DC CAPE SCORES

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where are you guys seeing the data broken out into individual campuses? I'm curious about Latin 2nd versus Cooper but just see "Washington Latin PCS" listed on the OSSE spreadsheet here -

https://app.box.com/s/a1bx09uvrx0i066n2alof3onbfivboen

You are looking at the LEA file. There is a school level file also. On it they Washington Latin PCS - middle is 2nd street middle and Washington Latin PCS - HS is 2nd street high school and Washington Latin PCS - Cooper is Cooper middle.

Thank you! No meaningful differences between 2nd and Cooper campuses, it seems. Large (25+) differences between campuses for a few other charters that started second locations in wards 7/8 (Stokes, MV, Lee).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i think its good myschool no longer has the test scores because a lot of people who are not dcum posters were making their lottery list substantially influenced by the test scores and its more complicated/nuanced for reasons like all of those posted above. the data is still readily out there. i also wonder if even looking at at-risk numbers if some schools might have a population that is really especially at-risk/high-needs even within the farms subset.

If my school really no longer has the test scores, I totally disagree.

Transparency is good and it is something that OSSE and DCPS is not. Exhibit A eliminating showing science scores and now replacing the science curriculum with a terrible new one. No worries. If kids are doing terrible, no one will know.

More data is always good and then families can take it and do what they want. I don’t care if some families pick schools based on test scores or if they take that as only one of many considerations. Each family can decide what it’s important to them, not OSSE or DCPS.

IMO, it’s a big red flag when you move away from transparency and data.

The data is still out there. All that disappeared was an inaccurate, misleading, and (since the new scores came out) out-of-date set of graphics.

There’s also pretty good chance they’re just updating the database with the most recent data and then it will be back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done the analysis of percentages of 5s? I'm going to be honest and say that I am confident my UMC white kid with most statistical advantages you can name (parental education, married parents, etc) would get 4s anywhere, but a 5 might depend on the school/teaching. It's also a good way of judging schools that have a sizeable advanced cohort. Lots of the schools we are considering have kids peel off in 5th grade for charters, so I'd be particularly interested in how non-economically disadvantaged (white if it's the only proxy) 3rd and 4th or, if that's too complicated, just 4th graders do. But I'd also happily take any data related to 5s if anyone has pulled out the data.

lol ok. Kids get 5s because they are motivated and focused and get how to take tests. It is not actually about teaching to the test. At that age you can’t really teach those abilities.

Right. I don't care what my kid gets on the CAPE for the sake of it, so I don't want schools that teach to the test. I want schools with a large number of kids who get 5s so that there's a cohort to teach advanced material to.

DCPS doesn't really do this, even with a large cohort of 5s.

I’ll correct above. DCPS doesn’t do this because there are no kids getting 5’s at many schools.

I agree DCPS does not provide advanced material to advanced kids as part of their curriculum.

Individual teachers sometimes do, however.

But as previously noted, you can't find this out by looking at test scores because you don't know WHY kids at a particular school are getting 5s. Is it because the schools teachers are doing a particularly good job of offering advanced content to students who are ready for it? Or is it because parents at the school are paying for a lot of enrichment and tutoring? Or, another possibility: the school follows DCPS grade level curriculum in the classroom, but offers additional enrichment in math and ELA via after school programs or clubs which enables kids who are interested to work ahead?

You have to visit the school, talk to the faculty, talk to current and former families, etc. CAPE scores are the beginning of an inquiry, not the end.

You certainly know that a school with a chunk of 5s is more like to offer or be open to providing above grade level work or enrichments. If the school doesn't have a chunk of 5s, it almost certainly isn't happening and it's hard to pitch to the school as needed.

I don't know how many times different people can say this: but no, you don't know with certainty that having a chunk of kids scoring 5 on CAPE means they offer or are open to providing above grade level work or enrichments.

There are schools that teach to grade level but have parent communities who, unsatisfied with this, enroll their kids in outside tutoring in high numbers resulting in higher scores. This is especially true in math because of the ease and popularity of math tutoring centers and programs.

There are also schools that have teachers and cultures that absolutely offer or are open to offering above grade level work and enrichments. YOU CANNOT FIGURE OUT WHICH SCHOOLS THESE ARE BY LOOKING AT TEST SCORES ALONE. You have to go to the schools and talk to them and talk to families at the school. It is the only way.

