Orchard for sports too but not academic quality. Madison HS again, athletics but not academic quality.