2020 National Merit semifinalists in DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bummer, not a great showing for DC public, and that's putting it mildly.

In 2017, Walls had five semifinalists, and there have been years when Wilson had several.

Last year BASIS had 3, this year 1. It bounces around and the private schools always have most.

BASIS DC had 2 last year, not 3.

[Anonymous]

We haven't seen DC public semifinalist numbers in the double digits ever. The number varies a little from year to year, from around 3-8, with fewer now than 6, 8 or 10 years back.

Poor showing overall YoY however you slice it, no matter what the story is with strong students from the burbs attending DC privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We haven't seen DC public semifinalist numbers in the double digits ever. The number varies a little from year to year, from around 3-8, with fewer now than 6, 8 or 10 years back.

Poor showing overall YoY however you slice it, no matter what the story is with strong students from the burbs attending DC privates.

True. But shouldn't' we keep in mind that the cutoff in DC is 223 while it is 222 in Maryland and Virginia?

[Anonymous]

Yes, keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that total output was a grand total of 4 this year out of more than 7,000 HS juniors in public school. That's it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that total output was a grand total of 4 this year out of more than 7,000 HS juniors in public school. That's it.

No need to exaggerate. 2500 in public and 1500 charter

[Anonymous]

It's very hard to know exactly how many HS juniors there are in a school system where only half the 8th graders go on to graduate HS. Some kids drop in and out of DCPS programs throughout HS. 4,000 juniors sounds really low to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that total output was a grand total of 4 this year out of more than 7,000 HS juniors in public school. That's it.

No need to exaggerate. 2500 in public and 1500 charter

Oh great, 4 semifinalists, 4,000 eligible students, .1% clearing the bar. No need to exult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's very hard to know exactly how many HS juniors there are in a school system where only half the 8th graders go on to graduate HS. Some kids drop in and out of DCPS programs throughout HS. 4,000 juniors sounds really low to me.

Consider that DCPS and PCS together are a hair over 100K students, and they offer 14 grades -- Pre-K to 12 -- you'd expect about 1/14, or 7K, in each grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very hard to know exactly how many HS juniors there are in a school system where only half the 8th graders go on to graduate HS. Some kids drop in and out of DCPS programs throughout HS. 4,000 juniors sounds really low to me.

Consider that DCPS and PCS together are a hair over 100K students, and they offer 14 grades -- Pre-K to 12 -- you'd expect about 1/14, or 7K, in each grade.

In 2018-19 there were 4,191 juniors in both sectors combined. The number of students (DCPS and PCS) still declines significantly every year after 1st. There is a always another drop from 5th to 6th, and decreases each year of high school.

11th graders (combined PCS and DCPS):

16-17 3734
17-18 4215
18-19 4191

Contrast the above with K for 2018-19 - 7,491

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very hard to know exactly how many HS juniors there are in a school system where only half the 8th graders go on to graduate HS. Some kids drop in and out of DCPS programs throughout HS. 4,000 juniors sounds really low to me.

Consider that DCPS and PCS together are a hair over 100K students, and they offer 14 grades -- Pre-K to 12 -- you'd expect about 1/14, or 7K, in each grade.

As the PP says, this number is actually not hard to know. OSSE reports it every year. (2019-20 isn't available year, but here is last year: https://osse.dc.gov/page/2018-19-school-year-enrollment-audit-report-and-data)

It is wild how willing people are willing to "feel" what they think certain statistics about DC schools are, when the data are actually published and fairly readily available.

[Anonymous]

Come on, how can OSSE be sure that there are X number of bona fide juniors when hundreds, possibly thousands, of these teens are chronically truant. If they weren't, the HS graduation rate wouldn't be as low as it is, not even 60%.

OSSE loves to toot DCPS' horn so you can't put much faith in their stats. Logic dictates that the true total number of true juniors, those in good standing working at or above grade level and on track to graduate HS, is a lot less than 4,000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Come on, how can OSSE be sure that there are X number of bona fide juniors when hundreds, possibly thousands, of these teens are chronically truant. If they weren't, the HS graduation rate wouldn't be as low as it is, not even 60%.

OSSE loves to toot DCPS' horn so you can't put much faith in their stats. Logic dictates that the true total number of true juniors, those in good standing working at or above grade level and on track to graduate HS, is a lot less than 4,000.

No one is touting anyone’s horn. Are these likely to be accurate within 10 students? No. But I do think we can be confident that based on the enrollment paperwork that there are about 4000 students in charters and DCPS whereas there are about 7000 in K.

[Anonymous]

We know that in the past two years, DCPS students represent a small minority of semi-finalists:

- In 2018/19, 4 DCPS students of the 37 semi-finalists, equaling 10%
- In 2019/20, 9 DCPS students of the 55 semi-finalists, equaling 16%

In this email string, an analysis showed that about 20% of the semi-finalists from the private schools from 2018/19 are actual DC residents, and 80% are MD or VA residents. Would that mean that about 30% of all the semi-finalists are actual DC residents, and 70% are from MD and VA?

Some points to share:

Cut off scores and criteria for semi-finalists award are not standardized across the nation. Smaller, lower scoring states are favorably weighted over larger higher scoring states. DC has the highest cut off score in the country. If the cutoff score was lowered, would more DCPS students would qualify to meet more of the national numbers?

While DCPS student residents are serving as the denominator of entrants to determine the number of semi-finalists, the beneficiaries are disproportionately students from MD and VA attending some of the most elite schools in the country. Is this a matter of DCPS resident students essentially “subsidizing” the elite out of towners?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We know that in the past two years, DCPS students represent a small minority of semi-finalists:

- In 2018/19, 4 DCPS students of the 37 semi-finalists, equaling 10%
- In 2019/20, 9 DCPS students of the 55 semi-finalists, equaling 16%

In this email string, an analysis showed that about 20% of the semi-finalists from the private schools from 2018/19 are actual DC residents, and 80% are MD or VA residents. Would that mean that about 30% of all the semi-finalists are actual DC residents, and 70% are from MD and VA?

Some points to share:

Cut off scores and criteria for semi-finalists award are not standardized across the nation. Smaller, lower scoring states are favorably weighted over larger higher scoring states. DC has the highest cut off score in the country. If the cutoff score was lowered, would more DCPS students would qualify to meet more of the national numbers?

While DCPS student residents are serving as the denominator of entrants to determine the number of semi-finalists, the beneficiaries are disproportionately students from MD and VA attending some of the most elite schools in the country. Is this a matter of DCPS resident students essentially “subsidizing” the elite out of towners?

Go to page 1 of the thread. 39 NMSF in most recent batch. 4 from public schools. Do you have different data?

2 DCPS (1 each at SWW and Wilson) and 2 charter (1 at BASIS, 1 at Latin) are NMSF from the class of 2020. My math says that's 11%.

I would love to know whether any of the DC resident finalists form private schools attended a DCPS for elementary or middle. But I really don't think this is a great way to judge the quality of schools, public or private.

[Anonymous]

Not a great way, but a fairly good way.

This year's DC public school semifinalist result isn't just hopeless, it's catastrophically so after a decade of intense educational reform that saw the advent of BASIS and steadily rising admissions bars to Walls and Banneker.