Current experience at Stuart Hobson?

[Anonymous]

more tracking at SH, EH, and John Francis would create buy in fast. the current situation is somewhere in between rainbows and completely unworkable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Eastern is not a dystopian hellscape. Let’s all sign our kids up!”

I mean - I’ve recently reconnected with a bunch of friends from HS. Some extremely accomplished but with lasting emotional scars from being pushed by their parents. But we all have the same memory of how unstressful and fun high school was despite anything personal we had going on. It’s really been something on my mind lately - at the risk of sounding arrogant I know my kid is very smart and will make is way in the knowledge economy. I’m more concerned with the values he learns, how he makes friends, handles different kinds of people, and all of that. Am I saying we will choose Eastern? Definitely not with any kind of assurance. But I can think of way worse outcomes than a “less rigorous” HS experience.

The problem is that the "less rigorous" schools in DCPS are actually not adequate to prepare a kid for college. I think fewer than 20 percent of students who graduate from DCPS end up graduating from college. These schools are just so far from the Palo Alto/Fairfax County suburban pressure cookers.

I sent my kids to Title 1 elementary schools and was happy as a clam for years, but when we hit middle school, i somehow woke up. There is a narrow path to success in DC, and if you want your kid to be even remotely competitive with their peers around the country, you do need to send them to the best middle and high schools in the city that you can find (NONE of which are at all comparable to the best high schools in suburban districts, but a handful of which are good enough.)

There are so many moving parts and variables in this thread. Some of the things being said about suburban schools might be accurate but there are also other very specific and different reasons for test scores, graduation rates etc that that are not directly linked to the instruction in high school. Not saying that they aren't significant and shouldn't be addressed but it is very much an issue of correlation vs. causation.
And to the most recent poster, this doesn't need to turn into an EH or SH bashing thread. There are families at these schools who chose the school and are happy there and doing well. Totally other elephant in the room is the achievement gaps between various subgroups. A prior poster already mentioned how unhelpful it is to judge an entire school on a few data points. I agree with this for multiple reasons - one being that there is more to measure at a school that can't be captured by data, but separately the data gets really skewed and not as useful.

No matter what the reason for test scores, the data is there. Abysmal 20% only of DCPS kids graduates from college. I suspect a large part of that 20% are kids from JR. So that leaves an even significantly lower percentage from the rest of the whole city. This in itself says that kids are not prepared for college and PP is right.

DCPS tries to frame things so it doesn’t look so bad. I think they say that 80% of their kids go to college. What they don’t say is lots of kids drop out and don’t finish. Thus the 20%

BTW, I don’t know why people say SH has any high critical number of high achieving kids when only 2% of their kids are above grade level in math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Eastern is not a dystopian hellscape. Let’s all sign our kids up!”

I mean - I’ve recently reconnected with a bunch of friends from HS. Some extremely accomplished but with lasting emotional scars from being pushed by their parents. But we all have the same memory of how unstressful and fun high school was despite anything personal we had going on. It’s really been something on my mind lately - at the risk of sounding arrogant I know my kid is very smart and will make is way in the knowledge economy. I’m more concerned with the values he learns, how he makes friends, handles different kinds of people, and all of that. Am I saying we will choose Eastern? Definitely not with any kind of assurance. But I can think of way worse outcomes than a “less rigorous” HS experience.

The problem is that the "less rigorous" schools in DCPS are actually not adequate to prepare a kid for college. I think fewer than 20 percent of students who graduate from DCPS end up graduating from college. These schools are just so far from the Palo Alto/Fairfax County suburban pressure cookers.

I sent my kids to Title 1 elementary schools and was happy as a clam for years, but when we hit middle school, i somehow woke up. There is a narrow path to success in DC, and if you want your kid to be even remotely competitive with their peers around the country, you do need to send them to the best middle and high schools in the city that you can find (NONE of which are at all comparable to the best high schools in suburban districts, but a handful of which are good enough.)

There are so many moving parts and variables in this thread. Some of the things being said about suburban schools might be accurate but there are also other very specific and different reasons for test scores, graduation rates etc that that are not directly linked to the instruction in high school. Not saying that they aren't significant and shouldn't be addressed but it is very much an issue of correlation vs. causation.
And to the most recent poster, this doesn't need to turn into an EH or SH bashing thread. There are families at these schools who chose the school and are happy there and doing well. Totally other elephant in the room is the achievement gaps between various subgroups. A prior poster already mentioned how unhelpful it is to judge an entire school on a few data points. I agree with this for multiple reasons - one being that there is more to measure at a school that can't be captured by data, but separately the data gets really skewed and not as useful.

