Why is Washington Latin MS now a Tier 2 school?
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Anonymous
I just think you should care about the direction of the test scores of the kids year over year - not going up but rather going down, not the scores themselves. I think it is kind of ironic that the popularity rose while the quality in some ways declined. Slipping to Tier 2 looking at the focus graph makes it seem inevitable. I guess maybe they don't care anymore because they had 4 years to do something about it.........
Now that they are all staying, not having them for all 3 years is not an excuse, and again, their progress year over year is being measured by how they scored the following year compared to how kids scored at other schools the following year. math Deal 65% of kids at the school scored higher on the DC CAS in 2014 than they did in 2013 Latin 39.8% of kids at the school scored higher on the DC CAS in 2014 than they did in 2013 average DC school 50% of kids score higher on the DC CAS on average year to year average school does DC CAS drill and kill Deal and Latin don't. And they score the highest overall. I understand that happiness is very important, especially in middle school, but so is progress. This was a steady decline the MS failed to stop. There is no way they did not know about it. This is why they dropped down to Tier 2, where they have never been before. And these are the kids who are now entering the high school. And it makes me really sad. It means that while a ton is going right, something is going wrong, and there is no way they did not notice it. I just wonder whether they changed some policy in 2010 that made this happen. Or whether they could not figure it out and how it is possible given the great education they offer in the MS. Because every other Tier I school (and the top DCPS schools) have growth that has continued to go up for the last 4 years - so it was not like the huge rise across the board in the DC CAS scores in 2010 Fortunately we now have the PARCC, which is supposed to better measure critical thinking. So maybe after two years the Latin MS will have a progress school that could move them back up to Tier I? |
Anonymous
| Ok then don't go there. Please you are really, really draining and beating a dead horse at this point. |
Anonymous
| Do you drain your husband like this? |
Anonymous
On 2nd thought are you the Hardy dad that did all that data? |
Anonymous
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Say all the kids at Latin or any other school got everything correct on the parcc tests 2 years in a row.
Would they drop to tier 2 in the 2nd year because of failure to improve? |
Anonymous
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sorry progress score
and while this started out comparing Latin to other schools, once you look at the numbers and the graphs all you need to do is compare Latin MS 2010 to Latin MS 2014 in terms of progress year over year for individual students - the majority (60%) scored lower in math in 2014 than they did in 2013. There is something wrong with that. And the majority scored lower in English as well. The math I get. Latin is not a math school. The English I don't. |
Anonymous
| Truly I think this poster is going through some kind of mental breakdown. Your point is made. Back away from the keyboard and get some air. |
Anonymous
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Letter from Head of School to parents dated November 2014:
Dear Latin families, This morning the Mayor held a press conference at which the Public Charter School Board (PCSB) released their school ratings based on the 2013-14 Performance Management Framework (PMF). I was invited to attend, because once again Washington Latin’s Upper School is rated a Tier 1 high-performing school. The Middle School is Tier 2 this year for the first time, the middle rating of three possible levels. Earlier this fall, the Office of the State Superintendent for Education (OSSE) also issued its ratings: OSSE rated our Upper School a Rising School (the second of five ratings) and the Middle School a Reward School (the top rating). These ratings reflect some important ways that DC charter schools are held to a high level of accountability. I want to provide you with information about these ratings, the assessments behind them, and what both say about Washington Latin. Here are several key points I want to highlight. · Academic Achievement - Washington Latin remains among the top-performing schools in the District of Columbia on both Math and Reading on the DC CAS for the Upper and Middle Schools. In the Middle School, 77% of students were proficient or advanced in Math and 79% in Reading. In the Upper School, 70% of students were proficient or advanced in Math and 63% in Reading. We were especially pleased to see the improvement in Upper School Math, from 59% to 70% proficient over the last four years. This compares to 54% Math proficiency and 50% in Reading for all DC public school students. · Academic Growth – Improvement in scores counts for a full 40% of the Performance Management Framework in the Middle School as opposed to 15% for the Upper School, where performance on the PSATs, SAT/ACTs and APs is also included. The primary reason for the Middle School Tier 2 rating was that our already high scores did not improve as much as hoped. · Time at Latin improves student achievement – The longer students are at Latin, the better their academic performance on the DC CAS. Students who have been at Latin since 5th grade outscored more recently-enrolled students by 15 percentage points in Math and 16 points in Reading. · Testing across DC will change this year – Because of the Common Core standards adopted by DC, the District will administer a new test which is aligned to the new standards. The new test is called the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and will first be administered in spring 2015. What our students learn in the classroom everyday will help prepare them for this new testing instrument. PARCC will be a stronger assessment in terms of measuring the kind of higher-order academic abilities that Latin is focused on. We believe this is a better test that will more accurately reflect where we are and how to improve our students’ learning. With higher standards, scores may well drop for all DC students initially, but the long-term expectation is that student achievement will grow with higher standards and goals. It is not yet clear how either OSSE or PCSB will handle ratings during the transition to PARCC, as it will take time to score the tests and then determine the new “cut scores” for Proficient, Advanced, etc. We will keep you informed as we learn more! Our Assessment Philosophy – We remain committed to our high academic standards for all students at Latin. I work in close partnership with Principal Diana Smith, Director