Two Rivers has seats available at both campuses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is absolutely wild to my aged, gray-haired self how the mighty TR, MV, and CMI have fallen from their former glory. I really don't know what happened. People seem more or less mostly satisfied-ish at ITDS and LAMB, so it's not a systemic explanation.

1. School starts off as hidden gem for in the know parents.
2. In the know parents tend to have smart kids, parents are engaged, kids do well
3. Knowledge of schools quality diffuses out, school becomes more sought after by broader mix of people.
4. Broader mix of people necessarily includes lower quality parents. Lottery insures their kids get in. Sibling preference means this process starts slow then speeds up.
5. School regresses as kid and family quality declines

Step 6, which to my knowledge hasn’t happened yet here, is school recovers as people leave for greener pastures and a new core of engaged parents who missed out on other schools comes in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A few thoughts from an ITDS parent:

1) It's no longer easy to get into Cooper and the new Cooper location is much farther from Two Rivers. So the impact of that will be mitigated. But I do think it's the case that the opening of Cooper affected Two Rivers at a time when it was already really struggling. Without the impact of Cooper it might have pulled out of a bad spiral. Who knows.

2) Seems like there's just massive attrition from elementary to middle school at Two Rivers. At ITDS there's a lot-- each year about 25-30% of the 5th grade class is new, and maybe 10-15% of the 6tth grade class. Middle school academics are just okay at ITDS, and behavior is also just okay. It's not like there aren't problems, it's just that ITDS families tend to stay if they don't get into Latin because they can't figure out anything that's better.

3) Looking at the Empower K12 dashboard, seems like TR test scores dropped significantly, especially at Young. Whether that's the result of attrition among higher-scoring kids or the result of worsening teaching, I do not know.

4) It's important to acknowledge highlights as well as lows, so I will say last year Two Rivers sent 15 kids to McKinley Tech and 10 to Banneker, as well as at least 1 each to Walls and Ellington. Well done!

This is nice but ignores the fact that TR actually has a ton of attrition from early to late elementary. It's not that families peel off at 5th or 6th. It's that they peel off starting in 2nd grade when they realize their kids math and ELA instruction is bad. Once you get through ECE and start focusing more on academics it starts to become more and more apparent that TR has few if any academic strengths. If you aren't willing to supplement in all areas then you have to accept below grade level achievement. Even if your kid is bright and catches on quickly -- a bright kid still can't learn if they aren't even getting the material they need in class.

So to answer your question: the declining test scores are the result of attrition among higher scoring kids. But it's important to understand that those kids are leaving because their families are tired of having to supplement so much to keep them learning. And I actually don't fault the teachers at TR -- I think they are doing the best they can but the curriculum sucks and administration has been middling to bad over the last 5 years. There is a lot of attrition in the teaching staff.

TR needs a new curriculum but I do not believe the organization as that willingness to let go of EL nor any idea how to replace it with something more sound. The writing has been on the wall for years but they keep digging in deeper and maintaining this "ra-ra we're awesome" ethos that covers up a host of issues. That's why people leave -- there's nothing to be gained in staying because if you suggest that anything needs to change you just get sympathetic nods and meaningless reassurance followed by defensiveness and stonewalling if you persist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A few thoughts from an ITDS parent:

1) It's no longer easy to get into Cooper and the new Cooper location is much farther from Two Rivers. So the impact of that will be mitigated. But I do think it's the case that the opening of Cooper affected Two Rivers at a time when it was already really struggling. Without the impact of Cooper it might have pulled out of a bad spiral. Who knows.

2) Seems like there's just massive attrition from elementary to middle school at Two Rivers. At ITDS there's a lot-- each year about 25-30% of the 5th grade class is new, and maybe 10-15% of the 6tth grade class. Middle school academics are just okay at ITDS, and behavior is also just okay. It's not like there aren't problems, it's just that ITDS families tend to stay if they don't get into Latin because they can't figure out anything that's better.

3) Looking at the Empower K12 dashboard, seems like TR test scores dropped significantly, especially at Young. Whether that's the result of attrition among higher-scoring kids or the result of worsening teaching, I do not know.

