PARCC data is up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven’t had a chance to read most of this thread, but it’s striking how much higher Basis’ scores are than Latin’s.

Will colleges look at DC applicants' PARCC scores?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven’t had a chance to read most of this thread, but it’s striking how much higher Basis’ scores are than Latin’s.

And Latin's second year of noticeable decline in math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am just absolutely gobsmacked by the number of HRCS that turned in flat, weak, or downright alarming PARCC scores. I know there are reasons other than test scores that people choose these schools, but it is eye-opening to see it laid out like this.

It’s kinda buried in the PowerPoint deck presented today, but one of the big stories on PARCC (again) should be the success of DCPS overall in relationship to the charters. https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/page_content/attachments/2019%20Statewide%20ELA%20and%20Math%20Public%20Results.pdf

For all students in ELA - DCPS 39.9%, DC charters 34.2%
For all students in Math - DCPS 32.4%, DC charters 28.7%

The trend holds for most grade levels and subgroups, with the gap between DCPS and charters widening as DCPS made more growth this year. Take it all with a big grain of salt given differences between the sectors that make direct comparison tricky and we need to put these tests in their appropriate place. But the conventional wisdom about HRCS isn’t always true.

At the grade level I noticed several majority low income neighborhood DCPS matching HRCS, KIPP, DC prep, etc. Don’t charters have more motivation to teach to the test given their accountability framework? Notice the lack of the typical chest thumping press release from the PCSB as in prior years. And they approved 5 new charters?

Seriously. I hope it makes them think twice about allowing replication of schools like Lee that don't have a mature program in upper elementary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven’t had a chance to read most of this thread, but it’s striking how much higher Basis’ scores are than Latin’s.

Will colleges look at DC applicants' PARCC scores?

They look at their SATs. Basis offers More advanced classes too.

HOWEVER, both are good schools. They attract different families and their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know if this is a small sample size issue, but looking at the raw data, ITS and LAMB seem to have horrible success with at risk- students whereas YY and Sela seem to be killing it. Maybe the alphabet/language root decoding is helping math scores?

YY has vanishingly few at-risk kids, so I don't know that you can draw a lot of conclusions from it. And Sela's population is also pretty small.

I think ITS' at risk kids are more in the middle school.due to backfilling, and it is hard to catch kids up if they enter far behind.

The conclusion you can draw from YY's set up is that a little Mandarin works to scare away almost all the at-risk kids, the entire point of the artifice.

Go YY, for killing it!

I wouldn't say that YY is killing it, with even 5th grade scores only in the 60's, but it's better than many schools. YY has a terrible SPED program, so many parents pull their SPED kids. I've come to the conclusion that the head of school purposely keeps the bumbling incompetent SPED coordinator as a deterrent. She's certainly been made aware of the issues by multiple parents yet nothing changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hello 50 point achievement gap at its.

Isn't it always bad at ITS? I know it was last year.

Yes, it was last year too. Families have been vocally upset about it, administration also, and one of the principals transitioned to a new position this coming school year focused on access, culture, and equity. We'll see...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hello 50 point achievement gap at its.

Isn't it always bad at ITS? I know it was last year.

Yes, it was last year too. Families have been vocally upset about it, administration also, and one of the principals transitioned to a new position this coming school year focused on access, culture, and equity. We'll see...

Culture and access isn’t going to move the needle on academic proficiency. The school says it has expert faculty and trains teachers to go on and become master teachers. They aren’t master reachers if they can’t reach everyone.

The school is failing in its mission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hello 50 point achievement gap at its.

Isn't it always bad at ITS? I know it was last year.

Yes, it was last year too. Families have been vocally upset about it, administration also, and one of the principals transitioned to a new position this coming school year focused on access, culture, and equity. We'll see...

Sounds like an Onion article. I hope more is being done than move a manager to focus on flashy words. Hiring (a lot) more (well-trained!) professionals for pullouts? Expanding school hours/calendar? Free academic-minded school days out programming? *healthy* *nutritious* meals at school? Parent education on screentime? More social workers and actual programs that social workers can use to help at-risk students' families with? Alternatives to social promotion?
Sure, implicit bias trainingmight be necessary, but it won't be enough to raise PARCC scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hello 50 point achievement gap at its.

Isn't it always bad at ITS? I know it was last year.

Yes, it was last year too. Families have been vocally upset about it, administration also, and one of the principals transitioned to a new position this coming school year focused on access, culture, and equity. We'll see...

Culture and access isn’t going to move the needle on academic proficiency. The school says it has expert faculty and trains teachers to go on and become master teachers. They aren’t master reachers if they can’t reach everyone.

The school is failing in its mission.

