Experience with Macfarland?

[Anonymous]

Yes, that does appear to be one threshold, one that has been shared here before.

I send my kid there in good conscience. And much success to all!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, that does appear to be one threshold, one that has been shared here before.

I send my kid there in good conscience. And much success to all!

I hope you’re not too disappointed a couple years down the road when you learn the hard way that in fact your kid isn’t actually being accelerated at Macfarland at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Exhibit A reading thru todays post.

Definite defensiveness from people with anyone asking about grade level or accelerated classes. Not a good sign. The people repeatedly telling posters to ask the school ad nauseum is also not a good sign.

The poster who says they can’t believe everything DCPS admin tells you is correct. Go to an open house and ask about accelerated classes, honors classes and many times you get vague answers, not straightforward. Ask about what is the criteria for these classes and again vague, non-descript answers.

The one thing is clear is that there is no accelerated math class from the sole person on here with kid there says his kid is in the accelerated math class and will be taking Algebra in 8th grade. In fact, DCPS is notorious, as someone mentioned, of pushing kids into Algebra who are not even on grade level or ready for it which is true. So I am not confident that it’s even taught on grade level.

Any class can be labeled whatever you want. Accelerated does not always mean accelerated and that is a big fact in DCPS.

OK I'm the parent with a kid in the 7th grade 'accelerated' math class. I can't tell you a ton about it. It's not Algebra. My kid likes the math teacher a lot and has anecdotes to share about him and class that make it sound positive. The kid gets good grades in math. I mean . . . I expect they cover the DCPS curriculum.

So this isn't trying to be defensive - a discriminating parent would want to know if they really do more than just normal 7th grade math maybe? I don't go into my kid's class or ask other students how they are doing in class, so I lack direct input from the teacher or longitudinal information regarding other students, i.e., I only hear from my own kid. I expect that's normal and would be impressed by people who know more . . . I guess you can look at public test information, and that probably shows many students not succeeding, which is not a positive for any parent, right, and many here believe that there is some kind of spiral toward success if kids are surrounded by kids succeeding at a peer level on testing. Ahead of PARCC my kid told me that some peers said they don't care about PARCC because it doesn't really count for anything, and you can take that as dispiriting or a clear-eyed understanding of priorities, cf. posts on this forum.

So - I don't meant to be overly defensive, but it's hard to be that omniscient informer when you mostly hear about what's going on at school from a remove, based on anecdotes shared by a teenager.

Thank you for your candid report. How did your kid get placed in the class? For a parent coming in with a 6th grader, how do they decide each kid's class schedule?

Honestly I don't really care about PARCC because in most years it doesn't count for anything for the individual student. As my DD said "It's not like they're going to give you candy if you get a 5". I don't know why we would expect a kid to care about a test that isn't connected to any specific outcome.

Because you teach your kid that it’s important to do your best so you, their teachers, and the school can assess how they are doing compared to their peers in DC

Because you as a parent teach your kid that not everything needs to come with a reward. There are things called internal motivation, doing your best no matter what, helping your teachers and school because this is very important to them and is a big factor in their assessment from higher ups.

Because it’s just the right thing to do and one lesson that just because you may not care doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it or try your best.

IMO, your mentality above does not help to give your daughter the skills that she needs to succeed in the real world. We do lots of things in life, at work, etc.. that isn’t connected to any specific outcomes but it’s the right thing to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Exhibit A reading thru todays post.

Definite defensiveness from people with anyone asking about grade level or accelerated classes. Not a good sign. The people repeatedly telling posters to ask the school ad nauseum is also not a good sign.

The poster who says they can’t believe everything DCPS admin tells you is correct. Go to an open house and ask about accelerated classes, honors classes and many times you get vague answers, not straightforward. Ask about what is the criteria for these classes and again vague, non-descript answers.

The one thing is clear is that there is no accelerated math class from the sole person on here with kid there says his kid is in the accelerated math class and will be taking Algebra in 8th grade. In fact, DCPS is notorious, as someone mentioned, of pushing kids into Algebra who are not even on grade level or ready for it which is true. So I am not confident that it’s even taught on grade level.

Any class can be labeled whatever you want. Accelerated does not always mean accelerated and that is a big fact in DCPS.

OK I'm the parent with a kid in the 7th grade 'accelerated' math class. I can't tell you a ton about it. It's not Algebra. My kid likes the math teacher a lot and has anecdotes to share about him and class that make it sound positive. The kid gets good grades in math. I mean . . . I expect they cover the DCPS curriculum.

So this isn't trying to be defensive - a discriminating parent would want to know if they really do more than just normal 7th grade math maybe? I don't go into my kid's class or ask other students how they are doing in class, so I lack direct input from the teacher or longitudinal information regarding other students, i.e., I only hear from my own kid. I expect that's normal and would be impressed by people who know more . . . I guess you can look at public test information, and that probably shows many students not succeeding, which is not a positive for any parent, right, and many here believe that there is some kind of spiral toward success if kids are surrounded by kids succeeding at a peer level on testing. Ahead of PARCC my kid told me that some peers said they don't care about PARCC because it doesn't really count for anything, and you can take that as dispiriting or a clear-eyed understanding of priorities, cf. posts on this forum.

So - I don't meant to be overly defensive, but it's hard to be that omniscient informer when you mostly hear about what's going on at school from a remove, based on anecdotes shared by a teenager.

Thank you for your candid report. How did your kid get placed in the class? For a parent coming in with a 6th grader, how do they decide each kid's class schedule?

Honestly I don't really care about PARCC because in most years it doesn't count for anything for the individual student. As my DD said "It's not like they're going to give you candy if you get a 5". I don't know why we would expect a kid to care about a test that isn't connected to any specific outcome.

Because you teach your kid that it’s important to do your best so you, their teachers, and the school can assess how they are doing compared to their peers in DC

Because you as a parent teach your kid that not everything needs to come with a reward. There are things called internal motivation, doing your best no matter what, helping your teachers and school because this is very important to them and is a big factor in their assessment from higher ups.

Because it’s just the right thing to do and one lesson that just because you may not care doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it or try your best.

IMO, your mentality above does not help to give your daughter the skills that she needs to succeed in the real world. We do lots of things in life, at work, etc.. that isn’t connected to any specific outcomes but it’s the right thing to do.