No matter what the reason for test scores, the data is there. Abysmal 20% only of DCPS kids graduates from college. I suspect a large part of that 20% are kids from JR. So that leaves an even significantly lower percentage from the rest of the whole city. This in itself says that kids are not prepared for college and PP is right.

DCPS tries to frame things so it doesn’t look so bad. I think they say that 80% of their kids go to college. What they don’t say is lots of kids drop out and don’t finish. Thus the 20%

BTW, I don’t know why people say SH has any high critical number of high achieving kids when only 2% of their kids are above grade level in math.

You have JR, Walls, and Banneker are likely the ones making the most if that 20% if I had to guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is now at both EH and SH approximately 30 students in each grade who get 4s and 5s on the CAPE math test. That is a cohort. Is Latin better? Most would say yes and especially yes if you care about having a decent high school locked in. But it is also now a very difficult lottery spot to land. Is Hardy better? Most would say yes but it is also a pretty lengthy daily commute from the eastern side of the city even with a lottery spot. Basis is pretty controversial - and the 5th grade waitlist movement and 7th-9th grade attrition there both speak to that. I think its increasingly common to not get into Latin, turn down Basis, and try a Hill area dcps middle school.

Sorry but 30 students who are grade level and above is good?? Grade level is the floor. Please let us know how many kids at SH and EH actually are above grade level. 4 or 5?

[Anonymous]

30 students per grade who are getting 4+ on PARCC/CAPE math is relatively good yes.

[Anonymous]

deal, hardy, latin, basis, and dci have a larger cohort of students scoring 4s and 5s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:deal, hardy, latin, basis, and dci have a larger cohort of students scoring 4s and 5s.

I appreciate the goal posts, they’re moving so quickly!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is now at both EH and SH approximately 30 students in each grade who get 4s and 5s on the CAPE math test. That is a cohort. Is Latin better? Most would say yes and especially yes if you care about having a decent high school locked in. But it is also now a very difficult lottery spot to land. Is Hardy better? Most would say yes but it is also a pretty lengthy daily commute from the eastern side of the city even with a lottery spot. Basis is pretty controversial - and the 5th grade waitlist movement and 7th-9th grade attrition there both speak to that. I think its increasingly common to not get into Latin, turn down Basis, and try a Hill area dcps middle school.

Sorry but 30 students who are grade level and above is good?? Grade level is the floor. Please let us know how many kids at SH and EH actually are above grade level. 4 or 5?

The data works out to about 3 kids who are above grade level.

Summary, there are no cohort of high performing kids in math at either schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:more tracking at SH, EH, and John Francis would create buy in fast. the current situation is somewhere in between rainbows and completely unworkable.

If Francis had tracking in more/all subjects, we would have gone there (over BASIS) very very happily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is now at both EH and SH approximately 30 students in each grade who get 4s and 5s on the CAPE math test. That is a cohort. Is Latin better? Most would say yes and especially yes if you care about having a decent high school locked in. But it is also now a very difficult lottery spot to land. Is Hardy better? Most would say yes but it is also a pretty lengthy daily commute from the eastern side of the city even with a lottery spot. Basis is pretty controversial - and the 5th grade waitlist movement and 7th-9th grade attrition there both speak to that. I think its increasingly common to not get into Latin, turn down Basis, and try a Hill area dcps middle school.

Sorry but 30 students who are grade level and above is good?? Grade level is the floor. Please let us know how many kids at SH and EH actually are above grade level. 4 or 5?

The data works out to about 3 kids who are above grade level.

Summary, there are no cohort of high performing kids in math at either schools.

Not sure where you are getting the 3 from?
For the sake of all the children in DC (not my own) do I wish they were all on grade level? Yes - bc it would positively impact their future academic years and beyond.
In the end of the day there seems to be two camps of people on this forum who have different perspectives/approaches to education, and like our super polarized world it seems like there is it is hard to get people to see their other perspective.
I will say two things (that I think have already been said...) My experience being at one of those two schools is that the teachers don't lower expectations, sadly some students do not complete or submit all assignments, but the essays, science projects, math tests, novels read, etc - they are on level and challenging. I am sure there are a lot of reasons why some work is not completed (absenteeism, missing some foundational skills etc) and that needs to be addressed to help those kids be successful, but it does not impact the quality of work/assignments the other kids are completing.
Second, and this seems really controversial on here for some reason, but it is really not helpful to define a whole school by looking at one CAPE/PARCC test score. Sure, it's all we have so I get why people look at it, and it does highlight overall trends and gaps, but for anybody who has worked in or is aware of what goes on in a school, it is far far far from an accurate way to capture what kids are actually learning/doing in a school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is now at both EH and SH approximately 30 students in each grade who get 4s and 5s on the CAPE math test. That is a cohort. Is Latin better? Most would say yes and especially yes if you care about having a decent high school locked in. But it is also now a very difficult lottery spot to land. Is Hardy better? Most would say yes but it is also a pretty lengthy daily commute from the eastern side of the city even with a lottery spot. Basis is pretty controversial - and the 5th grade waitlist movement and 7th-9th grade attrition there both speak to that. I think its increasingly common to not get into Latin, turn down Basis, and try a Hill area dcps middle school.