4) It's important to acknowledge highlights as well as lows, so I will say last year Two Rivers sent 15 kids to McKinley Tech and 10 to Banneker, as well as at least 1 each to Walls and Ellington. Well done!

I'm a fellow ITDS parent, and while I appreciate and agree with most of your post, I do want to correct one aspect:

My family and others I know didn't lottery out of ITDS at middle school because we actively chose the middle school. Some families think it's a good school and a good fit for their child. It's not just a last resort school at middle school, it's an actively chosen school for many families, for one reason or another.

We found the academics to be good. Our child's grade did not have behavior problems. I hear that this year's 8th grade has some very poorly behaved students, but it's one bad year and doesn't mean that the middle school overall has behavior problems. Our kid's year had fewer behavior problems in middle school than in later elementary because one very poorly behaved student finally left. This really points out the plus and the minus of ITDS: it's a very small school. One or two challenging students can make the entire grade's experience less positive.

To be clear, even though we did not apply for other middle schools for our older child, we may do so for our younger child simply because it would give her more avenues to get into a good high school. Now there are more decent middle school paths than in past years, and a good high school slot is harder to find as more kids are staying that long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is absolutely wild to my aged, gray-haired self how the mighty TR, MV, and CMI have fallen from their former glory. I really don't know what happened. People seem more or less mostly satisfied-ish at ITDS and LAMB, so it's not a systemic explanation.

One commonality of TR and MV was expansion. I think there’s a good chance they’d still both be fine if they stuck to one campus. MV seems like it might be pulling itself out of the death spiral… can’t say the same for TR. When the newly renovated JO opens, that school is done.

Agree on all points.

Ironically I think TR's decision to expand to MS had the exact opposite effect than intended-- they thought it would bolster upper elementary grades by offering a viable MS pathway in a neighborhood where nearby DCPS MSs had little buy in. Instead the MS has been such a disaster that it's weakness has spread down into the upper elementary grades and forced families who might have held on longer to leave (in a surprising number if cases due those same DCPS MSs).

Yes there is also rot even in the lower elementary grades (TR's academics are remarkably bad across the board, and I say that as a former TR family) but the culture papers over this fairly well with a relentless positivity that is easy to buy into when your kid is still very young. 2nd is when the cracks really start to show and then when you look at the MS it only depends your resolve to leave.

I will be particularly curious how TR's downfall impacts JO's upper grades post renovation (or maybe sooner). So many TR 4th families are IB for JO and those that aren't may look at SH and see a solid backup if they don't get Latin/BASIS slots. JO could be a very different school in just a few years.

Are they hiring new staff with the new reno?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few thoughts from an ITDS parent:

1) It's no longer easy to get into Cooper and the new Cooper location is much farther from Two Rivers. So the impact of that will be mitigated. But I do think it's the case that the opening of Cooper affected Two Rivers at a time when it was already really struggling. Without the impact of Cooper it might have pulled out of a bad spiral. Who knows.

2) Seems like there's just massive attrition from elementary to middle school at Two Rivers. At ITDS there's a lot-- each year about 25-30% of the 5th grade class is new, and maybe 10-15% of the 6tth grade class. Middle school academics are just okay at ITDS, and behavior is also just okay. It's not like there aren't problems, it's just that ITDS families tend to stay if they don't get into Latin because they can't figure out anything that's better.

3) Looking at the Empower K12 dashboard, seems like TR test scores dropped significantly, especially at Young. Whether that's the result of attrition among higher-scoring kids or the result of worsening teaching, I do not know.

4) It's important to acknowledge highlights as well as lows, so I will say last year Two Rivers sent 15 kids to McKinley Tech and 10 to Banneker, as well as at least 1 each to Walls and Ellington. Well done!

I'm a fellow ITDS parent, and while I appreciate and agree with most of your post, I do want to correct one aspect:

My family and others I know didn't lottery out of ITDS at middle school because we actively chose the middle school. Some families think it's a good school and a good fit for their child. It's not just a last resort school at middle school, it's an actively chosen school for many families, for one reason or another.

