test-in dcps middle school?

[Anonymous]

Call it as you want it to be... Test-in really means keep out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Call it as you want it to be... Test-in really means keep out.

And that's the bottom line.

When 80% of your school system is below basic proficiency, the crabs are always going to pull the achievers back into the pot. This is the same mentality that sees an influx of middle-class taxpaying residents into the city and sees it as a great injustice because "some are being left behind."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:good luck testing into Stuyvessant if you haven't either come from the "right" middle school or the right "cram school" for prep

Stuyvesant graduate here...no fancy feeder school or private school. Just regular old PS 189 - and many other like me in our graduating class. We did look at old tests for prep at my public school but that's really it. My niece and nephew are still in NY and they also just went to regular public schools and both are at magnets.

As a DC parent, I am baffled by why we can't just have some magnet schools like that in DC. I know parent input and tutoring skew the balance toward those with means or will.... but that's life in general with anything competitive. Quality public education in DC is so much luck and chance and charter school pixie dust....oi!

[Anonymous]

this is the thing--if you did some testing or competitive application at the end of elementary school there would still be some kids who would be eligible to go even from the worst schools (esp. if you did a broad cutoff and then lotteried after that or did top 5% of students from each school as an alternative). waiting til high school makes it impossible for those children.

-signed, person from asian country where poor parents were able to go to great schools and college because of testing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Call it as you want it to be... Test-in really means keep out.

And that's the bottom line.

When 80% of your school system is below basic proficiency, the crabs are always going to pull the achievers back into the pot. This is the same mentality that sees an influx of middle-class taxpaying residents into the city and sees it as a great injustice because "some are being left behind."

why should smart kids who are zoned for Wilson arrive unprepared to take AP classes because they were not zoned for Deal? Why should smart 5th graders be unable to go to Banneker or SWW because their MS is crappy. There are a lot of smart black and hispanic kids who are getting screwed because they are poor and there is no test in middle school that will teach them the math and English that they need in MS to do something, somewhere, for high school. A whole cadre of kids is being cheated every year, and these are some of the kids DCPS absolutely should not fail.

[Anonymous]

Test in MSs that pull the top X% of students from each ES or ward may be an attractive option. Gets around the argument that this is just a device for wealthier / white folk to secure a bigger slice of public resources.

[Anonymous]

While it might skew high-SES, there will also be plenty of low-SES kids who can and will make the cut. So why deny the low-SES kids the opportunity also? Seems like cutting your own nose off to spite your face.

And also, how would a test in school get a bigger slice? There's no inherent greater cost in running a test-in school - and in fact potentially LESS as the test-in group will probably also have less overhead in terms of disciplinary issues, special needs, et cetera - the areas that do rack up significant costs.

[Anonymous]

I think you could also consider a strong curriculum in lieu of test in situations. Like the IB middle years for middle school. Everybody would get a chance but maybe not all would want to do it in the end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While it might skew high-SES, there will also be plenty of low-SES kids who can and will make the cut. So why deny the low-SES kids the opportunity also? Seems like cutting your own nose off to spite your face.

And also, how would a test in school get a bigger slice? There's no inherent greater cost in running a test-in school - and in fact potentially LESS as the test-in group will probably also have less overhead in terms of disciplinary issues, special needs, et cetera - the areas that do rack up significant costs.

But what if there weren't? Do you think the powers that be in DC would let this happen? DC has the largest black/white performance gap of any place in the nation based on many different tests. Any reasonably difficult test would skew very heavily white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a problem in DC as well. Only a few middle schools have the appropriate coursework to make a student eligible for the competitive high schools. And those middle schools are neighborhood schools which restrict enrollment to a certain geographic area unless you are lucky in a lottery. Completely unjust and unfair. Test-in middle schools would be more fair by testing academic aptitude rather than just achievement

Technically, no. Students will come out of Latin, Basis, Kipp, and Howard Math/Science equally prepared.

Disagree because, in most cases, high SES plus good school trumps low SES plus good school. Too many kids needing remedial work are in classes at all these schools for the best students to be as well prepared as those at Deal. The only real differentiation on the list is for math at BASIS. And even the strongest Deal kids aren't keeping up the MS test-in magnet crowed in Fairfax and MoCo.

