So how many IB are going to really be at Hardy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BTW how are those Hardy IB coming? They're taking an even longer time to cook than we anticipated!

Go away troll.

Here's your numbers: "27% of this year's 6th grade class come from Hardy's feeder
elementary schools while 14% are transfers from Charters,
Independent Schools or Out-of-State"

http://www.hardyms.org/ourpages/auto/2014/11/13/59992445/HardyTour17Nov2014_FINAL.pdf

"Feeder" does not equal "IB." The apparent reluctance to publish IB numbers and willingness to publish feeder numbers suggests that the IB numbers are not good.

Go away. Enough already.

--IB Mann (I include this so that OOB parents or condo dwellers at other feeder schools ("for whom Hardy is the only option they can afford," you say) do not get blamed for my disgust with these posts)

No, I will not go away.

Hardy is my IB school. As has been argued repeatedly on this thread, the IB percentage for the 6th grade at Hardy is a leading indicator of school improvement. The feeder percentage not so much.

Sometime in the not-so-distant future, we will have to choose between attending Hardy and applying elsewhere. If we choose to apply elsewhere, we will have to prepare for that sooner rather than later. We would like to know now if the Hardy turn-around has started.

We're three months into the school year. Why doesn't the school publish 6th grader IB percentage already and put an end to the speculation?

I called you out. We can have a discussion, but it must be free of histrionics and unsubstantiated claims.

I reject your claim that IB% is a leading indicator of school improvement while feeder% is not. Please try to substantiate it. I know empirics are unavailable for your use, so I won't insist on them; instead, just provide a coherent logical chain that bolsters your claim.

In doing so, please note that for at least Key, Mann and Stoddert, these schools are almost entirely in-bounds. In light of this, is your argument based entirely around Hyde?

On a related note, these schools accept very few OOB students in later grades. Not none, but few. That means that the OOB students were likely in the school for almost their entire elementary education. So you cannot point to a difference in preparation.

It next appears that your argument is salvaged only by appealing to the different innate ability and family support (if they are different) of IB students and OOB student who enter these schools. Here you need to address the self-selection issue: OOB students whose parents commit to sending their students to relatively inaccessible schools likely score highly on the unobservables that underlie any claim pertaining to family support and, hence, innate ability (they're correlated). An OOB student at Key is not a random draw from the DCPS population. Very, very far from it.

Yes, I'm an economist. While I prefer data, I at least demand rigorous reasoning.

I have no stake in this thread (kid attends IB for another school) but PP's argument is well-reasoned and deftly addresses the PP's concerns about IB percentage. At this point, PP, I think you can just drop the mic and walk away.

-another Ph.D. social sciences researcher

Instead the takeaway is that the so-called IB -- feeder, actually ---enrollment may be drriven substantially by one school (which iitself is overwhelmingly OOB). That's a pretty hollow vote of confidence from Hardy's surrounding community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BTW how are those Hardy IB coming? They're taking an even longer time to cook than we anticipated!

Go away troll.

Here's your numbers: "27% of this year's 6th grade class come from Hardy's feeder
elementary schools while 14% are transfers from Charters,
Independent Schools or Out-of-State"

http://www.hardyms.org/ourpages/auto/2014/11/13/59992445/HardyTour17Nov2014_FINAL.pdf

"Feeder" does not equal "IB." The apparent reluctance to publish IB numbers and willingness to publish feeder numbers suggests that the IB numbers are not good.

Go away. Enough already.

--IB Mann (I include this so that OOB parents or condo dwellers at other feeder schools ("for whom Hardy is the only option they can afford," you say) do not get blamed for my disgust with these posts)

You mean "IB Mann but not enrolled at Hardy"?

[Anonymous]

God, people, let it go. You'll get the IB numbers when the profiles are updated. All indicators point to a sizable IB increase from last year. It takes YEARS to move the needle--you'll see a jump this year, and another next year, etc, but it will be incremental.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:God, people, let it go. You'll get the IB numbers when the profiles are updated. All indicators point to a sizable IB increase from last year. It takes YEARS to move the needle--you'll see a jump this year, and another next year, etc, but it will be incremental.

You raise a valid point but IB families don't want to wait years for incremental changes in the hope that in 8 or 10 years Hardy approaches where Deal is today. (It is unlikely that Deal will stay status quo stagnant during that period.). That's why it makes sense to close Hardy for a complete transformation and then relaunch it as a different school or just add another middle school option in NW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God, people, let it go. You'll get the IB numbers when the profiles are updated. All indicators point to a sizable IB increase from last year. It takes YEARS to move the needle--you'll see a jump this year, and another next year, etc, but it will be incremental.