We found the academics to be good. Our child's grade did not have behavior problems. I hear that this year's 8th grade has some very poorly behaved students, but it's one bad year and doesn't mean that the middle school overall has behavior problems. Our kid's year had fewer behavior problems in middle school than in later elementary because one very poorly behaved student finally left. This really points out the plus and the minus of ITDS: it's a very small school. One or two challenging students can make the entire grade's experience less positive.

To be clear, even though we did not apply for other middle schools for our older child, we may do so for our younger child simply because it would give her more avenues to get into a good high school. Now there are more decent middle school paths than in past years, and a good high school slot is harder to find as more kids are staying that long.

I think it is quite rare for the high achieving students not to enter the lottery these days. I know of exactly one in this year's 6th grade who didn't try to leave and it's because their family has younger siblings at the school and valued the convenience. I don't mean to suggest it's a last resort. Just that, for a variety of reasons including the HS path issue you cite, I think actively choosing it is not very common at the higher end of the cohort academically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is absolutely wild to my aged, gray-haired self how the mighty TR, MV, and CMI have fallen from their former glory. I really don't know what happened. People seem more or less mostly satisfied-ish at ITDS and LAMB, so it's not a systemic explanation.

1. School starts off as hidden gem for in the know parents.
2. In the know parents tend to have smart kids, parents are engaged, kids do well
3. Knowledge of schools quality diffuses out, school becomes more sought after by broader mix of people.
4. Broader mix of people necessarily includes lower quality parents. Lottery insures their kids get in. Sibling preference means this process starts slow then speeds up.
5. School regresses as kid and family quality declines

Step 6, which to my knowledge hasn’t happened yet here, is school recovers as people leave for greener pastures and a new core of engaged parents who missed out on other schools comes in.

I don’t think this is is. There are plenty of schools with lots of at risk kids that provide solid academics especially in ECE. I believe TR still uses “whole language” instead of phonics (someone correct me if I’m wrong). If a school doesn’t have a coherent curriculum it will fail. CMI started to fail pre-pandemic when its PARCC scores were abysmal. ITDS has always been stronger because it’s model was always about teaching (imagine that!). At the end of the day schools are about academics and fluff like “expeditionary learning” cannot compensate for kids jot learning the basics.

TR also handled the pandemic very badly - I believe they still had masking and quarantines well after all the other schools stopped. And if they didn’t attempt to catch up academically then the results are inevitable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is absolutely wild to my aged, gray-haired self how the mighty TR, MV, and CMI have fallen from their former glory. I really don't know what happened. People seem more or less mostly satisfied-ish at ITDS and LAMB, so it's not a systemic explanation.

One commonality of TR and MV was expansion. I think there’s a good chance they’d still both be fine if they stuck to one campus. MV seems like it might be pulling itself out of the death spiral… can’t say the same for TR. When the newly renovated JO opens, that school is done.

Agree on all points.

Ironically I think TR's decision to expand to MS had the exact opposite effect than intended-- they thought it would bolster upper elementary grades by offering a viable MS pathway in a neighborhood where nearby DCPS MSs had little buy in. Instead the MS has been such a disaster that it's weakness has spread down into the upper elementary grades and forced families who might have held on longer to leave (in a surprising number if cases due those same DCPS MSs).

Yes there is also rot even in the lower elementary grades (TR's academics are remarkably bad across the board, and I say that as a former TR family) but the culture papers over this fairly well with a relentless positivity that is easy to buy into when your kid is still very young. 2nd is when the cracks really start to show and then when you look at the MS it only depends your resolve to leave.

I will be particularly curious how TR's downfall impacts JO's upper grades post renovation (or maybe sooner). So many TR 4th families are IB for JO and those that aren't may look at SH and see a solid backup if they don't get Latin/BASIS slots. JO could be a very different school in just a few years.

Are they hiring new staff with the new reno?

JO has a lot of wonderful teachers including both veteran teachers who bring a lot of experience and newer folks who bring new energy. I don't quite get why you'd want them to hire new staff.