Sorry but 30 students who are grade level and above is good?? Grade level is the floor. Please let us know how many kids at SH and EH actually are above grade level. 4 or 5?

4 is grade level in CAPE; 5 is above grade level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is now at both EH and SH approximately 30 students in each grade who get 4s and 5s on the CAPE math test. That is a cohort. Is Latin better? Most would say yes and especially yes if you care about having a decent high school locked in. But it is also now a very difficult lottery spot to land. Is Hardy better? Most would say yes but it is also a pretty lengthy daily commute from the eastern side of the city even with a lottery spot. Basis is pretty controversial - and the 5th grade waitlist movement and 7th-9th grade attrition there both speak to that. I think its increasingly common to not get into Latin, turn down Basis, and try a Hill area dcps middle school.

No. That is only a cohort if the students are tracked, which DCPS absolutely refuses to do. The reality is, in a classroom at EH, more than 80% of students are going to be below grade level.

is this the point when I say my kid is smart and advantaged enough that I don’t think being around less privileged kids as a 12 yr old will threaten his future?

It's not about "being around less privileged" kids. It's that when you are in a class where the kids are so below grade level at the middle school level, the teacher actually has to change the standards of the class to meet the bottom -- no homework and very low expectations. Because DCPS teachers are not really allowed to fail kids. So the kids are the top are not held to high expectations either, even though they could all handle it.

BASIS works because they actually do fail kids out and so they can keep high standards. Latin and Deal and Hardy work because they have a critical mass of proficient kids, so they can raise the standards for everyone.

This is not as much of an issue in elementary school, when teachers can create "small groups" within the class. It becomes a huge issue in middle school.

my kid is learning and not getting stupider, and also very happy, and the EH teachers are responsive, and he’s having fun, doing clubs, making friends … where’s the “huge issue”?

Do you talk to your kid about how they feel about the academics at EH? We know several UMC EH students from various sports teams. Given that there are only a handful of UMC kids at EH, feels like a pretty representative sample. They speak very poorly of the school and clearly consider it to be a joke. That’s not the kind of environment I want my kid in, and it’s not the kind of attitude I want them to have about school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is now at both EH and SH approximately 30 students in each grade who get 4s and 5s on the CAPE math test. That is a cohort. Is Latin better? Most would say yes and especially yes if you care about having a decent high school locked in. But it is also now a very difficult lottery spot to land. Is Hardy better? Most would say yes but it is also a pretty lengthy daily commute from the eastern side of the city even with a lottery spot. Basis is pretty controversial - and the 5th grade waitlist movement and 7th-9th grade attrition there both speak to that. I think its increasingly common to not get into Latin, turn down Basis, and try a Hill area dcps middle school.

No. That is only a cohort if the students are tracked, which DCPS absolutely refuses to do. The reality is, in a classroom at EH, more than 80% of students are going to be below grade level.

is this the point when I say my kid is smart and advantaged enough that I don’t think being around less privileged kids as a 12 yr old will threaten his future?

It's not about "being around less privileged" kids. It's that when you are in a class where the kids are so below grade level at the middle school level, the teacher actually has to change the standards of the class to meet the bottom -- no homework and very low expectations. Because DCPS teachers are not really allowed to fail kids. So the kids are the top are not held to high expectations either, even though they could all handle it.

BASIS works because they actually do fail kids out and so they can keep high standards. Latin and Deal and Hardy work because they have a critical mass of proficient kids, so they can raise the standards for everyone.

This is not as much of an issue in elementary school, when teachers can create "small groups" within the class. It becomes a huge issue in middle school.

my kid is learning and not getting stupider, and also very happy, and the EH teachers are responsive, and he’s having fun, doing clubs, making friends … where’s the “huge issue”?

Do you talk to your kid about how they feel about the academics at EH? We know several UMC EH students from various sports teams. Given that there are only a handful of UMC kids at EH, feels like a pretty representative sample. They speak very poorly of the school and clearly consider it to be a joke. That’s not the kind of environment I want my kid in, and it’s not the kind of attitude I want them to have about school.