They really are trying, and the middle school changes looked good to me. But I am distressed by the lack of at-risk kids in elementary as well as by the achievement gap, which is large even in 3rd grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hello 50 point achievement gap at its.

Isn't it always bad at ITS? I know it was last year.

Yes, it was last year too. Families have been vocally upset about it, administration also, and one of the principals transitioned to a new position this coming school year focused on access, culture, and equity. We'll see...

Sounds like an Onion article. I hope more is being done than move a manager to focus on flashy words. Hiring (a lot) more (well-trained!) professionals for pullouts? Expanding school hours/calendar? Free academic-minded school days out programming? *healthy* *nutritious* meals at school? Parent education on screentime? More social workers and actual programs that social workers can use to help at-risk students' families with? Alternatives to social promotion?
Sure, implicit bias trainingmight be necessary, but it won't be enough to raise PARCC scores.

And to add: the need for more than flashy words isn't specifically a dig to ITS but to all schools struggling to support their at-risk kids and to parents asking for cheap nonsense instead of costly inprovements and investments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hello 50 point achievement gap at its.

Isn't it always bad at ITS? I know it was last year.

Yes, it was last year too. Families have been vocally upset about it, administration also, and one of the principals transitioned to a new position this coming school year focused on access, culture, and equity. We'll see...

Sounds like an Onion article. I hope more is being done than move a manager to focus on flashy words. Hiring (a lot) more (well-trained!) professionals for pullouts? Expanding school hours/calendar? Free academic-minded school days out programming? *healthy* *nutritious* meals at school? Parent education on screentime? More social workers and actual programs that social workers can use to help at-risk students' families with? Alternatives to social promotion?
Sure, implicit bias trainingmight be necessary, but it won't be enough to raise PARCC scores.

If my family was poor or my kid were otherwise at-risk there is no way I’d enroll at ITS. Any neighborhood DCPS would be better. Doesn’t matter how many culture experts they hire. Would you?

This could be the goal. Don’t serve these students well and you are left with the high-SES kids who can focus on more ‘Interesting’ things than basic math and ELA. Depressing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hello 50 point achievement gap at its.

Isn't it always bad at ITS? I know it was last year.

Yes, it was last year too. Families have been vocally upset about it, administration also, and one of the principals transitioned to a new position this coming school year focused on access, culture, and equity. We'll see...

Culture and access isn’t going to move the needle on academic proficiency. The school says it has expert faculty and trains teachers to go on and become master teachers. They aren’t master reachers if they can’t reach everyone.

The school is failing in its mission.

They really are trying, and the middle school changes looked good to me. But I am distressed by the lack of at-risk kids in elementary as well as by the achievement gap, which is large even in 3rd grade.

Why would a poor family enroll there? They care about academics too. They can see the problem better than you and are voting with their feet.

[Anonymous]

It appears BASIS has made significant progress closing its achievement gap over the last couple of years. It was not good before. If you click in, note the dashboard defaults to the at-risk subgroup. You need to reset to see all students.

And yes, I know that their at-risk population is low, but there are enough in each grade to report scores.

https://empowerk12.org/dc-parcc-dash

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hello 50 point achievement gap at its.

Isn't it always bad at ITS? I know it was last year.

Yes, it was last year too. Families have been vocally upset about it, administration also, and one of the principals transitioned to a new position this coming school year focused on access, culture, and equity. We'll see...

Sounds like an Onion article. I hope more is being done than move a manager to focus on flashy words. Hiring (a lot) more (well-trained!) professionals for pullouts? Expanding school hours/calendar? Free academic-minded school days out programming? *healthy* *nutritious* meals at school? Parent education on screentime? More social workers and actual programs that social workers can use to help at-risk students' families with? Alternatives to social promotion?
Sure, implicit bias trainingmight be necessary, but it won't be enough to raise PARCC scores.

And to add: the need for more than flashy words isn't specifically a dig to ITS but to all schools struggling to support their at-risk kids and to parents asking for cheap nonsense instead of costly inprovements and investments.

Sorry, that's Improvements.
Also: when you think of what is actually needed to improve test scores, why would you blame one school? No one school can come up with the money for this. It's on dcps. And if dcps cannot find the money to expand the school day, school year, availability of pullouts, and everything needed, then it's on the City. Judging schools on their achievement gaps is a big thing on these forums but it makes little sense. There is no magic formula. They just need a bigger pie.

[Anonymous]

But with the same budgets, there are schools that do not have a gaping achievement gap. ITS' (and other schools with this problem) should send someone out to interview, observe and learn from other schools. That's the whole idea of charters -- to innovate and find new ways to educate ALL students.

If it isn't working they need to course correct or fold their tent. If a school can't out-perform the traditional school sector why are they open?