You raise a valid point but IB families don't want to wait years for incremental changes in the hope that in 8 or 10 years Hardy approaches where Deal is today. (It is unlikely that Deal will stay status quo stagnant during that period.). That's why it makes sense to close Hardy for a complete transformation and then relaunch it as a different school or just add another middle school option in NW.[/quote]

it makes sense from the POV of those IB families, but probably not from the POV of DCPS. Besides its probablyh not 8 or 10 years. Could be another two or three years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I called you out. We can have a discussion, but it must be free of histrionics and unsubstantiated claims.

I reject your claim that IB% is a leading indicator of school improvement while feeder% is not. Please try to substantiate it. I know empirics are unavailable for your use, so I won't insist on them; instead, just provide a coherent logical chain that bolsters your claim.

What exactly do you reject, PP? Do you agree that increasing IB enrollment at a neighborhood MS is a leading indicator of improvement? Do you agree that increasing feeder enrollment is not a good proxy for increasing IB enrollment? Are you arguing that increasing feeder enrollment is as strong a leading indicator of improvement even if it does not reflect increasing IB enrollment?

Anonymous wrote:
In doing so, please note that for at least Key, Mann and Stoddert, these schools are almost entirely in-bounds. In light of this, is your argument based entirely around Hyde?

Actually, Key is 84% IB, Mann is 86% IB, and Stoddert is 81% IB. That translates to 61 OOB kids at Key, 40 at Mann, and 72 at Stoddert. And, as you note, Hyde is only 38% IB, which translates to 207 OOB kids.

Last's years 6th grade enrollment at Hardy was 110. So, the 27% feeder rate for 6th this year probably translates to about 30 kids. If we consider only OOB enrollment at Key, Mann and Stoddert last year, we have 173 kids. If we assume that those OOB kids are evenly distributed from K through 5, 29 of last year's 5th graders at just Key, Mann and Stoddert were OOB.

So, while not likely, it is possible that the feeder cohort entering 6th at Hardy this year consists almost entirely of OOB kids from Key, Mann and Stoddert. We don't even need to consider the OOB kids coming from Hyde.

My point is not that having 30 OOB kids from Key, Mann and Stoddert would not be a coup for Hardy. It is just that feeder enrollment is not a good proxy for IB enrollment due to the number of OOB kids at the feeder schools.

Anonymous wrote:
On a related note, these schools accept very few OOB students in later grades. Not none, but few. That means that the OOB students were likely in the school for almost their entire elementary education. So you cannot point to a difference in preparation.

That has not been my experience, PP. At our Hardy feeder, OOB enrollment was low in the early years (PK, K and 1), but increased in the middle years (2 and 3) and then stayed flat in the later years (while IB enrollment declined). Many of the OOB kids did not have the benefit of the strong program that our school offers in the early years.

Anonymous wrote:
It next appears that your argument is salvaged only by appealing to the different innate ability and family support (if they are different) of IB students and OOB student who enter these schools. Here you need to address the self-selection issue: OOB students whose parents commit to sending their students to relatively inaccessible schools likely score highly on the unobservables that underlie any claim pertaining to family support and, hence, innate ability (they're correlated). An OOB student at Key is not a random draw from the DCPS population. Very, very far from it.

Are you really arguing that the benefits of being born to parents wealthy enough to live IB for Key, Mann or Stoddert are entirely offset by being born to parents savvy enough to lottery for a spot at Key, Mann or Stoddert? That has not been my experience at our Hardy feeder. What evidence to you have to support your claim?

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, I'm an economist. While I prefer data, I at least demand rigorous reasoning.

My Ph.D. is not in economics, but I'll do my best.

Your knowledge of HTML on this site (who uses square brackets for coding, anyway?) is superior to mine, so you'll have to suffer through some formatting challenges when attempting to read my reply.

In short, I believe you are being biased by your personal experience (at your school). This shows up in several places.

1) What exactly do I reject? I agree that IB% is a determinant of test scores (and plenty of other relevant measures). It is leading only when the percentage is changing. In the case of Hardy, yes it constitutes a leading indicator. So we're in agreement thus far. We disagree in that I believe that, for Hardy, Feeder% is also a leading indicator of performance. The Hardy feeders have a long history of sufficiently rigorous preparation of their students. Given that most of these students have been in the school for the duration of their elementary educations (see next point), even OOB students would have benefited from the academic environment. In light of my last point, below, I don't think there's a statistically significant difference between IB% and Feeder% as an indicator of academic improvement. Wealth doesn't improve the academic environment: valuing education does.

