New to DCI-Anything we should know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCI views the “IB for all” as a feature but many view it as a bug. In trying to accommodate all learning levels it’s often the highest levels which are neglected. This is not a problem for many families but it is a problem for families with students capable of very high achievement. I think that’s the crux of the message of this thread.

+100. Exactly, well said. From what we gather, average IB points totals at DCI are in the low 30s, not too hot. In the burbs, they're higher. We want higher.

No they are not, maybe mid 30’s at best,

[Anonymous]

Give us an average points number for the class of 2022, preferably 2023, and evidence. Convenient to argue this when DCI doesn't publish IBD exam results and neither does Geneva HQ.

How much can you expect from DCI exam results when there are effectively no prerequisites for IBD classes in 11th and 12th grade and many of the DCI students who take IBD classes don't bother with the exams. In fact, most of the DCI "full Diploma" students don't bother to complete all their Diploma requirements. They don't see the point after having been admitted to college.

Iffy IBD program is right.

[Anonymous]

There just isn't a lot of accountability on the part of leaders of any of the 3 DC public schools IBD programs.

Last fall, I went to open houses for 4 area IBD programs, Richard Montgomery, Washington-Liberty, DCI and Banneker.

I learned the least about Diploma results at the DCI open house. Admins were really fudging the success of the program.

No data on exam results was provided at the DCI open house, not for IBD exams, or AP exams ("our students usually don't take them because they don't need to") or SATs either. Those in attendance were told exam results info was "internal and confidential."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There just isn't a lot of accountability on the part of leaders of any of the 3 DC public schools IBD programs.

Last fall, I went to open houses for 4 area IBD programs, Richard Montgomery, Washington-Liberty, DCI and Banneker.

I learned the least about Diploma results at the DCI open house. Admins were really fudging the success of the program.

No data on exam results was provided at the DCI open house, not for IBD exams, or AP exams ("our students usually don't take them because they don't need to") or SATs either. Those in attendance were told exam results info was "internal and confidential."

Very interesting. That tells parents with high-achieving kids everything they need to know.

Nothing prevents DCI from publicizing their exam results. The fact that DCI is telling prospective students that IB, AP, and SAT scores are "internal and confidential" means that they are embarrassed by them. We can only assume that the results are consistent with DCI's PARCC scores, which are public. Those show that most 9th graders at DCI are below grade level in math and English. This is after they have been at DCI for a few years, so you can't blame the feeders.

Compare WIS, which puts exam results on their website. For example, last year WIS had an average IB score of 35, with 18.75% achieving 40 or above. Their numbers were well above global averages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There just isn't a lot of accountability on the part of leaders of any of the 3 DC public schools IBD programs.

Last fall, I went to open houses for 4 area IBD programs, Richard Montgomery, Washington-Liberty, DCI and Banneker.

I learned the least about Diploma results at the DCI open house. Admins were really fudging the success of the program.

No data on exam results was provided at the DCI open house, not for IBD exams, or AP exams ("our students usually don't take them because they don't need to") or SATs either. Those in attendance were told exam results info was "internal and confidential."

Very interesting. That tells parents with high-achieving kids everything they need to know.

Nothing prevents DCI from publicizing their exam results. The fact that DCI is telling prospective students that IB, AP, and SAT scores are "internal and confidential" means that they are embarrassed by them. We can only assume that the results are consistent with DCI's PARCC scores, which are public. Those show that most 9th graders at DCI are below grade level in math and English. This is after they have been at DCI for a few years, so you can't blame the feeders.

Compare WIS, which puts exam results on their website. For example, last year WIS had an average IB score of 35, with 18.75% achieving 40 or above. Their numbers were well above global averages.

It’s amazing all the people on here who don’t have kids at the school thinking they know anything.

DCI averages are usually low 30’s, just 2 or 3 points most from WIS. WIS is not well above the global average which was 32 in 20002. From that global average the overwhelming number of schools worldwide are private or self select. So if you want to pay 50k a year for 6-12th for 2-3 points higher that’s your prerogative.

The averages in the IB programs which also self select in the burbs are around low to mid 30’s at best.