I’m not sure that’s a good way to assess any school! But thanks for the note. Pearls, they are clutched.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is now at both EH and SH approximately 30 students in each grade who get 4s and 5s on the CAPE math test. That is a cohort. Is Latin better? Most would say yes and especially yes if you care about having a decent high school locked in. But it is also now a very difficult lottery spot to land. Is Hardy better? Most would say yes but it is also a pretty lengthy daily commute from the eastern side of the city even with a lottery spot. Basis is pretty controversial - and the 5th grade waitlist movement and 7th-9th grade attrition there both speak to that. I think its increasingly common to not get into Latin, turn down Basis, and try a Hill area dcps middle school.

No. That is only a cohort if the students are tracked, which DCPS absolutely refuses to do. The reality is, in a classroom at EH, more than 80% of students are going to be below grade level.

is this the point when I say my kid is smart and advantaged enough that I don’t think being around less privileged kids as a 12 yr old will threaten his future?

It's not about "being around less privileged" kids. It's that when you are in a class where the kids are so below grade level at the middle school level, the teacher actually has to change the standards of the class to meet the bottom -- no homework and very low expectations. Because DCPS teachers are not really allowed to fail kids. So the kids are the top are not held to high expectations either, even though they could all handle it.

BASIS works because they actually do fail kids out and so they can keep high standards. Latin and Deal and Hardy work because they have a critical mass of proficient kids, so they can raise the standards for everyone.

This is not as much of an issue in elementary school, when teachers can create "small groups" within the class. It becomes a huge issue in middle school.

my kid is learning and not getting stupider, and also very happy, and the EH teachers are responsive, and he’s having fun, doing clubs, making friends … where’s the “huge issue”?

Do you talk to your kid about how they feel about the academics at EH? We know several UMC EH students from various sports teams. Given that there are only a handful of UMC kids at EH, feels like a pretty representative sample. They speak very poorly of the school and clearly consider it to be a joke. That’s not the kind of environment I want my kid in, and it’s not the kind of attitude I want them to have about school.

I’m not sure that’s a good way to assess any school! But thanks for the note. Pearls, they are clutched.

So CAPE scores and kids actual experiences are not a good way to assess school. But you know best really and how?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is now at both EH and SH approximately 30 students in each grade who get 4s and 5s on the CAPE math test. That is a cohort. Is Latin better? Most would say yes and especially yes if you care about having a decent high school locked in. But it is also now a very difficult lottery spot to land. Is Hardy better? Most would say yes but it is also a pretty lengthy daily commute from the eastern side of the city even with a lottery spot. Basis is pretty controversial - and the 5th grade waitlist movement and 7th-9th grade attrition there both speak to that. I think its increasingly common to not get into Latin, turn down Basis, and try a Hill area dcps middle school.

Sorry but 30 students who are grade level and above is good?? Grade level is the floor. Please let us know how many kids at SH and EH actually are above grade level. 4 or 5?

The data works out to about 3 kids who are above grade level.

Summary, there are no cohort of high performing kids in math at either schools.

Not sure where you are getting the 3 from?
For the sake of all the children in DC (not my own) do I wish they were all on grade level? Yes - bc it would positively impact their future academic years and beyond.
In the end of the day there seems to be two camps of people on this forum who have different perspectives/approaches to education, and like our super polarized world it seems like there is it is hard to get people to see their other perspective.
I will say two things (that I think have already been said...) My experience being at one of those two schools is that the teachers don't lower expectations, sadly some students do not complete or submit all assignments, but the essays, science projects, math tests, novels read, etc - they are on level and challenging. I am sure there are a lot of reasons why some work is not completed (absenteeism, missing some foundational skills etc) and that needs to be addressed to help those kids be successful, but it does not impact the quality of work/assignments the other kids are completing.
Second, and this seems really controversial on here for some reason, but it is really not helpful to define a whole school by looking at one CAPE/PARCC test score. Sure, it's all we have so I get why people look at it, and it does highlight overall trends and gaps, but for anybody who has worked in or is aware of what goes on in a school, it is far far far from an accurate way to capture what kids are actually learning/doing in a school.

Of course expectations are lowered when majority of kids are below grade level. We see that way earlier in upper elementary at title 1 schools.

I highly doubt it’s going to be any different and likely worst in middle school. If expectations were not lowered, then lots of these kids would not pass onto the next grade.

That’s the big issue in DCPS is social promotion. Nobody fails or gets held back, everyone moves on no matter what. Then deficiencies compound year after year and you are left with less then 5% of students on grade level by high school.