Assessing proficiency in private schools

[Anonymous]

My take-away from 16:16's post:

Unless you have vast connections, legacy, etc, you will be quite fortunate to be able to choose amongst Beauvoir, Maret or Sheridan for your DC. I have 2 DCs at a Big 3. My DH and I considered many factors when we went through app process for first DC, but test scores were not one of them. We were looking at independents precisely because we did not want our DCs' lives ruled by tests.

What do you think you would learn from the scores, especially if they are for children other than your own?

Anonymous wrote:My take-aways from 15:51's post:

1. Her school is a top 3 (she talks about it's competitive applicant pool) so scores are high and she doesn't need to worry about the rest of us.
2. Her kids are already in a private so she doesn't have to worry about choosing a private like the rest of us. Beauvoir vs. Maret vs. Sheridan? Not her problem.
3. A concern that "test-obsessed" parents will throng her school. Where? I mean where is the family that worries only about test scores and not about class size or art? And if the scores at her school are so high that this attracts more parents and highly-qualified kids, is this a problem? Oh right, she said it was a problem, although I don't get why.

[Anonymous]

If some of you are parents of first-time applicants to area independents, you may want to work on your charm offensive. Don't mistake rudeness for rigor. There are MORE than enough qualified applicants at many of the independents in metro DC. Yes, you should ask questions, figure out what is important, which kind of pedagogical style you prefer, etc. But I don't think demanding ERB scores and whining about why they are not public is going to go far with heads of school and faculty who are probably thrilled to not have to be teaching to the test.

[Anonymous]

Don't sell us newbies short. We are much too savvy to shoot our children in the foot. Sometimes direct confrontation is counterproductive. Slow, steady and discreet pressure in the backrooms may do the trick.

[Anonymous]

You are so not savvy that you have no idea how un-savvy you are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:17:01 -- Testing does not automatically have this effect, everywhere. It depends where you live in MoCo and what schools your kids attend.

17:01 here: We live in Chevy Chase; you can't buy your way out of testing in MCPS. Essentially, we did so by going private for MS and HS.

[Anonymous]

17:01 again -- Just want to clarify that I am not the poster who bragged about her test scores and educational credentials. Further, to clear up misunderstanding regarding my comment about "brief constructed responses" -- it's, of course, fine and necessary to teach expository form; however, our experience was that the MCPS writing curriculum teaches very little else. The curriculum provides little opportunity for creative writing, nor does it do much to build on the children's mastery of the expository paragraph.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't sell us newbies short. We are much too savvy to shoot our children in the foot. Sometimes direct confrontation is counterproductive. Slow, steady and discreet pressure in the backrooms may do the trick.

Yeah, right. Don't sell the independents' short. They've been at it for awhile and have seen every play in the book when it comes to admissions. If they have a general policy of not releasing ERB scores, I can't imagine that a few "discreet" inquiries for 2011 admissions will have them suddenly change course. They are confident in their product.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:17:01 again -- Just want to clarify that I am not the poster who bragged about her test scores and educational credentials. Further, to clear up misunderstanding regarding my comment about "brief constructed responses" -- it's, of course, fine and necessary to teach expository form; however, our experience was that the MCPS writing curriculum teaches very little else. The curriculum provides little opportunity for creative writing, nor does it do much to build on the children's mastery of the expository paragraph.

Which means that there are at least three different people collectively making the argument about why independents shouldn't sell themselves based on test scores.

I'm 15:51 and also not the person who mentioned her own academic background (which, FWIW, I didn't see as bragging so much as positioning -- e.g. She was saying that she rejects this approach not because she couldn't/didn't thrive under such a regime but because, at a certain level, such scores start to look (and are treated) more like a minimum competency standard than as a measure of excellence.)

But I may be the person (or one of the people -- there were two long posts within a minute of each other) that prompted the brief constructed response retort. My post was immediately before it.