My son is at Deal. It's every bit as good as my older son who went to middle in Bethesda. What makes you think it's not? Your friends? I hate when posters just throw out opinion. If your snowflake is brilliant, they'll do great where ever they go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While it might skew high-SES, there will also be plenty of low-SES kids who can and will make the cut. So why deny the low-SES kids the opportunity also? Seems like cutting your own nose off to spite your face.

And also, how would a test in school get a bigger slice? There's no inherent greater cost in running a test-in school - and in fact potentially LESS as the test-in group will probably also have less overhead in terms of disciplinary issues, special needs, et cetera - the areas that do rack up significant costs.

But what if there weren't? Do you think the powers that be in DC would let this happen? DC has the largest black/white performance gap of any place in the nation based on many different tests. Any reasonably difficult test would skew very heavily white.

Then isn't this blatant discrimination against whites?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think application middle schools that would follow the application high schools like Banneker, SWW or Ellington would be a great idea. They would have to be smaller than their HS counterparts, so 8th graders who did not attend one of the magnets could still have opportunity to apply to the HS. There's no reason not to have these options in MS and only in HS.

Yes, there is. Or at least there is an argument for it. The argument is that students develop at their own pace, often even on different trajectories in reading and math. This is why there is no separation in elementary school. You'll hear countless stories of students who did so-so in elementary but all of a sudden 'got it' in middle. And the reverse, of students who aren't getting it in elementary but then suddenly do in middle school. Add to that the often different developments in reading and math, and you can easily see that separating students at age 10 into 'you get it' and 'you don't so much' may not serve most students well. European models doing just that are heavily debated and have struggled to develop pathways to cross over.
IMHO, if some sort of separation is called for at that age, a much more promising model for middle school is the differentiation or tracking under one and the same roof, so that students can enroll in regular or advanced options flexibly. Some may be consistently advanced on all subjects, others only in some subjects; some may start off regular, then move on to advanced, and vice versa. You'll find this practiced in various forms at Stuart-Hobson and Hardy, and Deal also I believe. It can be a little confusing to investigate it all because of a flux in terminology, some politically accepted and some not so much. And you'll want to check what's truly behind it, whether they are models in name only or also in practice.

I really strongly agree with the approach above. If we have a school that serves advanced kids there has to be a way for kids to move in and out. I don't know if there are examples of this in other jurisdictions. While Deal does track in math, our experience has been that the teachers do push those kids who are more advanced in other courses. I don't understand why folks are so adamant that it has to be separate. Another gift from Dr. Kim who showed that it is possible to serve all levels of learners in one classroom. Folks forget that Deal's turnaround was not made completely on the backs of high SES kids - those families weren't attending Deal to the degree they are now when she started.

[Anonymous]

Pp^^ sorry but you are very much out of touch with the rest of your city. Deal could ONLY happen because of its wealthy, well-educated inboundary population and then the addition of Dr. Kim and the IB MYP program. And yes, we undertand that the neighborhood was not embracing Deal until recently. but the base of a highly educated inboundary population along with functional feeder schools is THE key to whatwvwr happened at Deal. This can't be ignored when you start offering your opinion on what should happen in the rest of the city.

There is no other school ( Hardy maybe? ) that shares this critical element. Stuart Hobson has no real boundary population ( it is tiny ) and relies on a feeder system is somewhat uneven.

[Anonymous]

Educating everyone in the same classroom is possible when there are very few students way behind ( like at Deal ). But it is the opposite scenario in the rest of the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:this is the thing--if you did some testing or competitive application at the end of elementary school there would still be some kids who would be eligible to go even from the worst schools (esp. if you did a broad cutoff and then lotteried after that or did top 5% of students from each school as an alternative). waiting til high school makes it impossible for those children.

-signed, person from asian country where poor parents were able to go to great schools and college because of testing

Yes testing, constant testing is part of the Asian system, but very few parents, white or black would tolerate what Asian parents put there kids through. Maybe the parents at Basis. Personally after reading Amanda Riply's book I can see why it makes sense to do that level of rigorous testing, but I can't imagine it happening. Can you imagine a situation where every test has the grades ranked for each child with their name in public? Parents could not cope with the humiliation of that failure. First we would need to stop giving trophies for just playing and saying good job for everything. Too big a challenge. No matter what the issue is the weak elementrys, you can do another high functioning Deal if you have strong elementary schools. Some of the issue is poverty, but it is also getting richer more focused curriculum.