The one consistent complaint I've heard about staff at JO is something I think will be addressed by the reno and that's the fact that they don't always prioritize outdoor time well. But I think that is a very much a function of the current school's bad outdoor spaces -- there is insufficient shade on in the play spaces and the playground layout is a huge pain for supervising younger kids (no barriers between the ECE and older kid play spaces and the equipment for older kids includes some items that it is really not safe or appropriate for younger kids to play on without direct supervision). There's also no proper outdoor classroom space (just the garden which has had issues with mosquito control in recent years). There are actually teachers at JOW who want to be taking the kids outdoors more and the new campus will make this much more feasible. There are plans up on the school's website where you can already see how much improved and more functional the outdoor parts of the campus will be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is absolutely wild to my aged, gray-haired self how the mighty TR, MV, and CMI have fallen from their former glory. I really don't know what happened. People seem more or less mostly satisfied-ish at ITDS and LAMB, so it's not a systemic explanation.

1. School starts off as hidden gem for in the know parents.
2. In the know parents tend to have smart kids, parents are engaged, kids do well
3. Knowledge of schools quality diffuses out, school becomes more sought after by broader mix of people.
4. Broader mix of people necessarily includes lower quality parents. Lottery insures their kids get in. Sibling preference means this process starts slow then speeds up.
5. School regresses as kid and family quality declines

Step 6, which to my knowledge hasn’t happened yet here, is school recovers as people leave for greener pastures and a new core of engaged parents who missed out on other schools comes in.

I don’t think this is is. There are plenty of schools with lots of at risk kids that provide solid academics especially in ECE. I believe TR still uses “whole language” instead of phonics (someone correct me if I’m wrong). If a school doesn’t have a coherent curriculum it will fail. CMI started to fail pre-pandemic when its PARCC scores were abysmal. ITDS has always been stronger because it’s model was always about teaching (imagine that!). At the end of the day schools are about academics and fluff like “expeditionary learning” cannot compensate for kids jot learning the basics.

TR also handled the pandemic very badly - I believe they still had masking and quarantines well after all the other schools stopped. And if they didn’t attempt to catch up academically then the results are inevitable.

+1 it's the curriculum. There are things to like and dislike about TR's culture but the real issue is that the curriculum is weak and disorganized and everything flows from that. I think when the school was smaller the flaws in the curriculum could be concealed because 4th street had a very nurturing and cohesive community so teachers could essentially work together to create consistent advancement in education. As the school has expanded that's become impossible and it's really exposed the fundamental weakness in the EL curriculum approach. Just to use ITDS as a comparison -- their curriculum has some specific strengths (like an emphasis on writing) and even with expansion to middle they've kept their school pretty small so they can ensure consistency across classes and grades.

Also speaking specifically to the impact of families and community -- TR's lack of a clear educational philosophy hurts it here too. EL sounds good to ECE parents who are looking for a play-based and nurturing environment because EL dovetails nicely with those priorities. But once you get to K and 1st EL does not offer a true alternative to traditional education models. It's true that DCPS has lots of worksheets and repetition for reading and math in those grades and I get why parents are turned off by that. But unlike montessori which has a pretty well-developed approach for teaching reading and math in a montessori setting that can be highly effective for certain kids (montessori is not for everyone) EL doesn't really offer this. It's kind of a general idea about what the experience will be like and it's very lacking in actual pedagogy around how children acquire skills and knowledge. It's like "well it's great for kids to learn through experiences and investigation" and sure that does sound good. But how does that literally translate into learning to read. What seems to happen at TR is that they essentially teach reading and math in a traditional way but with less organization than you will find in DCPS and then they layer expeditions on top of this. But it's disjointed and doesn't feel like an efficient use of classroom time. It's very very easy for kids to fall through the cracks at TR -- both because they are advanced and it's not being recognized and they aren't being challenged OR because they are behind and it's not being recognized and they aren't getting the help they need to catch up. It's a huge problem and if you talk to families who leave this is a constant refrain -- it's just not clear what exactly kids are learning and how they are progressing through material especially from year to year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few thoughts from an ITDS parent:

1) It's no longer easy to get into Cooper and the new Cooper location is much farther from Two Rivers. So the impact of that will be mitigated. But I do think it's the case that the opening of Cooper affected Two Rivers at a time when it was already really struggling. Without the impact of Cooper it might have pulled out of a bad spiral. Who knows.