So taking everything into context, DCI is doing a good job with their IB average from a school that takes all which is rare for IB. If you do well and score high, you will stand out from IB pack crowd in college admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You must not have earned an IB Diploma like my spouse and I did, although we grew up in working-class immigrant families. We were first gen college students and are POC. The reality is that the European IBD was never meant for all. Thank goodness or we would never have made it to Ivies. We like the “elitism” of IBD done right for all the students who are cut out for the rigor, particularly low-income URM teens. From where we sit DCI’s IB egalitarianism is well-intentioned BS. Several under-performing public school IBD program in one urban school system is a couple too many. Eastern, Banneker and DCI all run iffy IB programs and seem set on continuing to do so.

+ a million. Could not agree with this more!

jesus christ. GO ALREADY!!! Get off the DCI threads. Live your best elitist life and may your kids become the product of your insufferable snobbery and exclusive attitudes. No one wants people like you at a school that believes in social justice and equity for all. Why are you so awful? Oh, and my DCI IB kid is THRIVING at an Ivy. I bet that just salts your undies.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand why people who either left DCI or never sent kids there in the first place are even on this thread. What’s your point? It doesn’t appear that OP is asking WHETHER to send her kid there - she’s already decided. So why not help integrate her instead of alienate her? If it ends up that the school doesn’t work for her, she will figure it out soon enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There just isn't a lot of accountability on the part of leaders of any of the 3 DC public schools IBD programs.

Last fall, I went to open houses for 4 area IBD programs, Richard Montgomery, Washington-Liberty, DCI and Banneker.

I learned the least about Diploma results at the DCI open house. Admins were really fudging the success of the program.

No data on exam results was provided at the DCI open house, not for IBD exams, or AP exams ("our students usually don't take them because they don't need to") or SATs either. Those in attendance were told exam results info was "internal and confidential."

Very interesting. That tells parents with high-achieving kids everything they need to know.

Nothing prevents DCI from publicizing their exam results. The fact that DCI is telling prospective students that IB, AP, and SAT scores are "internal and confidential" means that they are embarrassed by them. We can only assume that the results are consistent with DCI's PARCC scores, which are public. Those show that most 9th graders at DCI are below grade level in math and English. This is after they have been at DCI for a few years, so you can't blame the feeders.

Compare WIS, which puts exam results on their website. For example, last year WIS had an average IB score of 35, with 18.75% achieving 40 or above. Their numbers were well above global averages.

It’s amazing all the people on here who don’t have kids at the school thinking they know anything.

DCI averages are usually low 30’s, just 2 or 3 points most from WIS. WIS is not well above the global average which was 32 in 20002. From that global average the overwhelming number of schools worldwide are private or self select. So if you want to pay 50k a year for 6-12th for 2-3 points higher that’s your prerogative.

The averages in the IB programs which also self select in the burbs are around low to mid 30’s at best.

So taking everything into context, DCI is doing a good job with their IB average from a school that takes all which is rare for IB. If you do well and score high, you will stand out from IB pack crowd in college admissions.

The WIS results are below. They do seem well above the global average.

Feel free to post the DCI results for comparison. Oh...wait...they are "internal and confidential." In fact, we know anecdotally that they are well below the global average.

I guess it is you who "know[s] nothing."

2022 WIS IB RESULTS: A SNAPSHOT

WIS Average 35 (world 32)
Scores of 40 or above (45 max) 18.75% (world 14.36%)
Candidate Pass Rate 97% (world 86%)
Bilingual Diplomas 67% (world 28%)
Average Subject Score 5.53 (world 4.96)
WIS Percent 6s and 7s 53%

[Anonymous]

The point is that, looking in front the outside, it’s impossible to tell if DCI is in fact doing a good job without hard data. OP should know that. In our experience, school leaders aren’t even willing willing to tell prospective parents which percentage of seniors earn the Diploma each summer. They also won’t tell you what their annual Diploma points total range is or what mean and medium pass points totals they’re seeing. Admins reflexively boast that DCI grads go on to “Ivy League and other top colleges” to distract you from your frustration that no stats on IBD are being made available to the public and leave things at that. Ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There just isn't a lot of accountability on the part of leaders of any of the 3 DC public schools IBD programs.

Last fall, I went to open houses for 4 area IBD programs, Richard Montgomery, Washington-Liberty, DCI and Banneker.