My advice is to set some kind of floor for test scores, however you want to slice them to get at your situation. But only use scores as a floor to help narrow the schools you want to compare. Do not use the rankings of scores as a measure of which school is doing more to serve above grade level students or encourage above grade level work, because the scores don't tell you that. That's when you go find out what is actually going on in the school and get a sense for what is resulting in the higher scores. Sometimes it really is just that there's a large cohort of higher income parents willing to pay for tutoring. Really. In which case the 5s are not a reflection of the school's approach or teaching quality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done the analysis of percentages of 5s? I'm going to be honest and say that I am confident my UMC white kid with most statistical advantages you can name (parental education, married parents, etc) would get 4s anywhere, but a 5 might depend on the school/teaching. It's also a good way of judging schools that have a sizeable advanced cohort. Lots of the schools we are considering have kids peel off in 5th grade for charters, so I'd be particularly interested in how non-economically disadvantaged (white if it's the only proxy) 3rd and 4th or, if that's too complicated, just 4th graders do. But I'd also happily take any data related to 5s if anyone has pulled out the data.

lol ok. Kids get 5s because they are motivated and focused and get how to take tests. It is not actually about teaching to the test. At that age you can’t really teach those abilities.

Right. I don't care what my kid gets on the CAPE for the sake of it, so I don't want schools that teach to the test. I want schools with a large number of kids who get 5s so that there's a cohort to teach advanced material to.

DP. That might be what the data shows but it also might not.

At many of the schools with very high percentages of kids scoring 4+, it not uncommon for parents to be supplementing aggressively outside of school, especially in math. At a school like that, you might think "oh good lots of kids scoring 5, the teacher can teach above grade level." In reality, the teacher still has to focus most of their content on grade level because there will always be kids who need that, and the kids doing a lot of outside supplementing may be bored in class but still excelling in math.

If your focus is on providing a challenging environment for advanced learners, I would pick a floor for scoring and then start focusing on qualitative factors. For instance, some schools offer enrichment for kids who excel in or have a strong interest in subjects at school (rather than parents having to go find it elsewhere). Look for schools with active History Day participation, math and creative writing clubs after school (not just tutoring, but clubs where kids can go beyond the curriculum), science fairs, etc. Talk to parents and kids at the school and listen to how they talk about the academics and what they enjoy most at the school. This is going to tell you way more about the metrics you value than trying to isolate the 5s for non-economically advantaged kids and using it to draw conclusions about what the classroom experience is like.

To give you an example of how this looks, I'm a parent on Capitol Hill and when I was looking at schools, I looked at things like how Payne has a really great History Day program with a lot of kids participating, and they also have a dedicated science teacher for upper grades. Or how LT does a science fair every spring that all kids participate in, and their after school enrichment programming is largely taught by the school's teachers and includes a ton of academic enrichment in various subjects. Those are more interesting and meaningful metrics for me in choosing a school than which school has 5 additional 4th graders from non-economically disadvantaged backgrounds scoring a 5 on CAPE.

Totally agree with this. The LT enrichments are truly fantastic and they have a lot to do with drawing & keeping UMC families at the school. They are particularly great for working parents who don't have time to schlep their kids around the Hill after school to find the equivalent enrichments elsewhere. I also like that it fosters cohesion between grade levels. My kids have way more friends a grade above or below them than I ever did as a kid because they spend time with them in shared-interest after school clubs.

Without naming names, some Hill elementary schools did a much better job than others creating school-wide enrichment and community post-Covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done the analysis of percentages of 5s? I'm going to be honest and say that I am confident my UMC white kid with most statistical advantages you can name (parental education, married parents, etc) would get 4s anywhere, but a 5 might depend on the school/teaching. It's also a good way of judging schools that have a sizeable advanced cohort. Lots of the schools we are considering have kids peel off in 5th grade for charters, so I'd be particularly interested in how non-economically disadvantaged (white if it's the only proxy) 3rd and 4th or, if that's too complicated, just 4th graders do. But I'd also happily take any data related to 5s if anyone has pulled out the data.

lol ok. Kids get 5s because they are motivated and focused and get how to take tests. It is not actually about teaching to the test. At that age you can’t really teach those abilities.

Right. I don't care what my kid gets on the CAPE for the sake of it, so I don't want schools that teach to the test. I want schools with a large number of kids who get 5s so that there's a cohort to teach advanced material to.

DCPS doesn't really do this, even with a large cohort of 5s.