of Academics Lacy Peale, and Director of Data and Assessment Ryan Benjamin to ensure a balance between teaching for success on assessments and teaching a classical curriculum at the core of our mission. In our continued effort to develop well-rounded learners, we do not measure student achievement based on one test but rather on a variety of tools including the DC CAS, Latin’s own academic indices, and standardized tests used nationally to assess college readiness (PSAT, SAT and Advanced Placement exams). Together this suite of assessment tools helps us ensure that we are addressing student needs and identifying areas requiring greater focus. Implications for WLPCS At Latin, we are serious about academics and recognize the benefits of a common form of evaluation across the District for all public school students. The DC CAS scores are helpful for comparing our program’s effectiveness with those of other schools and ensures that we continue to focus on improving the learning of all students. At the same time, we will continue to balance our liberal arts/ classical approach with the need to perform well on these tests. Testing data are important, but they are not the sole driver of our pedagogy and curriculum. With that said, we are focusing on improving our growth, particularly in middle school, as we have done previously in the upper school. While the change to the new PARCC assessment makes this year especially challenging for arriving at academic metrics, we have set goals in our efforts to improve, including: · MATHEMATICS - In order to prepare our students for the PARCC in Mathematics, students will take school-wide monthly assessments that mimic the PARCC questions. Each assessment will have 1-2 performance-based questions (open response) and 5-10 selected response questions. Teachers will grade according to the PARCC rubric, and administrators will use Schoolnet to measure achievement and growth on these assessments as the PARCC approaches. · READING - We will create a reading assessment of multiple-choice questions based on the literature in the WLPCS curriculum. We will give these assessments to students in grades 5-11 at the beginning of November and then will include a similar assessment as part of the final exams in June for grades 7-11. In terms of the rating change for the middle school, we believe this is a temporary shift and does not reflect a substantial change in the quality of our academic program or the focus of our teaching to the classical model. We expect that, with continued focus on academic excellence overall and attention paid to the new assessment, Washington Latin will again demonstrate the quality of our program with the highest ratings. I hope you see our school as one where words matter, ideas matter, and people matter. We have high expectations, both behavioral and academic, for our faculty and staff and for our students. We remain committed to offering our challenging, classical education to our wonderfully diverse community and to being one of DC’s highest performing charter schools. Your ongoing partnership and support are important to our work as we move onward and upward! |
Anonymous
| Shut town. Thanks PP! Very impressive. Now I want to send my DC to Latin even MORE! |
Anonymous
| This is the clear and professional communication that defines Latin as a school. Love it. |
Anonymous
The whole reason I started the thread was because I could not understand the drop in Tier status given the top DC CAS scores. I still want to send my kid to Latin, but I am glad I get it. So please stop piling on the number people, who have obviously moved on. I am grateful that I now understand growth percentiles to the best of my non-math oriented ability - I took Latin all through high school, but never made it past Algebra II and am no worse off for it. I am also grateful to have found the focus website, which in some ways is very different from what the Charter Board and OSSE put out - at least in terms of how I can understand it. I have been told that the PARCC is supposed to be a better measure of thinking skills not just rote learning. If that is correct, then drill and kill will not work for anyone, and Latin will shine even brighter! |
Anonymous
this is interesting to me, because this is almost verbatim the response I got on DCUM when I posted a thread asking why test scores are going down every single year at Murch. What is behind that significant year-to-year drop every year, etc. etc. Multiple Murch parents posted saying that they didn't mind that the school does worse each year than the last on standardized test, because their "education" was still super solid and amazing. |
Anonymous
| My DD started at Latin at 5th grade where she was testing on the DC CAS in Reading at the low end of the Proficient scale. In her 8th grade year she started testing Advanced in that section. She had always tested Advanced in Math. That was/is enough for me to know that I made the right decision about enrolling her at Latin. |
Anonymous
That is wonderful, and I am glad it was the right decision for your daughter, but the stats show she is an outlier depending on the years she was in the MS (if she was in 8th in 2010 I retract that), and the letter to Washington Latin parents was full of misleading statements and omissions. If I were the parent of a MS student, I would be questioning what exactly Martha Cutts learned at NCS and the integrity of the administration that sent me that letter, that failed to reveal the 4 year decline in the percentage in advanced students in the MS, deliberately misled parents about the reason for the slip in Tiers, and the decline in the MGP that also started in 2011 - the bleeding that they were apparently unable or unwilling to stanch, that made their "progress" below that of the "average" DCPS while Deal managed with its highest scores to improve significantly year over year, and the inevitable consequence. .3 percent saved them from Tier 2 two years ago but no one noticed. In 4 years their score went from 79 to 59. The letter made a really bad impression on me given the stats we have seen here. I am so glad the PARCC did not come last year. All of this would have gone completely under the radar. Compare yourself to DCPS when convenient, ignore it when it makes you look bad in terms of MGP, hence the party line - "we scored so high it was difficult to improve" when improvement turned out to be about something else entirely. Thank you to the parent who posted it. |
Anonymous
| 22:44---I really find your antipathy towards Latin and its current head curious. If you don't want to send your DC to Latin, then don't. You are now starting to come across as if you have a definite anti-Latin agenda---such as a loyalty towards the school's first head, or boosterism for Hardy and Basis. Whatever it is, I am glad that you are not a fellow Latin parent. |