One blog I sometimes comment on does this thing where each poster (in a specific thread, at least) gets assigned a distinctive icon. Still anonymous, but you can accurately put together which posts came from the same writer. (Consequently, it also gives you a sense how many different people are posting). That might be really useful on DCUM. Probably could be circumvented, but I doubt most people would bother. There are a few sock-puppeteers here, but generally I don't think people post anonymously because they want to create the illusion that their forces are legion. They just don't want to out themselves or their school and/or have things they post here come back to haunt them IRL.

[Anonymous]

Oh, and this article is one of the reasons why I read the other poster's comments as internal critique rather than "bragging":

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/magazine/05fob-wwln-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=magazine

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If some of you are parents of first-time applicants to area independents, you may want to work on your charm offensive. Don't mistake rudeness for rigor. There are MORE than enough qualified applicants at many of the independents in metro DC. Yes, you should ask questions, figure out what is important, which kind of pedagogical style you prefer, etc. But I don't think demanding ERB scores and whining about why they are not public is going to go far with heads of school and faculty who are probably thrilled to not have to be teaching to the test.

I love this! Parents who want transparency and openness are hereby transformed into rude whiners. Their valid points are ignored. The multiple rude posts of the anti-test posters a few pages ago are ignored.

No, like this poster says, the big schools hold all the cards. You are presumptuous and rude for even thinking about asking for test results.

Gotta love DCUM!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

What do you think you would learn from the scores, especially if they are for children other than your own? why.

It's been said many times here: unless you have the fortune to be accepted at a big 3 (and you say both your children have) you can't be confident that one given private is better than another private, or that either is better than public.

I'm an economist working on public policy. I learned over and over in grad school (won't say if ivy) that more information is always better. Information always helps protect consumers.

FWIW, there are at least three of us who want the scores released. Me, and I saw two others in an exchange.

[Anonymous]

9:02 here again. I will say that my kid was accepted into a big 3, without us knowing the school's ERBs, obviously. DC was also accepted into a magnet. We went with the magnet. We also did private in ES. I say this not to boast but to establish some street cred.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:more information is always better. Information always helps protect consumers.

Of course some private schools may prefer not to conceptualize their relationships with parents of students primarily along a business-consumer model. And, to the extent that they conceive of themselves as selling something, it wouldn't be ERB scores.

And, abstractly, there's lots of true but unhelpful information that's more likely to mislead than protect consumers -- the immediate example that comes to mind is "Contains no cholesterol" on foods that are high in fat and that increase cholesterol production.

Who gets to make the call re which information is helpful vs. misleading is a different question, of course. But the categorical statement that more information is always better and helps protect consumers strikes me (a political/social scientist rather than an economist) as empirically untrue.

[Anonymous]

I'm sure that car and food companies would prefer not to provide safety or nutrition info, either. Yet this information is valuable.

Forcing us to rely exclusively on rumor and innuendo, from DCUM, friends and fuzzy school visits, is much worse in my opinion. (I've said this before, and I'll say it again.) Even if scores are variable because a school teaches multiplication in 4th not 3rd, you can be sure the explanation will be provided be tge school and will appear in places like DCUM. Most of us are much better equipped to understand data like test scoresthan we are to tell lies from truth about a given school.

[Anonymous]

11:00 here again. Basically, we're looking at a tradeof:

Value of test data to applicants vs. risk that releasing data would force privates to "teach to the test."

I think test data is much better than what we currently have (rumors and a visit), that families are capable of understanding it, and that it would be useful particularly for families choosing where to apply outside the elite schools. You disagree with all of these points, as I understand it.

You argue that releasing test scores would force privates to teach to the test. I think this fear is overblown, particularly for the schools that are doing a good job. Some schools already have high scores, as you yourself say. Plus the schools are already using ERBs internally, so this isn't a big change.

My questions to you:
1. Could you explain why you fear a revolution in "teaching to the test" (without using loaded words like "test-crazed parents like you" as you have done, but instead using actual descriptors of the changes you think this will bring to school culture, and why); and
2. Why exactly do you oppose having really bad test scores from apparently failing schools made public, so families can know?