Thank you for this condescending lecture! I certainly do teach my DD to work hard at things and to try her best. But I also believe that success requires us to discern and prioritize what is truly important, and the PARCC test does not make the cut.

If our city wants parents and kids to prioritize testing, they might consider changing to a test that provides results in less than 6 months so that the information is more useful, and a test that doesn't consume so much instructional time. Many states have dropped PARCC in favor of other tests that are better designed, and I hope that DCPS does the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Exhibit A reading thru todays post.

Definite defensiveness from people with anyone asking about grade level or accelerated classes. Not a good sign. The people repeatedly telling posters to ask the school ad nauseum is also not a good sign.

The poster who says they can’t believe everything DCPS admin tells you is correct. Go to an open house and ask about accelerated classes, honors classes and many times you get vague answers, not straightforward. Ask about what is the criteria for these classes and again vague, non-descript answers.

The one thing is clear is that there is no accelerated math class from the sole person on here with kid there says his kid is in the accelerated math class and will be taking Algebra in 8th grade. In fact, DCPS is notorious, as someone mentioned, of pushing kids into Algebra who are not even on grade level or ready for it which is true. So I am not confident that it’s even taught on grade level.

Any class can be labeled whatever you want. Accelerated does not always mean accelerated and that is a big fact in DCPS.

OK I'm the parent with a kid in the 7th grade 'accelerated' math class. I can't tell you a ton about it. It's not Algebra. My kid likes the math teacher a lot and has anecdotes to share about him and class that make it sound positive. The kid gets good grades in math. I mean . . . I expect they cover the DCPS curriculum.

So this isn't trying to be defensive - a discriminating parent would want to know if they really do more than just normal 7th grade math maybe? I don't go into my kid's class or ask other students how they are doing in class, so I lack direct input from the teacher or longitudinal information regarding other students, i.e., I only hear from my own kid. I expect that's normal and would be impressed by people who know more . . . I guess you can look at public test information, and that probably shows many students not succeeding, which is not a positive for any parent, right, and many here believe that there is some kind of spiral toward success if kids are surrounded by kids succeeding at a peer level on testing. Ahead of PARCC my kid told me that some peers said they don't care about PARCC because it doesn't really count for anything, and you can take that as dispiriting or a clear-eyed understanding of priorities, cf. posts on this forum.

So - I don't meant to be overly defensive, but it's hard to be that omniscient informer when you mostly hear about what's going on at school from a remove, based on anecdotes shared by a teenager.

Thank you for your candid report. How did your kid get placed in the class? For a parent coming in with a 6th grader, how do they decide each kid's class schedule?

Honestly I don't really care about PARCC because in most years it doesn't count for anything for the individual student. As my DD said "It's not like they're going to give you candy if you get a 5". I don't know why we would expect a kid to care about a test that isn't connected to any specific outcome.

Because you teach your kid that it’s important to do your best so you, their teachers, and the school can assess how they are doing compared to their peers in DC

Because you as a parent teach your kid that not everything needs to come with a reward. There are things called internal motivation, doing your best no matter what, helping your teachers and school because this is very important to them and is a big factor in their assessment from higher ups.

Because it’s just the right thing to do and one lesson that just because you may not care doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it or try your best.

IMO, your mentality above does not help to give your daughter the skills that she needs to succeed in the real world. We do lots of things in life, at work, etc.. that isn’t connected to any specific outcomes but it’s the right thing to do.

Thank you for this condescending lecture! I certainly do teach my DD to work hard at things and to try her best. But I also believe that success requires us to discern and prioritize what is truly important, and the PARCC test does not make the cut.

If our city wants parents and kids to prioritize testing, they might consider changing to a test that provides results in less than 6 months so that the information is more useful, and a test that doesn't consume so much instructional time. Many states have dropped PARCC in favor of other tests that are better designed, and I hope that DCPS does the same.

What exactly is she prioritizing in class at school when kids are taking the test?

The information is useful to the teachers and school.

My kid took it for the 1st time in 3rd grade this year. It was 1.5 hours in an 8 hour day for 5 days. Not a big deal and feedback was it was easy.

Just because you don’t like the test does not mean she should not try your best. But if you want to continue making excuses why majority of kids in this city do so poorly on a test go ahead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Exhibit A reading thru todays post.

Definite defensiveness from people with anyone asking about grade level or accelerated classes. Not a good sign. The people repeatedly telling posters to ask the school ad nauseum is also not a good sign.

The poster who says they can’t believe everything DCPS admin tells you is correct. Go to an open house and ask about accelerated classes, honors classes and many times you get vague answers, not straightforward. Ask about what is the criteria for these classes and again vague, non-descript answers.

The one thing is clear is that there is no accelerated math class from the sole person on here with kid there says his kid is in the accelerated math class and will be taking Algebra in 8th grade. In fact, DCPS is notorious, as someone mentioned, of pushing kids into Algebra who are not even on grade level or ready for it which is true. So I am not confident that it’s even taught on grade level.

Any class can be labeled whatever you want. Accelerated does not always mean accelerated and that is a big fact in DCPS.

OK I'm the parent with a kid in the 7th grade 'accelerated' math class. I can't tell you a ton about it. It's not Algebra. My kid likes the math teacher a lot and has anecdotes to share about him and class that make it sound positive. The kid gets good grades in math. I mean . . . I expect they cover the DCPS curriculum.

So this isn't trying to be defensive - a discriminating parent would want to know if they really do more than just normal 7th grade math maybe? I don't go into my kid's class or ask other students how they are doing in class, so I lack direct input from the teacher or longitudinal information regarding other students, i.e., I only hear from my own kid. I expect that's normal and would be impressed by people who know more . . . I guess you can look at public test information, and that probably shows many students not succeeding, which is not a positive for any parent, right, and many here believe that there is some kind of spiral toward success if kids are surrounded by kids succeeding at a peer level on testing. Ahead of PARCC my kid told me that some peers said they don't care about PARCC because it doesn't really count for anything, and you can take that as dispiriting or a clear-eyed understanding of priorities, cf. posts on this forum.

So - I don't meant to be overly defensive, but it's hard to be that omniscient informer when you mostly hear about what's going on at school from a remove, based on anecdotes shared by a teenager.

Thank you for your candid report. How did your kid get placed in the class? For a parent coming in with a 6th grader, how do they decide each kid's class schedule?

