Why are Whitman's English Scores So Bad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a popular school district with embassy, World Bank, and IMF workers so not as many native English speakers compared to some other W schools.

LOL.. Whitman ESOL rate < 5%, average ELA 2.5. RMHS ESOL rate about 9%, average ELA score of 3.2.

You are saying the tiny % of ESOL students at Whitman are dragging down the ELA score at Whitman more than the much bigger (and poorer) ESOL students at RM?

yes

See 9:12. In my former job, one of the supervisors shared ESSA's calculation methods. I am not a math person, but the dumbed down version illustrated the concept of how the "few" can affect the whole.

I personally think ESSA will change or even go - like PARCC, but there's a tiny part of me that likes watching some of these schools suffer. You don't change until you feel some pain. Challenging schools have been punished enough. It's time to level the playing field.

Clearly. But common sense should tell you that a school with a *MUCH* higher % of ESOL and FARMS student will drag down the scores MUCH more than a school with a tiny % of said population. Yet, Whitman has an ELA score of 2.5, while RM has a score of 3.2. Something is wrong at Whitman if their ELA score is *that* low compared to a high FARM/ESOL school like RM.

RM's FARMS rate is about 20% according to the MCPS school at a glance fact sheet. It is NOT a "high FARM school"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a popular school district with embassy, World Bank, and IMF workers so not as many native English speakers compared to some other W schools.

LOL.. Whitman ESOL rate < 5%, average ELA 2.5. RMHS ESOL rate about 9%, average ELA score of 3.2.

You are saying the tiny % of ESOL students at Whitman are dragging down the ELA score at Whitman more than the much bigger (and poorer) ESOL students at RM?

yes

See 9:12. In my former job, one of the supervisors shared ESSA's calculation methods. I am not a math person, but the dumbed down version illustrated the concept of how the "few" can affect the whole.

I personally think ESSA will change or even go - like PARCC, but there's a tiny part of me that likes watching some of these schools suffer. You don't change until you feel some pain. Challenging schools have been punished enough. It's time to level the playing field.

Clearly. But common sense should tell you that a school with a *MUCH* higher % of ESOL and FARMS student will drag down the scores MUCH more than a school with a tiny % of said population. Yet, Whitman has an ELA score of 2.5, while RM has a score of 3.2. Something is wrong at Whitman if their ELA score is *that* low compared to a high FARM/ESOL school like RM.

RM's FARMS rate is about 20% according to the MCPS school at a glance fact sheet. It is NOT a "high FARM school"

It's MUCH higher than Whitman. That was the point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wasn't the official story that Whitman kids blew off the test since it meant nothing to them personally...used the time to study for AP exams?

Shouldn't that apply to the math scores as well, then?

I love the excuses, though. If non W schools have poor test scores that can't be because some kids blew off the test, but if W schools did, then it must be because they blew off the test.

This is very similar to if kids in poorer schools act up, it's due to terrible parenting, but if W kids act up, then it's because the kid has some SN.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a popular school district with embassy, World Bank, and IMF workers so not as many native English speakers compared to some other W schools.

LOL.. Whitman ESOL rate < 5%, average ELA 2.5. RMHS ESOL rate about 9%, average ELA score of 3.2.

You are saying the tiny % of ESOL students at Whitman are dragging down the ELA score at Whitman more than the much bigger (and poorer) ESOL students at RM?

yes

See 9:12. In my former job, one of the supervisors shared ESSA's calculation methods. I am not a math person, but the dumbed down version illustrated the concept of how the "few" can affect the whole.

I personally think ESSA will change or even go - like PARCC, but there's a tiny part of me that likes watching some of these schools suffer. You don't change until you feel some pain. Challenging schools have been punished enough. It's time to level the playing field.

So, I think you are wrong here, or at least misunderstanding OP's point. Yes, the "score" of any given school can be impacted if they are failing to serve their highest needs students. So, if a low-income kid of color does worse at Whitman than a similar kid at RM, then it will hurt Whitman's point score.