That's not true. You may just be at a DCPS where it doesn't happen. At our DCPS last year, for example, my kid's 4th grade math teacher assigned different homework to different math groups and the top group got explicitly above grade level work. (All kids get the whole packet, so kids could challenge or review at their own discretion, but their assignment varied by math group.)

in case it needs to be said - giving kids an “extra packet” without actually giving them instruction in the supposedly above-grade level material is not actually differentiation in math. math needs to be taught. In English it may be easier because you can give kids more advanced reading assignments and more challenging feedback on writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done the analysis of percentages of 5s? I'm going to be honest and say that I am confident my UMC white kid with most statistical advantages you can name (parental education, married parents, etc) would get 4s anywhere, but a 5 might depend on the school/teaching. It's also a good way of judging schools that have a sizeable advanced cohort. Lots of the schools we are considering have kids peel off in 5th grade for charters, so I'd be particularly interested in how non-economically disadvantaged (white if it's the only proxy) 3rd and 4th or, if that's too complicated, just 4th graders do. But I'd also happily take any data related to 5s if anyone has pulled out the data.

lol ok. Kids get 5s because they are motivated and focused and get how to take tests. It is not actually about teaching to the test. At that age you can’t really teach those abilities.

Right. I don't care what my kid gets on the CAPE for the sake of it, so I don't want schools that teach to the test. I want schools with a large number of kids who get 5s so that there's a cohort to teach advanced material to.

DCPS doesn't really do this, even with a large cohort of 5s.

I’ll correct above. DCPS doesn’t do this because there are no kids getting 5’s at many schools.

I agree DCPS does not provide advanced material to advanced kids as part of their curriculum.

Individual teachers sometimes do, however.

But as previously noted, you can't find this out by looking at test scores because you don't know WHY kids at a particular school are getting 5s. Is it because the schools teachers are doing a particularly good job of offering advanced content to students who are ready for it? Or is it because parents at the school are paying for a lot of enrichment and tutoring? Or, another possibility: the school follows DCPS grade level curriculum in the classroom, but offers additional enrichment in math and ELA via after school programs or clubs which enables kids who are interested to work ahead?

You have to visit the school, talk to the faculty, talk to current and former families, etc. CAPE scores are the beginning of an inquiry, not the end.

You certainly know that a school with a chunk of 5s is more like to offer or be open to providing above grade level work or enrichments. If the school doesn't have a chunk of 5s, it almost certainly isn't happening and it's hard to pitch to the school as needed.

I don't know how many times different people can say this: but no, you don't know with certainty that having a chunk of kids scoring 5 on CAPE means they offer or are open to providing above grade level work or enrichments.

There are schools that teach to grade level but have parent communities who, unsatisfied with this, enroll their kids in outside tutoring in high numbers resulting in higher scores. This is especially true in math because of the ease and popularity of math tutoring centers and programs.

There are also schools that have teachers and cultures that absolutely offer or are open to offering above grade level work and enrichments. YOU CANNOT FIGURE OUT WHICH SCHOOLS THESE ARE BY LOOKING AT TEST SCORES ALONE. You have to go to the schools and talk to them and talk to families at the school. It is the only way.

My advice is to set some kind of floor for test scores, however you want to slice them to get at your situation. But only use scores as a floor to help narrow the schools you want to compare. Do not use the rankings of scores as a measure of which school is doing more to serve above grade level students or encourage above grade level work, because the scores don't tell you that. That's when you go find out what is actually going on in the school and get a sense for what is resulting in the higher scores. Sometimes it really is just that there's a large cohort of higher income parents willing to pay for tutoring. Really. In which case the 5s are not a reflection of the school's approach or teaching quality.

Reading comprehension. I didn’t say you could tell which schools did offer it. I said you could pretty much rule out schools that didn’t or wouldn’t (for good reasons) and see which schools might or might be persuaded to. Based on the number of people in this thread who think no schools offer differentiation, I’d say folks aren’t super informed about what other schools do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done the analysis of percentages of 5s? I'm going to be honest and say that I am confident my UMC white kid with most statistical advantages you can name (parental education, married parents, etc) would get 4s anywhere, but a 5 might depend on the school/teaching. It's also a good way of judging schools that have a sizeable advanced cohort. Lots of the schools we are considering have kids peel off in 5th grade for charters, so I'd be particularly interested in how non-economically disadvantaged (white if it's the only proxy) 3rd and 4th or, if that's too complicated, just 4th graders do. But I'd also happily take any data related to 5s if anyone has pulled out the data.

lol ok. Kids get 5s because they are motivated and focused and get how to take tests. It is not actually about teaching to the test. At that age you can’t really teach those abilities.