Honestly I don't really care about PARCC because in most years it doesn't count for anything for the individual student. As my DD said "It's not like they're going to give you candy if you get a 5". I don't know why we would expect a kid to care about a test that isn't connected to any specific outcome.

Because you teach your kid that it’s important to do your best so you, their teachers, and the school can assess how they are doing compared to their peers in DC

Because you as a parent teach your kid that not everything needs to come with a reward. There are things called internal motivation, doing your best no matter what, helping your teachers and school because this is very important to them and is a big factor in their assessment from higher ups.

Because it’s just the right thing to do and one lesson that just because you may not care doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it or try your best.

IMO, your mentality above does not help to give your daughter the skills that she needs to succeed in the real world. We do lots of things in life, at work, etc.. that isn’t connected to any specific outcomes but it’s the right thing to do.

Thank you for this condescending lecture! I certainly do teach my DD to work hard at things and to try her best. But I also believe that success requires us to discern and prioritize what is truly important, and the PARCC test does not make the cut.

If our city wants parents and kids to prioritize testing, they might consider changing to a test that provides results in less than 6 months so that the information is more useful, and a test that doesn't consume so much instructional time. Many states have dropped PARCC in favor of other tests that are better designed, and I hope that DCPS does the same.

What a joke. Regardless of the value that you place on the PARCC personally, it’s simply undeniable that administrators care a great deal about the test and work hard to impress this on to students. So if a school is doing as terrible as Macfarland, when not a SINGLE student is testing above grade level in math, it isn’t because nobody cares about the test - it’s because the school is underperforming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Exhibit A reading thru todays post.

Definite defensiveness from people with anyone asking about grade level or accelerated classes. Not a good sign. The people repeatedly telling posters to ask the school ad nauseum is also not a good sign.

The poster who says they can’t believe everything DCPS admin tells you is correct. Go to an open house and ask about accelerated classes, honors classes and many times you get vague answers, not straightforward. Ask about what is the criteria for these classes and again vague, non-descript answers.

The one thing is clear is that there is no accelerated math class from the sole person on here with kid there says his kid is in the accelerated math class and will be taking Algebra in 8th grade. In fact, DCPS is notorious, as someone mentioned, of pushing kids into Algebra who are not even on grade level or ready for it which is true. So I am not confident that it’s even taught on grade level.

Any class can be labeled whatever you want. Accelerated does not always mean accelerated and that is a big fact in DCPS.

OK I'm the parent with a kid in the 7th grade 'accelerated' math class. I can't tell you a ton about it. It's not Algebra. My kid likes the math teacher a lot and has anecdotes to share about him and class that make it sound positive. The kid gets good grades in math. I mean . . . I expect they cover the DCPS curriculum.

So this isn't trying to be defensive - a discriminating parent would want to know if they really do more than just normal 7th grade math maybe? I don't go into my kid's class or ask other students how they are doing in class, so I lack direct input from the teacher or longitudinal information regarding other students, i.e., I only hear from my own kid. I expect that's normal and would be impressed by people who know more . . . I guess you can look at public test information, and that probably shows many students not succeeding, which is not a positive for any parent, right, and many here believe that there is some kind of spiral toward success if kids are surrounded by kids succeeding at a peer level on testing. Ahead of PARCC my kid told me that some peers said they don't care about PARCC because it doesn't really count for anything, and you can take that as dispiriting or a clear-eyed understanding of priorities, cf. posts on this forum.

So - I don't meant to be overly defensive, but it's hard to be that omniscient informer when you mostly hear about what's going on at school from a remove, based on anecdotes shared by a teenager.

Thank you for your candid report. How did your kid get placed in the class? For a parent coming in with a 6th grader, how do they decide each kid's class schedule?

Honestly I don't really care about PARCC because in most years it doesn't count for anything for the individual student. As my DD said "It's not like they're going to give you candy if you get a 5". I don't know why we would expect a kid to care about a test that isn't connected to any specific outcome.

Because you teach your kid that it’s important to do your best so you, their teachers, and the school can assess how they are doing compared to their peers in DC

Because you as a parent teach your kid that not everything needs to come with a reward. There are things called internal motivation, doing your best no matter what, helping your teachers and school because this is very important to them and is a big factor in their assessment from higher ups.

Because it’s just the right thing to do and one lesson that just because you may not care doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it or try your best.

IMO, your mentality above does not help to give your daughter the skills that she needs to succeed in the real world. We do lots of things in life, at work, etc.. that isn’t connected to any specific outcomes but it’s the right thing to do.

Thank you for this condescending lecture! I certainly do teach my DD to work hard at things and to try her best. But I also believe that success requires us to discern and prioritize what is truly important, and the PARCC test does not make the cut.

If our city wants parents and kids to prioritize testing, they might consider changing to a test that provides results in less than 6 months so that the information is more useful, and a test that doesn't consume so much instructional time. Many states have dropped PARCC in favor of other tests that are better designed, and I hope that DCPS does the same.

What exactly is she prioritizing in class at school when kids are taking the test?

The information is useful to the teachers and school.

My kid took it for the 1st time in 3rd grade this year. It was 1.5 hours in an 8 hour day for 5 days. Not a big deal and feedback was it was easy.

Just because you don’t like the test does not mean she should not try your best. But if you want to continue making excuses why majority of kids in this city do so poorly on a test go ahead.

She took the test, but she did not think it is important, and I don't either so I was fine with that. It's unrealistic to expect a tween to care very much about a test that is long and boring and there's nothing at stake for them. I would expect my DD to care about her school projects where she is learning things or creating something, or at least trying to have a decent GPA for high school applications. PARCC isn't any of those things

I don't know which PP you think I am, but I'm not making excuses for poor performance. I simply believe that we should be realistic about what kids that age care about, and that our children would be better served by a test that is adaptive so it takes less time to administer. That time could be better spent teaching and learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Exhibit A reading thru todays post.

Definite defensiveness from people with anyone asking about grade level or accelerated classes. Not a good sign. The people repeatedly telling posters to ask the school ad nauseum is also not a good sign.

The poster who says they can’t believe everything DCPS admin tells you is correct. Go to an open house and ask about accelerated classes, honors classes and many times you get vague answers, not straightforward. Ask about what is the criteria for these classes and again vague, non-descript answers.