2) You mention these schools accepting more students later in the elementary years at *your* school. I trust you on this, but it's not the case at other schools. I don't have access to data from earlier years, but here you can see that Mann, Key and Stoddert, for example, had 11 slots combined after 1st grade (http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/Learn+About+Schools/Lottery+and+Admissions:+Apply+to+Our+Schools/Lottery/Round+Two+Results). (These are slots; it doesn't mean they were filled.) So, of the 29 students you identify as OOB at Mann, Key and Stoddert, roughly 10 of them entered after 1st grade. (This is not completely accurate, of course, since the lottery data is from last year while the students enrolled in a school are a product of 6 years of lotteries. Still, it is probably reasonable to assume some stationarity in the lottery process.)

3) As for the determinants of academic performance, I believe strongly that the home environment is the most important factor. Students of richer families perform better, in general. I do not even mildly believe, however, that wealth or income matters directly. The determinants of academic performance are highly correlated with income (not wealth, by the way), but income, itself, is not the important factor. Simple things like heat and clean clothes matter. Cooked, wholesome food matters. Cultural and educational opportunities matter. Books on shelves matter. Parents who are gainfully engaged with the world matter. Conversations at the dinner table matter. All of these things are correlated with income, but it is not income that is doing the work here.

4) This brings me to the self-selection point. The students whose parents identified that their IB option was, to their eyes, unacceptable for their child, researched schools and entered a lottery to obtain a seat at far-flung and metro-inaccessible schools likely benefit from the same correlates of income that also help their higher-income peers succeed. And these families display devotion to their education by making the commuting ordeal work; this is no trivial matter. In short, the level of engagement in their child's educational development is likely to be similar to that of IB parents. OOB parents are making serious sacrifices to provide their children with superior educational opportunities. To boil this down to "they entered a lottery, whoop-de-doo" suggests that you don't understand this process or its effects. Now, it's true, that perhaps vacations to visit the Colosseum in Rome are replaced by trips to the Smithsonians, but the effect will be the same. It's not the money that matters, it's the devotion.

[Anonymous]

By the way, since the PP mentioned it, visits at the Colosseum in Rome are contemplated in the Hardy enrichment program. Next summer (likewise last summer) the Italian teacher at Hardy will organize a two weeks field trip to Italy for her students.

Luckily that the kid from the boring IB mom obsessed with the IB number will not be part of these activities (can you imagine her asking Ms Monticelli "Hey how many IB kids are travelling with you to Italy?" .

Hardy 6th grader mom (IB , and wealthy, and with a PhD. Hubby has one too).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By the way, since the PP mentioned it, visits at the Colosseum in Rome are contemplated in the Hardy enrichment program. Next summer (likewise last summer) the Italian teacher at Hardy will organize a two weeks field trip to Italy for her students.

Luckily that the kid from the boring IB mom obsessed with the IB number will not be part of these activities (can you imagine her asking Ms Monticelli "Hey how many IB kids are travelling with you to Italy?" .

Hardy 6th grader mom (IB , and wealthy, and with a PhD. Hubby has one too).

Hey, don't reveal your background: you're ruining PP's false perception as everyone attending Hardy as being either OOB, or IB but too poor to have other options, or IB and wealthy but too stupid to seek other options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:By the way, since the PP mentioned it, visits at the Colosseum in Rome are contemplated in the Hardy enrichment program. Next summer (likewise last summer) the Italian teacher at Hardy will organize a two weeks field trip to Italy for her students.

Luckily that the kid from the boring IB mom obsessed with the IB number will not be part of these activities (can you imagine her asking Ms Monticelli "Hey how many IB kids are travelling with you to Italy?" .

Hardy 6th grader mom (IB , and wealthy, and with a PhD. Hubby has one too).

Hey, don't reveal your background: you're ruining PP's false perception as everyone attending Hardy as being either OOB, or IB but too poor to have other options, or IB and wealthy but too stupid to seek other options.

Yes, her desk-based consideration of the school does not allow her to learn from the school administrators that, for instance, slightly less than 10% of this year's 6th grade OB students come from Brent, a Capitol Hill ES with DC-CAS performance indicators and SES perfectly aligned to the feeder schools and neighborhood area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By the way, since the PP mentioned it, visits at the Colosseum in Rome are contemplated in the Hardy enrichment program. Next summer (likewise last summer) the Italian teacher at Hardy will organize a two weeks field trip to Italy for her students.