Right. I don't care what my kid gets on the CAPE for the sake of it, so I don't want schools that teach to the test. I want schools with a large number of kids who get 5s so that there's a cohort to teach advanced material to.

DCPS doesn't really do this, even with a large cohort of 5s.

That's not true. You may just be at a DCPS where it doesn't happen. At our DCPS last year, for example, my kid's 4th grade math teacher assigned different homework to different math groups and the top group got explicitly above grade level work. (All kids get the whole packet, so kids could challenge or review at their own discretion, but their assignment varied by math group.)

in case it needs to be said - giving kids an “extra packet” without actually giving them instruction in the supposedly above-grade level material is not actually differentiation in math. math needs to be taught. In English it may be easier because you can give kids more advanced reading assignments and more challenging feedback on writing.

In case it needs to be said, she offers tailored instruction too. Small group in class once/week plus optional after school hours where you can go over any assigned work which allows top group kids to get instruction as needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done the analysis of percentages of 5s? I'm going to be honest and say that I am confident my UMC white kid with most statistical advantages you can name (parental education, married parents, etc) would get 4s anywhere, but a 5 might depend on the school/teaching. It's also a good way of judging schools that have a sizeable advanced cohort. Lots of the schools we are considering have kids peel off in 5th grade for charters, so I'd be particularly interested in how non-economically disadvantaged (white if it's the only proxy) 3rd and 4th or, if that's too complicated, just 4th graders do. But I'd also happily take any data related to 5s if anyone has pulled out the data.

lol ok. Kids get 5s because they are motivated and focused and get how to take tests. It is not actually about teaching to the test. At that age you can’t really teach those abilities.

Right. I don't care what my kid gets on the CAPE for the sake of it, so I don't want schools that teach to the test. I want schools with a large number of kids who get 5s so that there's a cohort to teach advanced material to.

DCPS doesn't really do this, even with a large cohort of 5s.

I’ll correct above. DCPS doesn’t do this because there are no kids getting 5’s at many schools.

I agree DCPS does not provide advanced material to advanced kids as part of their curriculum.

Individual teachers sometimes do, however.

But as previously noted, you can't find this out by looking at test scores because you don't know WHY kids at a particular school are getting 5s. Is it because the schools teachers are doing a particularly good job of offering advanced content to students who are ready for it? Or is it because parents at the school are paying for a lot of enrichment and tutoring? Or, another possibility: the school follows DCPS grade level curriculum in the classroom, but offers additional enrichment in math and ELA via after school programs or clubs which enables kids who are interested to work ahead?

You have to visit the school, talk to the faculty, talk to current and former families, etc. CAPE scores are the beginning of an inquiry, not the end.

Fun little fact for you all- these tests offer exclusively grade level content (in math- this is harder to discern in ELA). Therefore, the kids scoring 5s do not have to know any above level content, but rather have to know grade level content at a deeper level. To me, this is far more important and indicative of their reasoning skills and overall mathematical prowess. It likely means that for kids getting 5s, they answered more of the "explain your reasoning" type questions correctly. I do not teach content above my grade level and yet get a pretty decent percentage of students scoring 5s. Learning the content for the grade levels above is not all it is cracked up to be, especially if the reasoning and deeper understanding is lacking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done the analysis of percentages of 5s? I'm going to be honest and say that I am confident my UMC white kid with most statistical advantages you can name (parental education, married parents, etc) would get 4s anywhere, but a 5 might depend on the school/teaching. It's also a good way of judging schools that have a sizeable advanced cohort. Lots of the schools we are considering have kids peel off in 5th grade for charters, so I'd be particularly interested in how non-economically disadvantaged (white if it's the only proxy) 3rd and 4th or, if that's too complicated, just 4th graders do. But I'd also happily take any data related to 5s if anyone has pulled out the data.

lol ok. Kids get 5s because they are motivated and focused and get how to take tests. It is not actually about teaching to the test. At that age you can’t really teach those abilities.

Right. I don't care what my kid gets on the CAPE for the sake of it, so I don't want schools that teach to the test. I want schools with a large number of kids who get 5s so that there's a cohort to teach advanced material to.

DCPS doesn't really do this, even with a large cohort of 5s.