The one thing is clear is that there is no accelerated math class from the sole person on here with kid there says his kid is in the accelerated math class and will be taking Algebra in 8th grade. In fact, DCPS is notorious, as someone mentioned, of pushing kids into Algebra who are not even on grade level or ready for it which is true. So I am not confident that it’s even taught on grade level.

Any class can be labeled whatever you want. Accelerated does not always mean accelerated and that is a big fact in DCPS.

OK I'm the parent with a kid in the 7th grade 'accelerated' math class. I can't tell you a ton about it. It's not Algebra. My kid likes the math teacher a lot and has anecdotes to share about him and class that make it sound positive. The kid gets good grades in math. I mean . . . I expect they cover the DCPS curriculum.

So this isn't trying to be defensive - a discriminating parent would want to know if they really do more than just normal 7th grade math maybe? I don't go into my kid's class or ask other students how they are doing in class, so I lack direct input from the teacher or longitudinal information regarding other students, i.e., I only hear from my own kid. I expect that's normal and would be impressed by people who know more . . . I guess you can look at public test information, and that probably shows many students not succeeding, which is not a positive for any parent, right, and many here believe that there is some kind of spiral toward success if kids are surrounded by kids succeeding at a peer level on testing. Ahead of PARCC my kid told me that some peers said they don't care about PARCC because it doesn't really count for anything, and you can take that as dispiriting or a clear-eyed understanding of priorities, cf. posts on this forum.

So - I don't meant to be overly defensive, but it's hard to be that omniscient informer when you mostly hear about what's going on at school from a remove, based on anecdotes shared by a teenager.

Thank you for your candid report. How did your kid get placed in the class? For a parent coming in with a 6th grader, how do they decide each kid's class schedule?

Honestly I don't really care about PARCC because in most years it doesn't count for anything for the individual student. As my DD said "It's not like they're going to give you candy if you get a 5". I don't know why we would expect a kid to care about a test that isn't connected to any specific outcome.

Because you teach your kid that it’s important to do your best so you, their teachers, and the school can assess how they are doing compared to their peers in DC

Because you as a parent teach your kid that not everything needs to come with a reward. There are things called internal motivation, doing your best no matter what, helping your teachers and school because this is very important to them and is a big factor in their assessment from higher ups.

Because it’s just the right thing to do and one lesson that just because you may not care doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it or try your best.

IMO, your mentality above does not help to give your daughter the skills that she needs to succeed in the real world. We do lots of things in life, at work, etc.. that isn’t connected to any specific outcomes but it’s the right thing to do.

Thank you for this condescending lecture! I certainly do teach my DD to work hard at things and to try her best. But I also believe that success requires us to discern and prioritize what is truly important, and the PARCC test does not make the cut.

If our city wants parents and kids to prioritize testing, they might consider changing to a test that provides results in less than 6 months so that the information is more useful, and a test that doesn't consume so much instructional time. Many states have dropped PARCC in favor of other tests that are better designed, and I hope that DCPS does the same.

What exactly is she prioritizing in class at school when kids are taking the test?

The information is useful to the teachers and school.

My kid took it for the 1st time in 3rd grade this year. It was 1.5 hours in an 8 hour day for 5 days. Not a big deal and feedback was it was easy.

Just because you don’t like the test does not mean she should not try your best. But if you want to continue making excuses why majority of kids in this city do so poorly on a test go ahead.

She took the test, but she did not think it is important, and I don't either so I was fine with that. It's unrealistic to expect a tween to care very much about a test that is long and boring and there's nothing at stake for them. I would expect my DD to care about her school projects where she is learning things or creating something, or at least trying to have a decent GPA for high school applications. PARCC isn't any of those things

I don't know which PP you think I am, but I'm not making excuses for poor performance. I simply believe that we should be realistic about what kids that age care about, and that our children would be better served by a test that is adaptive so it takes less time to administer. That time could be better spent teaching and learning.

Well it looks like kids in ward 3 care a hell of a lot about the test than the kids at Macfarland and DCPS middle schools EOTP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Exhibit A reading thru todays post.

Definite defensiveness from people with anyone asking about grade level or accelerated classes. Not a good sign. The people repeatedly telling posters to ask the school ad nauseum is also not a good sign.

The poster who says they can’t believe everything DCPS admin tells you is correct. Go to an open house and ask about accelerated classes, honors classes and many times you get vague answers, not straightforward. Ask about what is the criteria for these classes and again vague, non-descript answers.

The one thing is clear is that there is no accelerated math class from the sole person on here with kid there says his kid is in the accelerated math class and will be taking Algebra in 8th grade. In fact, DCPS is notorious, as someone mentioned, of pushing kids into Algebra who are not even on grade level or ready for it which is true. So I am not confident that it’s even taught on grade level.

Any class can be labeled whatever you want. Accelerated does not always mean accelerated and that is a big fact in DCPS.

OK I'm the parent with a kid in the 7th grade 'accelerated' math class. I can't tell you a ton about it. It's not Algebra. My kid likes the math teacher a lot and has anecdotes to share about him and class that make it sound positive. The kid gets good grades in math. I mean . . . I expect they cover the DCPS curriculum.

So this isn't trying to be defensive - a discriminating parent would want to know if they really do more than just normal 7th grade math maybe? I don't go into my kid's class or ask other students how they are doing in class, so I lack direct input from the teacher or longitudinal information regarding other students, i.e., I only hear from my own kid. I expect that's normal and would be impressed by people who know more . . . I guess you can look at public test information, and that probably shows many students not succeeding, which is not a positive for any parent, right, and many here believe that there is some kind of spiral toward success if kids are surrounded by kids succeeding at a peer level on testing. Ahead of PARCC my kid told me that some peers said they don't care about PARCC because it doesn't really count for anything, and you can take that as dispiriting or a clear-eyed understanding of priorities, cf. posts on this forum.

So - I don't meant to be overly defensive, but it's hard to be that omniscient informer when you mostly hear about what's going on at school from a remove, based on anecdotes shared by a teenager.

Thank you for your candid report. How did your kid get placed in the class? For a parent coming in with a 6th grader, how do they decide each kid's class schedule?

Honestly I don't really care about PARCC because in most years it doesn't count for anything for the individual student. As my DD said "It's not like they're going to give you candy if you get a 5". I don't know why we would expect a kid to care about a test that isn't connected to any specific outcome.