However, OP wasn't looking at Whitman's "score." They were looking at Whitman's rate of proficiency. That's not a score. That's a percentage of kids achieving proficiency on a certain metric. Whitman does terribly if you look at that metric, which should give any parent pause.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most W's perform poorly when you factor for demographics as a proxy for SES of the surrounding community.

Given the demographics and FARMs rate, I'd think Whitman would do better.

[Anonymous]

Whitman scores high on other metrics such as SATs, AP scores etc but IMO that doesn't give them a pass for not passing the PARCC ELA. Kids at Wootton, Churchill, Poolesville or WJ took them same test and did well. Whitman is now wealthier than Churchill and far, far wealthier than Wootton or Poolesville.

[Anonymous]

I thought the tanking the test story was from the prior year? Did they do it again this year? And how does that explain the high score in math?

[Anonymous]

That's bizarre. BCC and Walter Johnson have scores that are more than twice as high for English than Whitman does. Wootton is 3x higher.

[Anonymous]

Who has time to prep for MAP and PARCC tests between all their AP homework, hockey practices, volunteer work, internship at the NIH, and tests for actual grades.

Parcc test is for obama’s Common core fed funds. Nothing to do with Whitman. Money goes to title 1. Now back to practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wasn't the official story that Whitman kids blew off the test since it meant nothing to them personally...used the time to study for AP exams?

Shouldn't that apply to the math scores as well, then?

I love the excuses, though. If non W schools have poor test scores that can't be because some kids blew off the test, but if W schools did, then it must be because they blew off the test.

This is very similar to if kids in poorer schools act up, it's due to terrible parenting, but if W kids act up, then it's because the kid has some SN.

This is the first totally c2.0 cohort to do the testing. Only the kids who got parental help or tutors filling the curriculum holes will do well.
Enjoy!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wasn't the official story that Whitman kids blew off the test since it meant nothing to them personally...used the time to study for AP exams?

Shouldn't that apply to the math scores as well, then?

I love the excuses, though. If non W schools have poor test scores that can't be because some kids blew off the test, but if W schools did, then it must be because they blew off the test.

This is very similar to if kids in poorer schools act up, it's due to terrible parenting, but if W kids act up, then it's because the kid has some SN.

This is the first totally c2.0 cohort to do the testing. Only the kids who got parental help or tutors filling the curriculum holes will do well.
Enjoy!

So, you're saying that Whitman kids don't get tutored but the parents of the other schools, including QO and RM, tutor their kids? No.. I don't think so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who has time to prep for MAP and PARCC tests between all their AP homework, hockey practices, volunteer work, internship at the NIH, and tests for actual grades.

Parcc test is for obama’s Common core fed funds. Nothing to do with Whitman. Money goes to title 1. Now back to practice.

No one really preps for MAP or PARCC. How do you explain how the math score at Whitman is fine, but not ELA?

Face it... there is something wrong at Whitman.

[Anonymous]

It’s because the test doesn’t count for their grades so a bunch of selfish, entitled kids blew it off. The math PARCC was required for graduation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s because the test doesn’t count for their grades so a bunch of selfish, entitled kids blew it off. The math PARCC was required for graduation.

Why are they selfish and entitled because they didn’t push themselves for yet another test, one that doesn’t matter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s because the test doesn’t count for their grades so a bunch of selfish, entitled kids blew it off. The math PARCC was required for graduation.

You only need to pass PARCC Alg., and I'm going to assume that most of the Whitman student body takes Algebra in MS, not in HS. So, still doesn't make sense that math PARCC scores are higher than ELA.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/parcc/faqs.aspx

This school year (2016-2017), your high school-aged child is required to pass the PARCC Algebra and/or English Language Arts/Literacy Grade 10 assessments. These two assessments plus the Government and Biology HSAs, are the four assessments that make up the Maryland High School Assessment (MHSA) program. High school students must pass these assessments, in addition to course credits and Student Service Learning hours, in order to receive a Maryland high school diploma.