Luckily that the kid from the boring IB mom obsessed with the IB number will not be part of these activities (can you imagine her asking Ms Monticelli "Hey how many IB kids are travelling with you to Italy?" .

Hardy 6th grader mom (IB , and wealthy, and with a PhD. Hubby has one too).

Yes indeed!! Or, to the math teacher: "How many IB kids are in my kid's honor class? 50% are OB? So wtf of an honor class is this with 50% OB???!!"

[Anonymous]

Or , when asked about the elective courses preferences for her kid: "Go ahead and enroll my kid to whichever class has the higher concentration of IB kids!...".

[Anonymous]

To Mr Sebastian, the amazing 6th grade science teacher: "please make sure you couple my kid only with IB peers for the science projects..."

[Anonymous]

"Ehi son, remember to always use the school entrance on 34th St, because that's where IB kids enter/exit the school, while the entrance on Wisconsin is for the OBs who take the bus to go back to their OB barrios."

[Anonymous]

It is ridiculous to consider IB vs OOB in that way, of course. My issue is really with what Hardy is -- a small, specialized, non-neighborhood school with required uniforms and not as many sports as Deal. I'm sure I'd think about it differently if my home was not just redistricted from Deal to Hardy, but Hardy does not compare to Deal. I think maybe Hardy should become a more specialized, test-in middle school. It is just so different from Deal, which seems to have the resources to serve a broader population. Forgive me if this seems harsh to those who are working so hard to improve Hardy, but I moved into a neighborhood that fed into Deal and now it feeds into Hardy. All I can see is how Hardy does not measure up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BTW how are those Hardy IB coming? They're taking an even longer time to cook than we anticipated!

Go away troll.

Here's your numbers: "27% of this year's 6th grade class come from Hardy's feeder
elementary schools while 14% are transfers from Charters,
Independent Schools or Out-of-State"

http://www.hardyms.org/ourpages/auto/2014/11/13/59992445/HardyTour17Nov2014_FINAL.pdf

"Feeder" does not equal "IB." The apparent reluctance to publish IB numbers and willingness to publish feeder numbers suggests that the IB numbers are not good.

Go away. Enough already.

--IB Mann (I include this so that OOB parents or condo dwellers at other feeder schools ("for whom Hardy is the only option they can afford," you say) do not get blamed for my disgust with these posts)

No, I will not go away.

Hardy is my IB school. As has been argued repeatedly on this thread, the IB percentage for the 6th grade at Hardy is a leading indicator of school improvement. The feeder percentage not so much.

Sometime in the not-so-distant future, we will have to choose between attending Hardy and applying elsewhere. If we choose to apply elsewhere, we will have to prepare for that sooner rather than later. We would like to know now if the Hardy turn-around has started.

We're three months into the school year. Why doesn't the school publish 6th grader IB percentage already and put an end to the speculation?

I called you out. We can have a discussion, but it must be free of histrionics and unsubstantiated claims.

I reject your claim that IB% is a leading indicator of school improvement while feeder% is not. Please try to substantiate it. I know empirics are unavailable for your use, so I won't insist on them; instead, just provide a coherent logical chain that bolsters your claim.

In doing so, please note that for at least Key, Mann and Stoddert, these schools are almost entirely in-bounds. In light of this, is your argument based entirely around Hyde?

On a related note, these schools accept very few OOB students in later grades. Not none, but few. That means that the OOB students were likely in the school for almost their entire elementary education. So you cannot point to a difference in preparation.

It next appears that your argument is salvaged only by appealing to the different innate ability and family support (if they are different) of IB students and OOB student who enter these schools. Here you need to address the self-selection issue: OOB students whose parents commit to sending their students to relatively inaccessible schools likely score highly on the unobservables that underlie any claim pertaining to family support and, hence, innate ability (they're correlated). An OOB student at Key is not a random draw from the DCPS population. Very, very far from it.

Yes, I'm an economist. While I prefer data, I at least demand rigorous reasoning.

I have no stake in this thread (kid attends IB for another school) but PP's argument is well-reasoned and deftly addresses the PP's concerns about IB percentage. At this point, PP, I think you can just drop the mic and walk away.

-another Ph.D. social sciences researcher

All right!!!! ~ yet another PhD social sciences researcher and former Hyde/Hardy parent!