Because you teach your kid that it’s important to do your best so you, their teachers, and the school can assess how they are doing compared to their peers in DC

Because you as a parent teach your kid that not everything needs to come with a reward. There are things called internal motivation, doing your best no matter what, helping your teachers and school because this is very important to them and is a big factor in their assessment from higher ups.

Because it’s just the right thing to do and one lesson that just because you may not care doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it or try your best.

IMO, your mentality above does not help to give your daughter the skills that she needs to succeed in the real world. We do lots of things in life, at work, etc.. that isn’t connected to any specific outcomes but it’s the right thing to do.

Thank you for this condescending lecture! I certainly do teach my DD to work hard at things and to try her best. But I also believe that success requires us to discern and prioritize what is truly important, and the PARCC test does not make the cut.

If our city wants parents and kids to prioritize testing, they might consider changing to a test that provides results in less than 6 months so that the information is more useful, and a test that doesn't consume so much instructional time. Many states have dropped PARCC in favor of other tests that are better designed, and I hope that DCPS does the same.

What exactly is she prioritizing in class at school when kids are taking the test?

The information is useful to the teachers and school.

My kid took it for the 1st time in 3rd grade this year. It was 1.5 hours in an 8 hour day for 5 days. Not a big deal and feedback was it was easy.

Just because you don’t like the test does not mean she should not try your best. But if you want to continue making excuses why majority of kids in this city do so poorly on a test go ahead.

She took the test, but she did not think it is important, and I don't either so I was fine with that. It's unrealistic to expect a tween to care very much about a test that is long and boring and there's nothing at stake for them. I would expect my DD to care about her school projects where she is learning things or creating something, or at least trying to have a decent GPA for high school applications. PARCC isn't any of those things

I don't know which PP you think I am, but I'm not making excuses for poor performance. I simply believe that we should be realistic about what kids that age care about, and that our children would be better served by a test that is adaptive so it takes less time to administer. That time could be better spent teaching and learning.

LOL! A few hours more spent teaching and learning will absolutely get these kids to grade level and make a huge difference.

At least with a standardized test, no matter what test it is, gives you a better picture of where you kid is than the massive grade inflation occurring at DCPS schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Exhibit A reading thru todays post.

Definite defensiveness from people with anyone asking about grade level or accelerated classes. Not a good sign. The people repeatedly telling posters to ask the school ad nauseum is also not a good sign.

The poster who says they can’t believe everything DCPS admin tells you is correct. Go to an open house and ask about accelerated classes, honors classes and many times you get vague answers, not straightforward. Ask about what is the criteria for these classes and again vague, non-descript answers.

The one thing is clear is that there is no accelerated math class from the sole person on here with kid there says his kid is in the accelerated math class and will be taking Algebra in 8th grade. In fact, DCPS is notorious, as someone mentioned, of pushing kids into Algebra who are not even on grade level or ready for it which is true. So I am not confident that it’s even taught on grade level.

Any class can be labeled whatever you want. Accelerated does not always mean accelerated and that is a big fact in DCPS.

OK I'm the parent with a kid in the 7th grade 'accelerated' math class. I can't tell you a ton about it. It's not Algebra. My kid likes the math teacher a lot and has anecdotes to share about him and class that make it sound positive. The kid gets good grades in math. I mean . . . I expect they cover the DCPS curriculum.

So this isn't trying to be defensive - a discriminating parent would want to know if they really do more than just normal 7th grade math maybe? I don't go into my kid's class or ask other students how they are doing in class, so I lack direct input from the teacher or longitudinal information regarding other students, i.e., I only hear from my own kid. I expect that's normal and would be impressed by people who know more . . . I guess you can look at public test information, and that probably shows many students not succeeding, which is not a positive for any parent, right, and many here believe that there is some kind of spiral toward success if kids are surrounded by kids succeeding at a peer level on testing. Ahead of PARCC my kid told me that some peers said they don't care about PARCC because it doesn't really count for anything, and you can take that as dispiriting or a clear-eyed understanding of priorities, cf. posts on this forum.

So - I don't meant to be overly defensive, but it's hard to be that omniscient informer when you mostly hear about what's going on at school from a remove, based on anecdotes shared by a teenager.

Thank you for your candid report. How did your kid get placed in the class? For a parent coming in with a 6th grader, how do they decide each kid's class schedule?

Honestly I don't really care about PARCC because in most years it doesn't count for anything for the individual student. As my DD said "It's not like they're going to give you candy if you get a 5". I don't know why we would expect a kid to care about a test that isn't connected to any specific outcome.

Because you teach your kid that it’s important to do your best so you, their teachers, and the school can assess how they are doing compared to their peers in DC

Because you as a parent teach your kid that not everything needs to come with a reward. There are things called internal motivation, doing your best no matter what, helping your teachers and school because this is very important to them and is a big factor in their assessment from higher ups.

Because it’s just the right thing to do and one lesson that just because you may not care doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it or try your best.

IMO, your mentality above does not help to give your daughter the skills that she needs to succeed in the real world. We do lots of things in life, at work, etc.. that isn’t connected to any specific outcomes but it’s the right thing to do.

Thank you for this condescending lecture! I certainly do teach my DD to work hard at things and to try her best. But I also believe that success requires us to discern and prioritize what is truly important, and the PARCC test does not make the cut.

If our city wants parents and kids to prioritize testing, they might consider changing to a test that provides results in less than 6 months so that the information is more useful, and a test that doesn't consume so much instructional time. Many states have dropped PARCC in favor of other tests that are better designed, and I hope that DCPS does the same.

What exactly is she prioritizing in class at school when kids are taking the test?

The information is useful to the teachers and school.

My kid took it for the 1st time in 3rd grade this year. It was 1.5 hours in an 8 hour day for 5 days. Not a big deal and feedback was it was easy.

Just because you don’t like the test does not mean she should not try your best. But if you want to continue making excuses why majority of kids in this city do so poorly on a test go ahead.

The PARCC test information is not useful to teachers. We get the reports in the middle of the next year for our former students. After they've taken a range of beginning of year diagnostics and other assessments.

It's not really useful to the school outside of one extra piece of testing data amongst the 5-6 other pieces of testing data we have

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Exhibit A reading thru todays post.

Definite defensiveness from people with anyone asking about grade level or accelerated classes. Not a good sign. The people repeatedly telling posters to ask the school ad nauseum is also not a good sign.