That's not true. You may just be at a DCPS where it doesn't happen. At our DCPS last year, for example, my kid's 4th grade math teacher assigned different homework to different math groups and the top group got explicitly above grade level work. (All kids get the whole packet, so kids could challenge or review at their own discretion, but their assignment varied by math group.)

in case it needs to be said - giving kids an “extra packet” without actually giving them instruction in the supposedly above-grade level material is not actually differentiation in math. math needs to be taught. In English it may be easier because you can give kids more advanced reading assignments and more challenging feedback on writing.

In case it needs to be said, she offers tailored instruction too. Small group in class once/week plus optional after school hours where you can go over any assigned work which allows top group kids to get instruction as needed.

That’s not actually the way to teach math well either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done the analysis of percentages of 5s? I'm going to be honest and say that I am confident my UMC white kid with most statistical advantages you can name (parental education, married parents, etc) would get 4s anywhere, but a 5 might depend on the school/teaching. It's also a good way of judging schools that have a sizeable advanced cohort. Lots of the schools we are considering have kids peel off in 5th grade for charters, so I'd be particularly interested in how non-economically disadvantaged (white if it's the only proxy) 3rd and 4th or, if that's too complicated, just 4th graders do. But I'd also happily take any data related to 5s if anyone has pulled out the data.

lol ok. Kids get 5s because they are motivated and focused and get how to take tests. It is not actually about teaching to the test. At that age you can’t really teach those abilities.

Right. I don't care what my kid gets on the CAPE for the sake of it, so I don't want schools that teach to the test. I want schools with a large number of kids who get 5s so that there's a cohort to teach advanced material to.

DCPS doesn't really do this, even with a large cohort of 5s.

I’ll correct above. DCPS doesn’t do this because there are no kids getting 5’s at many schools.

I agree DCPS does not provide advanced material to advanced kids as part of their curriculum.

Individual teachers sometimes do, however.

But as previously noted, you can't find this out by looking at test scores because you don't know WHY kids at a particular school are getting 5s. Is it because the schools teachers are doing a particularly good job of offering advanced content to students who are ready for it? Or is it because parents at the school are paying for a lot of enrichment and tutoring? Or, another possibility: the school follows DCPS grade level curriculum in the classroom, but offers additional enrichment in math and ELA via after school programs or clubs which enables kids who are interested to work ahead?

You have to visit the school, talk to the faculty, talk to current and former families, etc. CAPE scores are the beginning of an inquiry, not the end.

Fun little fact for you all- these tests offer exclusively grade level content (in math- this is harder to discern in ELA). Therefore, the kids scoring 5s do not have to know any above level content, but rather have to know grade level content at a deeper level. To me, this is far more important and indicative of their reasoning skills and overall mathematical prowess. It likely means that for kids getting 5s, they answered more of the "explain your reasoning" type questions correctly. I do not teach content above my grade level and yet get a pretty decent percentage of students scoring 5s. Learning the content for the grade levels above is not all it is cracked up to be, especially if the reasoning and deeper understanding is lacking.

I’m not sure that it is “deeper understanding” vs “better test skills and understanding of what is expected.” Plenty of kids at that age have a deeper understanding but no interest in showing it off on a test, and also have processing speeds faster than the other kids. I don’t think I am disagreeing with you that a 5 does not mean that more advanced material was taught; just that the kid is what we call a “good test taker.” I’m not knocking that because I think that type of intelligence is real and important to certain types of success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done the analysis of percentages of 5s? I'm going to be honest and say that I am confident my UMC white kid with most statistical advantages you can name (parental education, married parents, etc) would get 4s anywhere, but a 5 might depend on the school/teaching. It's also a good way of judging schools that have a sizeable advanced cohort. Lots of the schools we are considering have kids peel off in 5th grade for charters, so I'd be particularly interested in how non-economically disadvantaged (white if it's the only proxy) 3rd and 4th or, if that's too complicated, just 4th graders do. But I'd also happily take any data related to 5s if anyone has pulled out the data.

lol ok. Kids get 5s because they are motivated and focused and get how to take tests. It is not actually about teaching to the test. At that age you can’t really teach those abilities.

Right. I don't care what my kid gets on the CAPE for the sake of it, so I don't want schools that teach to the test. I want schools with a large number of kids who get 5s so that there's a cohort to teach advanced material to.

DCPS doesn't really do this, even with a large cohort of 5s.

I’ll correct above. DCPS doesn’t do this because there are no kids getting 5’s at many schools.

I agree DCPS does not provide advanced material to advanced kids as part of their curriculum.

