By the numbers: A dispassioned evaluation of Hardy (compared to Deal and Wilson)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP what data supports a claim that the school IB numbers are increasing?

OP here.

I don't have hard data, but I can hazard some educated guesses.

The IB percentage is 15% for the current year (up from 13%).
The percent White has increased: 13% White (up from 11%).
The percent Asian has increased: 10% Asian (up from 8%).
The percent African-American has fallen: 60% (down from 64%).
The percent Latino is about the same: 14% (it was 14% last year).
FARMS has decreased by 20%: it is now 45% (down from 55%).

It's a shame DCCAS isn't administered this year: between the increase in IB students (probably 10 more), OOB feeder students (probably 20 more), and 10% of the 6th grade class coming from Brent (according to someone in another thread), the scores would likely already show a bump (especially for grade 6).

Ok so this is based on last year's numbers. It will be interesting to see the change with this year's numbers. I think of the numbers in your last paragraph are off a bit. But I do think there will be changes. Not enough for a big shift in 2 years. I think you will see an increase in feeder kids rather than IB kids as the feeders expand their 5th grades.

[Anonymous]

OP, your conclusions are undermined by the fact the you fell for DCPS's strategy of lowering the bar for "proficient" on the DCCAS.

Please re-run your analysis using a cut-off of "advanced" rather than "proficient." I think you will find that the "white" kids at Deal are actually doing much better that the "white" kids at Hardy.

[Anonymous]

PP has a point, proficient is not a high bar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I agree that the numbers of IB families who are seriously considering Hardy is on an upward trajectory, but it's not there quite yet. I'm praying for a "flip" this year because my child will enter Hardy in 2017-18.

OP here.

I don't think the flip will be reflected until the current 4th graders enroll in Hardy in 6th. This year's numbers likely look similar to last year -- probably an additional 10 IB kids and another additional 20 feeder but not IB kids. (If DCCAS is still administered -- is it? -- the numbers should show some improvement due to (my guess of) 30 more well-prepared students.) Given the class sizes, current 5th graders are unlikely to cause a large bulge in either IB or feeder numbers. But the year after that -- with Hyde, Mann, Stoddert (and Eaton) adding additional 5th grade classes for the coming year -- I would expect to see a significant change in IB numbers.

That said, I completely believe that Hardy is already a good school for IB children. But for those who are waiting until the IB percentage increases before believing the data, the current 4th graders are going to be the first year in which the difference is unmistakeable. That is, by school year 2016-2017, the then 6th grade class should look little like current classes.

The change in testing this year could help or throw a wrench into things. OP, DCCAS have been abandoned and this year DCPS adopted a new test--PARCC. It is my understanding that whenever a new standardized test is introduced we are supposed to expect lower scores. And PARCC ratchets up the tension a bit because all the testing is online, not paper and pencil, so we could expect even lower scores because of the change in how the test is administered and how prepared the students were for the logistics of the test, forget the content. Schools' budgets and teachers will not be held accountable for this year's testing results, however, if the drop in scores or significant or not uniform across the city, lots of people could read into that. So, for instance if Hardy's scores drop a lot more than Deal's drop, what will people take from that?

From what I have heard about PARCC, it is expected to differentiate more (read: more thoroughly expose weaknesses). This may hurt up and coming schools by widening performance gaps. For example, OP is basing arguments on percent proficient or advanced on DCCAS. A lot of parents look at this proficient or advanced number. Advanced is hard to achieve, but proficient not so hard, and can be coached. As I understand it, under PARCC and common core, it is more difficult to coach weaker students to the test, and therefore students whose comprehension is shallow or borderline will do poorly always, whereas under CAS they could maybe be coached over the finish line. Whereas students with advanced/deep comprehension will do just fine, as they did on CAS. So the difference between say Janney and an up and coming ES will be even larger. That's why some low income education advocates are against common core, because it requires deep understanding, so it makes it very hard to intervene with a student later in life who did not have advantages at younger ages when the foundations of literacy and numeracy are laid. Any education experts have a view on this?



I don't think the issue is that it will be harder to intervene. I think the tests are designed to measure more comes skills. There is a school of thought that they will give teachers better information about what a student does and does not understand that might make intervention more useful.

[Anonymous]

OP here.

I didn't choose the bar, and it seems that neither did DCPS. Based on the objection above, I quickly googled how MoCo assesses their schools. They uses a similar metric: the Maryland School Assessment Proficiency Rate measures the proportion of students advanced or proficient (as opposed to basic). (See http://mdk12.org/assessments/K_8/index.html).

Your objection may be valid, but it's not unique to DCPS, and I don't believe it takes any additional thrust here.

We all want our kids to be advanced and not just proficient. But, of course, not all of our children can be above average. It seems like measure that does not implicitly reject this reality has a place in the discussion.

[Anonymous]

OP here, responding in line.

I agree but... the point is that it is very easy for many families to avoid such a school. You can rent your place out and live IB for Deal for a few years, then move back, you can sell and in most cases get something really nice in the burbs (IB Hardy real estate is pricey), and for a smaller number of families, private is affordable, especially if it's just for MS and maybe HS. Those years typically correspond with peak or near-peak earnings for parents. It's the early years when parents are most likely to struggle to pay. Bottom line, there are numerous people who have avoided Hardy without great hardship, and without being Rockefellers either.