The poster who says they can’t believe everything DCPS admin tells you is correct. Go to an open house and ask about accelerated classes, honors classes and many times you get vague answers, not straightforward. Ask about what is the criteria for these classes and again vague, non-descript answers.

The one thing is clear is that there is no accelerated math class from the sole person on here with kid there says his kid is in the accelerated math class and will be taking Algebra in 8th grade. In fact, DCPS is notorious, as someone mentioned, of pushing kids into Algebra who are not even on grade level or ready for it which is true. So I am not confident that it’s even taught on grade level.

Any class can be labeled whatever you want. Accelerated does not always mean accelerated and that is a big fact in DCPS.

OK I'm the parent with a kid in the 7th grade 'accelerated' math class. I can't tell you a ton about it. It's not Algebra. My kid likes the math teacher a lot and has anecdotes to share about him and class that make it sound positive. The kid gets good grades in math. I mean . . . I expect they cover the DCPS curriculum.

So this isn't trying to be defensive - a discriminating parent would want to know if they really do more than just normal 7th grade math maybe? I don't go into my kid's class or ask other students how they are doing in class, so I lack direct input from the teacher or longitudinal information regarding other students, i.e., I only hear from my own kid. I expect that's normal and would be impressed by people who know more . . . I guess you can look at public test information, and that probably shows many students not succeeding, which is not a positive for any parent, right, and many here believe that there is some kind of spiral toward success if kids are surrounded by kids succeeding at a peer level on testing. Ahead of PARCC my kid told me that some peers said they don't care about PARCC because it doesn't really count for anything, and you can take that as dispiriting or a clear-eyed understanding of priorities, cf. posts on this forum.

So - I don't meant to be overly defensive, but it's hard to be that omniscient informer when you mostly hear about what's going on at school from a remove, based on anecdotes shared by a teenager.

Thank you for your candid report. How did your kid get placed in the class? For a parent coming in with a 6th grader, how do they decide each kid's class schedule?

Honestly I don't really care about PARCC because in most years it doesn't count for anything for the individual student. As my DD said "It's not like they're going to give you candy if you get a 5". I don't know why we would expect a kid to care about a test that isn't connected to any specific outcome.

Because you teach your kid that it’s important to do your best so you, their teachers, and the school can assess how they are doing compared to their peers in DC

Because you as a parent teach your kid that not everything needs to come with a reward. There are things called internal motivation, doing your best no matter what, helping your teachers and school because this is very important to them and is a big factor in their assessment from higher ups.

Because it’s just the right thing to do and one lesson that just because you may not care doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it or try your best.

IMO, your mentality above does not help to give your daughter the skills that she needs to succeed in the real world. We do lots of things in life, at work, etc.. that isn’t connected to any specific outcomes but it’s the right thing to do.

Thank you for this condescending lecture! I certainly do teach my DD to work hard at things and to try her best. But I also believe that success requires us to discern and prioritize what is truly important, and the PARCC test does not make the cut.

If our city wants parents and kids to prioritize testing, they might consider changing to a test that provides results in less than 6 months so that the information is more useful, and a test that doesn't consume so much instructional time. Many states have dropped PARCC in favor of other tests that are better designed, and I hope that DCPS does the same.

In fact *all* states have dropped PARCC in favor of other tests. There are NO states left that use exclusively PARCC. It's only LA and MA that use some of PARCC in conjunction with other testing. There were originally 24 states in the partnership. DC, DoDEA, and BIE are all that are left in PARCC because it's not a great or useful test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARCC (We still use it because our local gov is beholden to education reformers, i.e. people who are grifting off our students and tax dollars.)

Using PARCC to judge a school to the exclusion of other metrics is pretty silly. Is JR a bad school because 0% of students got a 5 on math last SY? I'd argue no, since DC can't seem to sequence the HS test or run the tests correctly. https://www.myschooldc.org/schools/profile/125

No DCPS middle schools look great if all you are looking at are PARCC scores (especially math). Even DCI's PARCC scores don't look great: https://www.myschooldc.org/schools/profile/349

This thread started with someone asking about parents' actual experiences at MacFarland. As usual this viper pit website has taken us far afield into morass of global arguments about whether individual students can succeed despite systemic failures. Posters who are that worried are very likely to be unhappy at any middle school their kid is able to access through the lottery.

Everyone posting here should take a walk outside, myself included.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Exhibit A reading thru todays post.

Definite defensiveness from people with anyone asking about grade level or accelerated classes. Not a good sign. The people repeatedly telling posters to ask the school ad nauseum is also not a good sign.

The poster who says they can’t believe everything DCPS admin tells you is correct. Go to an open house and ask about accelerated classes, honors classes and many times you get vague answers, not straightforward. Ask about what is the criteria for these classes and again vague, non-descript answers.

The one thing is clear is that there is no accelerated math class from the sole person on here with kid there says his kid is in the accelerated math class and will be taking Algebra in 8th grade. In fact, DCPS is notorious, as someone mentioned, of pushing kids into Algebra who are not even on grade level or ready for it which is true. So I am not confident that it’s even taught on grade level.

Any class can be labeled whatever you want. Accelerated does not always mean accelerated and that is a big fact in DCPS.

OK I'm the parent with a kid in the 7th grade 'accelerated' math class. I can't tell you a ton about it. It's not Algebra. My kid likes the math teacher a lot and has anecdotes to share about him and class that make it sound positive. The kid gets good grades in math. I mean . . . I expect they cover the DCPS curriculum.

So this isn't trying to be defensive - a discriminating parent would want to know if they really do more than just normal 7th grade math maybe? I don't go into my kid's class or ask other students how they are doing in class, so I lack direct input from the teacher or longitudinal information regarding other students, i.e., I only hear from my own kid. I expect that's normal and would be impressed by people who know more . . . I guess you can look at public test information, and that probably shows many students not succeeding, which is not a positive for any parent, right, and many here believe that there is some kind of spiral toward success if kids are surrounded by kids succeeding at a peer level on testing. Ahead of PARCC my kid told me that some peers said they don't care about PARCC because it doesn't really count for anything, and you can take that as dispiriting or a clear-eyed understanding of priorities, cf. posts on this forum.

So - I don't meant to be overly defensive, but it's hard to be that omniscient informer when you mostly hear about what's going on at school from a remove, based on anecdotes shared by a teenager.