Individual teachers sometimes do, however.

But as previously noted, you can't find this out by looking at test scores because you don't know WHY kids at a particular school are getting 5s. Is it because the schools teachers are doing a particularly good job of offering advanced content to students who are ready for it? Or is it because parents at the school are paying for a lot of enrichment and tutoring? Or, another possibility: the school follows DCPS grade level curriculum in the classroom, but offers additional enrichment in math and ELA via after school programs or clubs which enables kids who are interested to work ahead?

You have to visit the school, talk to the faculty, talk to current and former families, etc. CAPE scores are the beginning of an inquiry, not the end.

Fun little fact for you all- these tests offer exclusively grade level content (in math- this is harder to discern in ELA). Therefore, the kids scoring 5s do not have to know any above level content, but rather have to know grade level content at a deeper level. To me, this is far more important and indicative of their reasoning skills and overall mathematical prowess. It likely means that for kids getting 5s, they answered more of the "explain your reasoning" type questions correctly. I do not teach content above my grade level and yet get a pretty decent percentage of students scoring 5s. Learning the content for the grade levels above is not all it is cracked up to be, especially if the reasoning and deeper understanding is lacking.

I’m not sure that it is “deeper understanding” vs “better test skills and understanding of what is expected.” Plenty of kids at that age have a deeper understanding but no interest in showing it off on a test, and also have processing speeds faster than the other kids. I don’t think I am disagreeing with you that a 5 does not mean that more advanced material was taught; just that the kid is what we call a “good test taker.” I’m not knocking that because I think that type of intelligence is real and important to certain types of success.

I hear you- many kids with deeper understanding/math skills, don't have the test taking skills (especially for a timed test). Also agree about the desire to show it on a test especially when it's often a week long (or more) experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done the analysis of percentages of 5s? I'm going to be honest and say that I am confident my UMC white kid with most statistical advantages you can name (parental education, married parents, etc) would get 4s anywhere, but a 5 might depend on the school/teaching. It's also a good way of judging schools that have a sizeable advanced cohort. Lots of the schools we are considering have kids peel off in 5th grade for charters, so I'd be particularly interested in how non-economically disadvantaged (white if it's the only proxy) 3rd and 4th or, if that's too complicated, just 4th graders do. But I'd also happily take any data related to 5s if anyone has pulled out the data.

lol ok. Kids get 5s because they are motivated and focused and get how to take tests. It is not actually about teaching to the test. At that age you can’t really teach those abilities.

Right. I don't care what my kid gets on the CAPE for the sake of it, so I don't want schools that teach to the test. I want schools with a large number of kids who get 5s so that there's a cohort to teach advanced material to.

DCPS doesn't really do this, even with a large cohort of 5s.

That's not true. You may just be at a DCPS where it doesn't happen. At our DCPS last year, for example, my kid's 4th grade math teacher assigned different homework to different math groups and the top group got explicitly above grade level work. (All kids get the whole packet, so kids could challenge or review at their own discretion, but their assignment varied by math group.)

in case it needs to be said - giving kids an “extra packet” without actually giving them instruction in the supposedly above-grade level material is not actually differentiation in math. math needs to be taught. In English it may be easier because you can give kids more advanced reading assignments and more challenging feedback on writing.

In case it needs to be said, she offers tailored instruction too. Small group in class once/week plus optional after school hours where you can go over any assigned work which allows top group kids to get instruction as needed.

That’s not actually the way to teach math well either.

Fabulous. Feel free to keep your kid at the school where they get no challenge. I don't think in a DCPS you can expect substantially more personalized differentiation from the teacher upwards than 1 small group a week + optional help (+ obviously iReady, which is adaptive).

[Anonymous]

I tend to think smart kids with average teaching will score 4s. Smart kids with very good/effective teachers may score 5s. A high concentration of 5s shows you something about the teaching quality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I tend to think smart kids with average teaching will score 4s. Smart kids with very good/effective teachers may score 5s. A high concentration of 5s shows you something about the teaching quality.

+1. This

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I tend to think smart kids with average teaching will score 4s. Smart kids with very good/effective teachers may score 5s. A high concentration of 5s shows you something about the teaching quality.

CAPE/PARCC is a weird test. My kid scored high on it only because his 3rd grade teacher spent a month teaching all the tricks -- like put a quote somewhere in your essay because the graders are looking for a quote, etc. I guess this has to do with teaching quality? But more like he had a good teacher who knew how to teach to the test.