2) Seems like there's just massive attrition from elementary to middle school at Two Rivers. At ITDS there's a lot-- each year about 25-30% of the 5th grade class is new, and maybe 10-15% of the 6tth grade class. Middle school academics are just okay at ITDS, and behavior is also just okay. It's not like there aren't problems, it's just that ITDS families tend to stay if they don't get into Latin because they can't figure out anything that's better.

3) Looking at the Empower K12 dashboard, seems like TR test scores dropped significantly, especially at Young. Whether that's the result of attrition among higher-scoring kids or the result of worsening teaching, I do not know.

4) It's important to acknowledge highlights as well as lows, so I will say last year Two Rivers sent 15 kids to McKinley Tech and 10 to Banneker, as well as at least 1 each to Walls and Ellington. Well done!

This is nice but ignores the fact that TR actually has a ton of attrition from early to late elementary. It's not that families peel off at 5th or 6th. It's that they peel off starting in 2nd grade when they realize their kids math and ELA instruction is bad. Once you get through ECE and start focusing more on academics it starts to become more and more apparent that TR has few if any academic strengths. If you aren't willing to supplement in all areas then you have to accept below grade level achievement. Even if your kid is bright and catches on quickly -- a bright kid still can't learn if they aren't even getting the material they need in class.

So to answer your question: the declining test scores are the result of attrition among higher scoring kids. But it's important to understand that those kids are leaving because their families are tired of having to supplement so much to keep them learning. And I actually don't fault the teachers at TR -- I think they are doing the best they can but the curriculum sucks and administration has been middling to bad over the last 5 years. There is a lot of attrition in the teaching staff.

TR needs a new curriculum but I do not believe the organization as that willingness to let go of EL nor any idea how to replace it with something more sound. The writing has been on the wall for years but they keep digging in deeper and maintaining this "ra-ra we're awesome" ethos that covers up a host of issues. That's why people leave -- there's nothing to be gained in staying because if you suggest that anything needs to change you just get sympathetic nods and meaningless reassurance followed by defensiveness and stonewalling if you persist.

Well, my question is why did test scores decline relative to last year. Because the attrition is a longstanding trend at TR. Was there an unusually large amount of attrition?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few thoughts from an ITDS parent:

1) It's no longer easy to get into Cooper and the new Cooper location is much farther from Two Rivers. So the impact of that will be mitigated. But I do think it's the case that the opening of Cooper affected Two Rivers at a time when it was already really struggling. Without the impact of Cooper it might have pulled out of a bad spiral. Who knows.

2) Seems like there's just massive attrition from elementary to middle school at Two Rivers. At ITDS there's a lot-- each year about 25-30% of the 5th grade class is new, and maybe 10-15% of the 6tth grade class. Middle school academics are just okay at ITDS, and behavior is also just okay. It's not like there aren't problems, it's just that ITDS families tend to stay if they don't get into Latin because they can't figure out anything that's better.

3) Looking at the Empower K12 dashboard, seems like TR test scores dropped significantly, especially at Young. Whether that's the result of attrition among higher-scoring kids or the result of worsening teaching, I do not know.

4) It's important to acknowledge highlights as well as lows, so I will say last year Two Rivers sent 15 kids to McKinley Tech and 10 to Banneker, as well as at least 1 each to Walls and Ellington. Well done!

This is nice but ignores the fact that TR actually has a ton of attrition from early to late elementary. It's not that families peel off at 5th or 6th. It's that they peel off starting in 2nd grade when they realize their kids math and ELA instruction is bad. Once you get through ECE and start focusing more on academics it starts to become more and more apparent that TR has few if any academic strengths. If you aren't willing to supplement in all areas then you have to accept below grade level achievement. Even if your kid is bright and catches on quickly -- a bright kid still can't learn if they aren't even getting the material they need in class.

So to answer your question: the declining test scores are the result of attrition among higher scoring kids. But it's important to understand that those kids are leaving because their families are tired of having to supplement so much to keep them learning. And I actually don't fault the teachers at TR -- I think they are doing the best they can but the curriculum sucks and administration has been middling to bad over the last 5 years. There is a lot of attrition in the teaching staff.