Thank you for your candid report. How did your kid get placed in the class? For a parent coming in with a 6th grader, how do they decide each kid's class schedule?

Honestly I don't really care about PARCC because in most years it doesn't count for anything for the individual student. As my DD said "It's not like they're going to give you candy if you get a 5". I don't know why we would expect a kid to care about a test that isn't connected to any specific outcome.

Because you teach your kid that it’s important to do your best so you, their teachers, and the school can assess how they are doing compared to their peers in DC

Because you as a parent teach your kid that not everything needs to come with a reward. There are things called internal motivation, doing your best no matter what, helping your teachers and school because this is very important to them and is a big factor in their assessment from higher ups.

Because it’s just the right thing to do and one lesson that just because you may not care doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it or try your best.

IMO, your mentality above does not help to give your daughter the skills that she needs to succeed in the real world. We do lots of things in life, at work, etc.. that isn’t connected to any specific outcomes but it’s the right thing to do.

Thank you for this condescending lecture! I certainly do teach my DD to work hard at things and to try her best. But I also believe that success requires us to discern and prioritize what is truly important, and the PARCC test does not make the cut.

If our city wants parents and kids to prioritize testing, they might consider changing to a test that provides results in less than 6 months so that the information is more useful, and a test that doesn't consume so much instructional time. Many states have dropped PARCC in favor of other tests that are better designed, and I hope that DCPS does the same.

In fact *all* states have dropped PARCC in favor of other tests. There are NO states left that use exclusively PARCC. It's only LA and MA that use some of PARCC in conjunction with other testing. There were originally 24 states in the partnership. DC, DoDEA, and BIE are all that are left in PARCC because it's not a great or useful test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARCC (We still use it because our local gov is beholden to education reformers, i.e. people who are grifting off our students and tax dollars.)

Using PARCC to judge a school to the exclusion of other metrics is pretty silly. Is JR a bad school because 0% of students got a 5 on math last SY? I'd argue no, since DC can't seem to sequence the HS test or run the tests correctly. https://www.myschooldc.org/schools/profile/125

No DCPS middle schools look great if all you are looking at are PARCC scores (especially math). Even DCI's PARCC scores don't look great: https://www.myschooldc.org/schools/profile/349

This thread started with someone asking about parents' actual experiences at MacFarland. As usual this viper pit website has taken us far afield into morass of global arguments about whether individual students can succeed despite systemic failures. Posters who are that worried are very likely to be unhappy at any middle school their kid is able to access through the lottery.

Everyone posting here should take a walk outside, myself included.

I’m one of the few apparently who actually finds PARCC useful because of the level of detail it provides, and because it actually focuses the school on teaching the kids concrete skills. I can’t say if there’s an assessment that would work better, but I absolutely think that setting standards, teaching to them, and assessing them is extremely important and unfortunately seems to be falling by they wayside due to “equity.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Exhibit A reading thru todays post.

Definite defensiveness from people with anyone asking about grade level or accelerated classes. Not a good sign. The people repeatedly telling posters to ask the school ad nauseum is also not a good sign.

The poster who says they can’t believe everything DCPS admin tells you is correct. Go to an open house and ask about accelerated classes, honors classes and many times you get vague answers, not straightforward. Ask about what is the criteria for these classes and again vague, non-descript answers.

The one thing is clear is that there is no accelerated math class from the sole person on here with kid there says his kid is in the accelerated math class and will be taking Algebra in 8th grade. In fact, DCPS is notorious, as someone mentioned, of pushing kids into Algebra who are not even on grade level or ready for it which is true. So I am not confident that it’s even taught on grade level.

Any class can be labeled whatever you want. Accelerated does not always mean accelerated and that is a big fact in DCPS.

OK I'm the parent with a kid in the 7th grade 'accelerated' math class. I can't tell you a ton about it. It's not Algebra. My kid likes the math teacher a lot and has anecdotes to share about him and class that make it sound positive. The kid gets good grades in math. I mean . . . I expect they cover the DCPS curriculum.

So this isn't trying to be defensive - a discriminating parent would want to know if they really do more than just normal 7th grade math maybe? I don't go into my kid's class or ask other students how they are doing in class, so I lack direct input from the teacher or longitudinal information regarding other students, i.e., I only hear from my own kid. I expect that's normal and would be impressed by people who know more . . . I guess you can look at public test information, and that probably shows many students not succeeding, which is not a positive for any parent, right, and many here believe that there is some kind of spiral toward success if kids are surrounded by kids succeeding at a peer level on testing. Ahead of PARCC my kid told me that some peers said they don't care about PARCC because it doesn't really count for anything, and you can take that as dispiriting or a clear-eyed understanding of priorities, cf. posts on this forum.

So - I don't meant to be overly defensive, but it's hard to be that omniscient informer when you mostly hear about what's going on at school from a remove, based on anecdotes shared by a teenager.

Thank you for your candid report. How did your kid get placed in the class? For a parent coming in with a 6th grader, how do they decide each kid's class schedule?

Honestly I don't really care about PARCC because in most years it doesn't count for anything for the individual student. As my DD said "It's not like they're going to give you candy if you get a 5". I don't know why we would expect a kid to care about a test that isn't connected to any specific outcome.

So as far as I can tell for 'accelerated' placement, the prior year teachers recommended some students for an accelerated 7th class and we heard about that from the kid, as well as that the kid could try to go into Algebra. Basically the kid wanted to progress through to Algebra instead of skip ahead and this aligned with what the teachers were planning and recommended. We mentally kind of reserved the right to say we wanted Algebra by sometime in October if the 7th grade class wasn't engaging, but didn't jump on that.

And overall scheduling for electives, etc. - it seems like the school decides, but if parents look at it and come back, they do seem willing to adjust things. But they don't send home a list of things to choose between and ask you respond by date X. This was a little surprising, but it worked out fine. I think it's primarily because if they did that they would get a significant underresponse and just have to assign kids anyway based on teacher recommendations and randomly to electives like art/band/whatever. So, it requires a bit of working with your kid to get them to self-advocate. Not every kid wants to do this, some it's a natural thing. So we had to talk to kid and say "ask for math" and "if you want music, ask if you can get in" and if it was a big enough deal and kid wouldn't do it, we'd send an email. Teachers are responsive to them. We just try not to be those people breathing down their necks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, that does appear to be one threshold, one that has been shared here before.