Yes, this is true. It is one of the hurdles faced by Hardy. But, the other side of the coin is that the IB demographics is, potentially, Hardy's greatest asset. Other posters have disregarded the cost side of the private school decision, saying why would you send your kid to school B if school A is better? You are ignoring the benefits side. Both matter. While the difference in cost between A and B may be immaterial to some IB parents, if the difference in benefits do not justify the difference in costs, Hardy will be the chosen option (at least on average, yada, yada, yada).

But even if you don't care about that, perhaps because you believe you and your kid can develop networks elsewhere, there is still a lot to academics beyond the test scores. Revisit your data. You see that "90 percent" DCCAS for a school does not mean that this is the average percentage score on the exam. It means this is the percentage of students who are proficient or advanced. But this (proficient) is a very, very low bar! Chosen because let's face it, DC is coming from a long way down. But for me, academics go way beyond these standardized tests. Even among schools boasting 90 plus, there can be big variations in the level of academic rigor and enrichment. And this in turn will mostly be a function of average levels of performance. It is all very well to focus on the "white" scores for your kids, but DCPS central office and the school admins will have a more divided focus, if your school is not uniformly high achieving.

There are several points here. First, the "proficient or advanced" bar is not unique to DCPS. MoCo uses it too and I saw enough indications that it is present at the federal level as well through NCLB. (I don't know this for sure.) Second, your proposed solution -- look only at advanced -- is subject to the same objections. Why not just consider the performance of the three highest scoring students? Clearly a line needs to be drawn somewhere. You object to where this line was drawn, but you'll see upon reflection that your objection is about a difference in degree not a difference in kind.

Third, my personal experience was that the overall school matters little to advanced students. I attended the largest public high school in a large state. My graduating class was around 1,000. However, all of my classes -- save, PE -- were with some subset of the same 90 kids. There could have been fires in the hallways during every period and it wouldn't have affected my classes one iota. So, no, I don't think the "divided focus" critique is particularly relevant.

Finally, you state that academics go way beyond standardized tests. This I cannot dispute and I have no counter-argument.

Anonymous wrote:
BTW all of this applies equally to Wilson as it does to Hardy, there I agree with OP completely.

Yes, indeed.

You seem to assume that people are irrational in avoiding Hardy.

I do not! (You aren't aware of it, but that's a damning accusation to throw at a game theorist.) I most certainly do not assume people are irrational. My post is motivated by a belief that there appears to be, at least for some, an information failure. Perhaps I'm also naive enough to think that discussing the empirical realities of MS performance (on this one, limited measure) with someone who has nothing at stake in the discussion may help ease the message along.

Suppose many IB parents decide to attend, only to have DCPS increase enrollment and thereby preserve OOB access and maintain the demographics as they are.

I've read this accusation before. There remains not a shred of evidence to support it. This claim should be dragged into a bathtub and drown.

[Anonymous]

What about OOB contingent? I remember the uproar when Michelle Rhee said she would "turn" Hardy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My head hurts.

+1 I was interested for a while though. Maybe wine will help.

[Anonymous]

Getting back from the ceremony tonight: Congrats to the many Hardy kids who won top awards in this year's DC Stem Fair!! (Screw test scores.)

(And, by the way, the poster on the Hardy vs. Basis thread who claimed otherwise lied: Basis did not participate in the DC STEM Fair, neither junior nor senior division, neither last year nor this year. (Just for perspective, Latin MS and HS, Deal MS, Wilson HS, Sidwell Friends, SWW does.)

[Anonymous]

I can confirm that basic/proficient/advanced are NCLB requirements. States do however set their own cut scores. What that means is that basic in Maryland is not (necessarily) the same as basic in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can confirm that basic/proficient/advanced are NCLB requirements. States do however set their own cut scores. What that means is that basic in Maryland is not (necessarily) the same as basic in DC.

Yup. This is true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about OOB contingent? I remember the uproar when Michelle Rhee said she would "turn" Hardy.

I don't understand your question. Can you clarify?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about OOB contingent? I remember the uproar when Michelle Rhee said she would "turn" Hardy.

I don't understand your question. Can you clarify?

While Rhee was here, she held private (same would say secret) meetings with some IB families in their homes, discussing how to make Hardy a choice for them. When these meetings became known, OOB families were not pleased. Some IB families, some already with kids attending Hardy, also were not pleased. There was a big uproar, well documented in the Washington Post, other local papers and here on this board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about OOB contingent? I remember the uproar when Michelle Rhee said she would "turn" Hardy.

I don't understand your question. Can you clarify?

While Rhee was here, she held private (same would say secret) meetings with some IB families in their homes, discussing how to make Hardy a choice for them. When these meetings became known, OOB families were not pleased. Some IB families, some already with kids attending Hardy, also were not pleased. There was a big uproar, well documented in the Washington Post, other local papers and here on this board.

Okay. But what does that have to do with the OP's evaluation? If IB families decide to come, no one can stop them--they are inbounds. People get their panties in a twist about lots of "stuff" in DC, that doesn't stop "stuff" from happening anyway.

I just don't understand what point you are trying to make.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about OOB contingent? I remember the uproar when Michelle Rhee said she would "turn" Hardy.

Obviously words like turn and flip are hot buttons. It makes it sound like DCPS is making a special effort to make a mostly OOB school become mostly IB, and to many it may sound like it is making a special effort to make a mostly black school become mostly white. It is not difficult to see why many would object to that. However simply to improve academic offerings, and let that naturally draw in IB families (and feeder families who are not IB) and to allow the demographics to gradually shift as a result, is not at all the same thing. The fact that it is happening slowly, while frustrating to some IB families, is precisely why there will be much less backlash - the OOB families will increasingly be the ones drawn to the new Hardy, not to the old Hardy.