TR needs a new curriculum but I do not believe the organization as that willingness to let go of EL nor any idea how to replace it with something more sound. The writing has been on the wall for years but they keep digging in deeper and maintaining this "ra-ra we're awesome" ethos that covers up a host of issues. That's why people leave -- there's nothing to be gained in staying because if you suggest that anything needs to change you just get sympathetic nods and meaningless reassurance followed by defensiveness and stonewalling if you persist.

Well, my question is why did test scores decline relative to last year. Because the attrition is a longstanding trend at TR. Was there an unusually large amount of attrition?

The attrition is moving younger. People used to leave in 4th or 5th. Now they leave in 2nd and 3rd. This has a compounding effect because where you used to have more kids sticking around long enough to take PARCC/CAPE in 3rd and even 4th, now you don't and the kids testing are often either new to the school (and coming from schools with even weaker academics) or they are kids of parents who don't care so much about academic achievement and this don't leave even when their kid is a full grade or more behind in math and struggling with reading fluency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is absolutely wild to my aged, gray-haired self how the mighty TR, MV, and CMI have fallen from their former glory. I really don't know what happened. People seem more or less mostly satisfied-ish at ITDS and LAMB, so it's not a systemic explanation.

1. School starts off as hidden gem for in the know parents.
2. In the know parents tend to have smart kids, parents are engaged, kids do well
3. Knowledge of schools quality diffuses out, school becomes more sought after by broader mix of people.
4. Broader mix of people necessarily includes lower quality parents. Lottery insures their kids get in. Sibling preference means this process starts slow then speeds up.
5. School regresses as kid and family quality declines

Step 6, which to my knowledge hasn’t happened yet here, is school recovers as people leave for greener pastures and a new core of engaged parents who missed out on other schools comes in.

Certainly there are better prepared kids and families but “lower quality”?

Changing students and families doesn’t fully explain why some schools continue to do well or improve while others flounder. Your explanation suggests that the schools have no hand in the success of their students and program — everything is just dependent on which students show up.

While certainly it is true that children from wealthier, educated families tend to do well in school (especially test score wise), what the school does is also important. There are schools serving less wealthy/educated families that are improving performance among the students they serve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few thoughts from an ITDS parent:

1) It's no longer easy to get into Cooper and the new Cooper location is much farther from Two Rivers. So the impact of that will be mitigated. But I do think it's the case that the opening of Cooper affected Two Rivers at a time when it was already really struggling. Without the impact of Cooper it might have pulled out of a bad spiral. Who knows.

2) Seems like there's just massive attrition from elementary to middle school at Two Rivers. At ITDS there's a lot-- each year about 25-30% of the 5th grade class is new, and maybe 10-15% of the 6tth grade class. Middle school academics are just okay at ITDS, and behavior is also just okay. It's not like there aren't problems, it's just that ITDS families tend to stay if they don't get into Latin because they can't figure out anything that's better.

3) Looking at the Empower K12 dashboard, seems like TR test scores dropped significantly, especially at Young. Whether that's the result of attrition among higher-scoring kids or the result of worsening teaching, I do not know.

4) It's important to acknowledge highlights as well as lows, so I will say last year Two Rivers sent 15 kids to McKinley Tech and 10 to Banneker, as well as at least 1 each to Walls and Ellington. Well done!

I'm a fellow ITDS parent, and while I appreciate and agree with most of your post, I do want to correct one aspect:

My family and others I know didn't lottery out of ITDS at middle school because we actively chose the middle school. Some families think it's a good school and a good fit for their child. It's not just a last resort school at middle school, it's an actively chosen school for many families, for one reason or another.

We found the academics to be good. Our child's grade did not have behavior problems. I hear that this year's 8th grade has some very poorly behaved students, but it's one bad year and doesn't mean that the middle school overall has behavior problems. Our kid's year had fewer behavior problems in middle school than in later elementary because one very poorly behaved student finally left. This really points out the plus and the minus of ITDS: it's a very small school. One or two challenging students can make the entire grade's experience less positive.

To be clear, even though we did not apply for other middle schools for our older child, we may do so for our younger child simply because it would give her more avenues to get into a good high school. Now there are more decent middle school paths than in past years, and a good high school slot is harder to find as more kids are staying that long.