I send my kid there in good conscience. And much success to all!

I hope you’re not too disappointed a couple years down the road when you learn the hard way that in fact your kid isn’t actually being accelerated at Macfarland at all.

This, to me, as a completely disinterested reader of this thread with kids in an entirely different DCPS school pyramid, is a comment that I don't see any purpose in making. This parent made a choice to send their kids to McFarland. What does it matter to you if someone else does that even though you clearly consider the school subpar (and even if the stats support you)? How does it help your kid's educational outcomes -- or even educational outcomes for kids at MacFarland -- for you to be snotty and condescending here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Exhibit A reading thru todays post.

Definite defensiveness from people with anyone asking about grade level or accelerated classes. Not a good sign. The people repeatedly telling posters to ask the school ad nauseum is also not a good sign.

The poster who says they can’t believe everything DCPS admin tells you is correct. Go to an open house and ask about accelerated classes, honors classes and many times you get vague answers, not straightforward. Ask about what is the criteria for these classes and again vague, non-descript answers.

The one thing is clear is that there is no accelerated math class from the sole person on here with kid there says his kid is in the accelerated math class and will be taking Algebra in 8th grade. In fact, DCPS is notorious, as someone mentioned, of pushing kids into Algebra who are not even on grade level or ready for it which is true. So I am not confident that it’s even taught on grade level.

Any class can be labeled whatever you want. Accelerated does not always mean accelerated and that is a big fact in DCPS.

OK I'm the parent with a kid in the 7th grade 'accelerated' math class. I can't tell you a ton about it. It's not Algebra. My kid likes the math teacher a lot and has anecdotes to share about him and class that make it sound positive. The kid gets good grades in math. I mean . . . I expect they cover the DCPS curriculum.

So this isn't trying to be defensive - a discriminating parent would want to know if they really do more than just normal 7th grade math maybe? I don't go into my kid's class or ask other students how they are doing in class, so I lack direct input from the teacher or longitudinal information regarding other students, i.e., I only hear from my own kid. I expect that's normal and would be impressed by people who know more . . . I guess you can look at public test information, and that probably shows many students not succeeding, which is not a positive for any parent, right, and many here believe that there is some kind of spiral toward success if kids are surrounded by kids succeeding at a peer level on testing. Ahead of PARCC my kid told me that some peers said they don't care about PARCC because it doesn't really count for anything, and you can take that as dispiriting or a clear-eyed understanding of priorities, cf. posts on this forum.

So - I don't meant to be overly defensive, but it's hard to be that omniscient informer when you mostly hear about what's going on at school from a remove, based on anecdotes shared by a teenager.

Thank you for your candid report. How did your kid get placed in the class? For a parent coming in with a 6th grader, how do they decide each kid's class schedule?

Honestly I don't really care about PARCC because in most years it doesn't count for anything for the individual student. As my DD said "It's not like they're going to give you candy if you get a 5". I don't know why we would expect a kid to care about a test that isn't connected to any specific outcome.

Because you teach your kid that it’s important to do your best so you, their teachers, and the school can assess how they are doing compared to their peers in DC

Because you as a parent teach your kid that not everything needs to come with a reward. There are things called internal motivation, doing your best no matter what, helping your teachers and school because this is very important to them and is a big factor in their assessment from higher ups.

Because it’s just the right thing to do and one lesson that just because you may not care doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it or try your best.

IMO, your mentality above does not help to give your daughter the skills that she needs to succeed in the real world. We do lots of things in life, at work, etc.. that isn’t connected to any specific outcomes but it’s the right thing to do.

Thank you for this condescending lecture! I certainly do teach my DD to work hard at things and to try her best. But I also believe that success requires us to discern and prioritize what is truly important, and the PARCC test does not make the cut.

If our city wants parents and kids to prioritize testing, they might consider changing to a test that provides results in less than 6 months so that the information is more useful, and a test that doesn't consume so much instructional time. Many states have dropped PARCC in favor of other tests that are better designed, and I hope that DCPS does the same.

In fact *all* states have dropped PARCC in favor of other tests. There are NO states left that use exclusively PARCC. It's only LA and MA that use some of PARCC in conjunction with other testing. There were originally 24 states in the partnership. DC, DoDEA, and BIE are all that are left in PARCC because it's not a great or useful test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARCC (We still use it because our local gov is beholden to education reformers, i.e. people who are grifting off our students and tax dollars.)

Using PARCC to judge a school to the exclusion of other metrics is pretty silly. Is JR a bad school because 0% of students got a 5 on math last SY? I'd argue no, since DC can't seem to sequence the HS test or run the tests correctly. https://www.myschooldc.org/schools/profile/125

No DCPS middle schools look great if all you are looking at are PARCC scores (especially math). Even DCI's PARCC scores don't look great: https://www.myschooldc.org/schools/profile/349

This thread started with someone asking about parents' actual experiences at MacFarland. As usual this viper pit website has taken us far afield into morass of global arguments about whether individual students can succeed despite systemic failures. Posters who are that worried are very likely to be unhappy at any middle school their kid is able to access through the lottery.

Everyone posting here should take a walk outside, myself included.

I’m one of the few apparently who actually finds PARCC useful because of the level of detail it provides, and because it actually focuses the school on teaching the kids concrete skills. I can’t say if there’s an assessment that would work better, but I absolutely think that setting standards, teaching to them, and assessing them is extremely important and unfortunately seems to be falling by they wayside due to “equity.”

From what I gather having read the Wiki and associated news articles, withdrawing from PARCC was either politically motivated (Florida, NJ), due to poor results from the first few rounds of testing that made various stakeholders look bad (OH/MS etc) or cost (a majority of the rest). It did not have much to do with the test itself, which may be a reasonable assessment of the students' grasp of the material.

Of course, the way PARCC is administered in DC has no implications for the students, since their progress in class is judged by other tests (A-NET, IReady etc). That said, why are DC PARCC scores so abysmal in math? Other than Deal, no MS has more than 10% (I don't know whether the Oyster-Adams figures are separated out for Oyster and Adams) of the kids as proficient (score of 5) in math. Perhaps these numbers are somewhat obscured by the fact that MS has a wide range of kids taking Alg 1/Alg 2/Geo and are thus not counted in the proficiency figures for the Math section?