I learned the least about Diploma results at the DCI open house. Admins were really fudging the success of the program.

No data on exam results was provided at the DCI open house, not for IBD exams, or AP exams ("our students usually don't take them because they don't need to") or SATs either. Those in attendance were told exam results info was "internal and confidential."

Very interesting. That tells parents with high-achieving kids everything they need to know.

Nothing prevents DCI from publicizing their exam results. The fact that DCI is telling prospective students that IB, AP, and SAT scores are "internal and confidential" means that they are embarrassed by them. We can only assume that the results are consistent with DCI's PARCC scores, which are public. Those show that most 9th graders at DCI are below grade level in math and English. This is after they have been at DCI for a few years, so you can't blame the feeders.

Compare WIS, which puts exam results on their website. For example, last year WIS had an average IB score of 35, with 18.75% achieving 40 or above. Their numbers were well above global averages.

It’s amazing all the people on here who don’t have kids at the school thinking they know anything.

DCI averages are usually low 30’s, just 2 or 3 points most from WIS. WIS is not well above the global average which was 32 in 20002. From that global average the overwhelming number of schools worldwide are private or self select. So if you want to pay 50k a year for 6-12th for 2-3 points higher that’s your prerogative.

The averages in the IB programs which also self select in the burbs are around low to mid 30’s at best.

So taking everything into context, DCI is doing a good job with their IB average from a school that takes all which is rare for IB. If you do well and score high, you will stand out from IB pack crowd in college admissions.

The WIS results are below. They do seem well above the global average.

Feel free to post the DCI results for comparison. Oh...wait...they are "internal and confidential." In fact, we know anecdotally that they are well below the global average.

I guess it is you who "know[s] nothing."

2022 WIS IB RESULTS: A SNAPSHOT

WIS Average 35 (world 32)
Scores of 40 or above (45 max) 18.75% (world 14.36%)
Candidate Pass Rate 97% (world 86%)
Bilingual Diplomas 67% (world 28%)
Average Subject Score 5.53 (world 4.96)
WIS Percent 6s and 7s 53%

Sorry but you are an idiot if you think 35 is well above 32 and that’s what I said.

You don’t know anything about the average of DCI and have no kid at the school.

Guess the 1/2 million plus you are spending at WIS isn’t enough to make you happy there to continue trolling the DCI thread.

[Anonymous]

If a kid is not going to an ivy, does an IB diploma really matter? Seriously asking. I’m low on waitlist and could honestly care less about IB diploma. It was not a factor in wanting to lottery into DCI.

[Anonymous]

Apparently, IB Diploma doesn't matter to most DCI stakeholders. If it mattered, current and prospective parents and DCI board members would be non-plussed by the way DCI hides its Diploma results from the public, driving change.

IB Diploma should matter, for the simple reason that the IBD curriculum is a global curriculum. There's no good way of measuring how DCI measures up as an IB World School in the city, the region, the country and internationally without public access to DCI's IBD stats.

Where's the accountability if DCI can keep its IBD results under wraps indefinitely? For example, the lack of tracking in all core subjects but math in the DCI middle school can be more easily downplayed as a problem for high achievers if Diploma results aren't made public than if they are.

I note that Arlington's one county middle school with IB Middle Years curriculum recently moved from tracking only in math to tracking in all core subjects in 7th and 8th grades in response to pressure from stakeholders to improve IBD results at Washington-Liberty. The high school's IBD results show that Arlington IBD had fallen behind MoCo and Fairfax, with their extensive MS tracking, in the last decade. Arlington ed stakeholders pushed for middle school tracking over a number of years and got it, not just at the IB Middle Years school but county-wide. In that case, IBD data proved a v useful tool politically.

[Anonymous]

In what universe does it make sense to compare WIS and DCI? This thread has really gone overboard.

[Anonymous]

Most DC families aren't going to DCI to get an IB Diploma. Get that into your thick skull.

[Anonymous]

This thread has been telling. Sounds like families who care a lot about the IB Diploma consider not sending their kid to DCI or leaving by high school. Families who don’t care very much about the diploma, or don’t mind their kid not scoring very high on IB exams, are happy with DCI. No doubt there are some families aiming high at DCI, but it doesn’t sound like that is the “norm” or the culture of the school (at least not yet).