DC school data on academic quality?

[Anonymous]

I would assume the STARs have to come back? Aren't they part of DC's federally approved accountability system?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not just the PARCC scores that matter, it's the median growth percentile. A school where kids come in at a 4 and stay at a 4 is fine, but a school where kids come in at a 1 and grow to a 4 is a "better" school in my view. It's just not that hard to teach most high-income kids, keeping them on grade level with lots of parental support is not a major pedagogical achievement. You may also like to look at retention as a metric of parent satisfaction.

You can see all kinds of data here: https://osse.dc.gov/dcschoolreportcard/schoolsnapshot

Charter schools have site reviews: https://dcpcsb.org/qualitative-site-reviews

Interesting. Really impressive results for Basis; less so for Latin and DCI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not just the PARCC scores that matter, it's the median growth percentile. A school where kids come in at a 4 and stay at a 4 is fine, but a school where kids come in at a 1 and grow to a 4 is a "better" school in my view. It's just not that hard to teach most high-income kids, keeping them on grade level with lots of parental support is not a major pedagogical achievement. You may also like to look at retention as a metric of parent satisfaction.

You can see all kinds of data here: https://osse.dc.gov/dcschoolreportcard/schoolsnapshot

Charter schools have site reviews: https://dcpcsb.org/qualitative-site-reviews

Interesting. Really impressive results for Basis; less so for Latin and DCI.

There's a lot more to the story. You need to understand the schools and the system a lot better before making comparisons.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks all. Definitely taking all this with a grain of salt. I would just like to remove the absolute bottom of the barrel from my list so I’m not touring 35 schools.

[Anonymous]

Tell us where you live and whether you like Montessori and language schools. Narrow it down by commute first and it will be much easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks all. Definitely taking all this with a grain of salt. I would just like to remove the absolute bottom of the barrel from my list so I’m not touring 35 schools.

You are smart, Op. Just do your own research and choose based on your priorities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:STARs are gone (died w/ COVID when PARCC scores died). Not sure if they're coming back.

You can find test score data broken down in a spreadsheet and manipulate it anyway you like. Search DCUM for it.

People on DCUM by and large favor good test scores and good test scores for demographics as long as there's a big enough chunk of high performers. Despite its rep, I think DCUM tends to slightly favor more diverse schools, as well as moderately favor DCPSes over charters. DCUM favors IB/neighborhood/nearby/walkable over a few PARCC points nearly every time. DCUM tends to care about locking in a middle school feed earlier/more than most people who don't live in NW.

Ask DCUM for its wisdom keeping the above in mind and you'll get pretty good advice. Better than looking at raw test data without knowing enough about the context to actually understand the demographics you're trying to control for (e.g., Shepherd AA is not LT AA is not EOTR AA).

Some of this is true. But there are definitely schools with decent scores that DCUM, well, doesn't really pan as much as just NEVER discuss. Center City Shaw immediately comes to mind - they've got almost 20% 4+ on math and 25% 4+ on ELA, but there are literally 2 threads that mention it in the last five years. Compare to Eliot-Hine which is a constant source of discussion with actually slightly worse scores.

I actually think a lot of the feedback on a lot of the schools is really helpful on DCUM - but you don't know what you don't know and there's a LOT of schools that DCUM just doesn't know.

Center City Shaw looks fine but I think you’re comparing 3rd-8th aggregate PARCC scores to MS only scores at Eliot.

[Anonymous]

You need to think about middle and high school. “You can move if it doesn’t work out” turns out not to be great advice.

[Anonymous]

Do you have a preference on how your child learns to read? Lots of phonics (Foundations) vs less phonics and more "whole language" or "Lucy Calkins"? They tell you the brand name of the curriculum so that you know what they use and you can look it up.

Do you want a school with a socioemotional learning program?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have a preference on how your child learns to read? Lots of phonics (Foundations) vs less phonics and more "whole language" or "Lucy Calkins"? They tell you the brand name of the curriculum so that you know what they use and you can look it up.

Do you want a school with a socioemotional learning program?

IME, curricula change, so picking a school based on a particular curriculum is a bad idea. I know some families that chose our school because they wanted to avoid Lucy Caulkins, and then our school adopted it 2 years later.