Thanks for your reply-- I am the PP and certainly don't mean to say ITDS is a school of last resort. It's one of the best middle schools in the area, and yes I'm aware of people who don't lottery. I did lottery, because I think Latin would be better for my kids, but I didn't want to move them elsewhere though I think other schools such as Stuart-Hobson might be equally good in a different style. ITDS academics have been okay for my children, but I do not feel that my children are consistently challenged and sometimes not even held to a grade level standards. And they've been philosophically opposed to math "tracking" which limits the advanced offerings, though perhaps that may change as they realize their best math students are being left behind relative to what's available at Stuart-Hobson, Eliot-Hine, Jefferson, etc.

The thing about ITDS is that some people really love it, and for every problem or issue they'll point to happenstance, an external factor, or a systemic trend. For example behaviors-- a lot of people think that their class has just one kid with some sort of behavior or emotional problem, and that's just bad luck and they hope the kid goes away. But it's actually a lot of classes that have that pure happenstance issue! It isn't rare at all! The current 7th grade cohort had that for many years. The current 6th grade cohort has had some very concerning incidents as well. The current 3rd grade cohort had that during ECE. The common thread here is that the school doesn't deal effectively with behavior, especially if it's special needs-related-- they'll hand out minor consequences, but actually ending the problem behaviors takes years if it happens at all.

The same goes for teacher turnover-- yes, there's a lot of teacher turnover nationwide lately, sure. But at ITDS there is plenty of it, and some of the new hires aren't so great. Sometimes there's a long-term sub for nearly a full year. It's hard to know where to draw the lines of bad luck/widespread trend/bad administration. But I'm not nearly so rosy-eyed as some ITDS parents are, who have a very hard time seeing ITDS falling short in any way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few thoughts from an ITDS parent:

1) It's no longer easy to get into Cooper and the new Cooper location is much farther from Two Rivers. So the impact of that will be mitigated. But I do think it's the case that the opening of Cooper affected Two Rivers at a time when it was already really struggling. Without the impact of Cooper it might have pulled out of a bad spiral. Who knows.

2) Seems like there's just massive attrition from elementary to middle school at Two Rivers. At ITDS there's a lot-- each year about 25-30% of the 5th grade class is new, and maybe 10-15% of the 6tth grade class. Middle school academics are just okay at ITDS, and behavior is also just okay. It's not like there aren't problems, it's just that ITDS families tend to stay if they don't get into Latin because they can't figure out anything that's better.

3) Looking at the Empower K12 dashboard, seems like TR test scores dropped significantly, especially at Young. Whether that's the result of attrition among higher-scoring kids or the result of worsening teaching, I do not know.

4) It's important to acknowledge highlights as well as lows, so I will say last year Two Rivers sent 15 kids to McKinley Tech and 10 to Banneker, as well as at least 1 each to Walls and Ellington. Well done!

This is nice but ignores the fact that TR actually has a ton of attrition from early to late elementary. It's not that families peel off at 5th or 6th. It's that they peel off starting in 2nd grade when they realize their kids math and ELA instruction is bad. Once you get through ECE and start focusing more on academics it starts to become more and more apparent that TR has few if any academic strengths. If you aren't willing to supplement in all areas then you have to accept below grade level achievement. Even if your kid is bright and catches on quickly -- a bright kid still can't learn if they aren't even getting the material they need in class.

So to answer your question: the declining test scores are the result of attrition among higher scoring kids. But it's important to understand that those kids are leaving because their families are tired of having to supplement so much to keep them learning. And I actually don't fault the teachers at TR -- I think they are doing the best they can but the curriculum sucks and administration has been middling to bad over the last 5 years. There is a lot of attrition in the teaching staff.

TR needs a new curriculum but I do not believe the organization as that willingness to let go of EL nor any idea how to replace it with something more sound. The writing has been on the wall for years but they keep digging in deeper and maintaining this "ra-ra we're awesome" ethos that covers up a host of issues. That's why people leave -- there's nothing to be gained in staying because if you suggest that anything needs to change you just get sympathetic nods and meaningless reassurance followed by defensiveness and stonewalling if you persist.

Well, my question is why did test scores decline relative to last year. Because the attrition is a longstanding trend at TR. Was there an unusually large amount of attrition?

The attrition is moving younger. People used to leave in 4th or 5th. Now they leave in 2nd and 3rd. This has a compounding effect because where you used to have more kids sticking around long enough to take PARCC/CAPE in 3rd and even 4th, now you don't and the kids testing are often either new to the school (and coming from schools with even weaker academics) or they are kids of parents who don't care so much about academic achievement and this don't leave even when their kid is a full grade or more behind in math and struggling with reading fluency.

Thank you for this answer, it is enlightening.

Is there any particular place TR families tend to go, or is it just a matter of lottery luck and preferences?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is absolutely wild to my aged, gray-haired self how the mighty TR, MV, and CMI have fallen from their former glory. I really don't know what happened. People seem more or less mostly satisfied-ish at ITDS and LAMB, so it's not a systemic explanation.

1. School starts off as hidden gem for in the know parents.
2. In the know parents tend to have smart kids, parents are engaged, kids do well
3. Knowledge of schools quality diffuses out, school becomes more sought after by broader mix of people.
4. Broader mix of people necessarily includes lower quality parents. Lottery insures their kids get in. Sibling preference means this process starts slow then speeds up.
5. School regresses as kid and family quality declines

Step 6, which to my knowledge hasn’t happened yet here, is school recovers as people leave for greener pastures and a new core of engaged parents who missed out on other schools comes in.

Certainly there are better prepared kids and families but “lower quality”?

Changing students and families doesn’t fully explain why some schools continue to do well or improve while others flounder. Your explanation suggests that the schools have no hand in the success of their students and program — everything is just dependent on which students show up.

While certainly it is true that children from wealthier, educated families tend to do well in school (especially test score wise), what the school does is also important. There are schools serving less wealthy/educated families that are improving performance among the students they serve.

I wanted to use low quality to capture that it’s not really income. It’s about parental investment, attention, and buy in, and especially around here that’s not necessarily correlated with income.

Also, I agree, you can have bad schools with invested parents, but good teachers and admin can’t save a school with a critical mass of indifferent, uninvested parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is absolutely wild to my aged, gray-haired self how the mighty TR, MV, and CMI have fallen from their former glory. I really don't know what happened. People seem more or less mostly satisfied-ish at ITDS and LAMB, so it's not a systemic explanation.

1. School starts off as hidden gem for in the know parents.
2. In the know parents tend to have smart kids, parents are engaged, kids do well
3. Knowledge of schools quality diffuses out, school becomes more sought after by broader mix of people.
4. Broader mix of people necessarily includes lower quality parents. Lottery insures their kids get in. Sibling preference means this process starts slow then speeds up.
5. School regresses as kid and family quality declines

Step 6, which to my knowledge hasn’t happened yet here, is school recovers as people leave for greener pastures and a new core of engaged parents who missed out on other schools comes in.

Certainly there are better prepared kids and families but “lower quality”?

Changing students and families doesn’t fully explain why some schools continue to do well or improve while others flounder. Your explanation suggests that the schools have no hand in the success of their students and program — everything is just dependent on which students show up.

While certainly it is true that children from wealthier, educated families tend to do well in school (especially test score wise), what the school does is also important. There are schools serving less wealthy/educated families that are improving performance among the students they serve.

I wanted to use low quality to capture that it’s not really income. It’s about parental investment, attention, and buy in, and especially around here that’s not necessarily correlated with income.

Also, I agree, you can have bad schools with invested parents, but good teachers and admin can’t save a school with a critical mass of indifferent, uninvested parents.

good teachers absolutely can “save” a school by actually teaching kids to read and do math. maybe not to the level the DCUM parents of “advanced children” demand, but there are absolutely better and worse teachers and curriculums. My impression is actually the opposite of yours: TR coasted for years on the backs of UMC parents who bought into the “my kid is smart - he’ll do well anywhere - we don’t care about academics.” That ran out of gas starting around 2016-2017 when people started paying attention to PARCC scores.