Why are HRCS so popular? Test scores stink.

[Anonymous]

YY had a large class on 3rd grade (100+ kids).
ITS/CMI do NOT teach to the test -- I suspect that most DCPS did only that for the most part of the month before the test...

FWIW: Told my kid to ignore the PPARC test ("No need to read the questions. Answer randomly. Just be done with it quickly"). Not sure how many kids/parents did the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:YY had a large class on 3rd grade (100+ kids).
ITS/CMI do NOT teach to the test -- I suspect that most DCPS did only that for the most part of the month before the test...

FWIW: Told my kid to ignore the PPARC test ("No need to read the questions. Answer randomly. Just be done with it quickly"). Not sure how many kids/parents did the same.

Just curious, why would you tell your kid that? My kid's not yet in a testing grade, but I'd want her to give her best effort on whatever she's working on..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:YY had a large class on 3rd grade (100+ kids).
ITS/CMI do NOT teach to the test -- I suspect that most DCPS did only that for the most part of the month before the test...

FWIW: Told my kid to ignore the PPARC test ("No need to read the questions. Answer randomly. Just be done with it quickly"). Not sure how many kids/parents did the same.

Just curious, why would you tell your kid that? My kid's not yet in a testing grade, but I'd want her to give her best effort on whatever she's working on..

Not pp, but I think the same. The tests make sense to politicians and "ed. reform" advocates, not actual education experts -- especially in the early years.

The teachers and admins make a big deal about the tests because it matters to *them* (the adults). But they are spending the children's time and stressing them out over something at best irrelevant (and arguably harmful) to the children.

Countering the pressure put on the kids is one of the few ways parents can fight back against this nonsense.

[Anonymous]

it's not like your kid is going to get to do something more enriching if she finishes the test super early. might as well put in some effort and do your best. For upper grades, PARCC may affect entrance into exam schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haven't they spent only half the amount of time in English as all the other children their age? Mandarin and English don't even share an alphabet. The cognitive benefits of a second language have been well established, however it takes until approximately 5th grade for some of that to begin to show up on standardized tests.

Give me a break. Oyster-Adams ELA scores are in the 80s for all grades. My YY kid scored a 5 on ELA last year (we've moved on to a private). The cognitive benefits of a 2nd language don't do a lot for Americans who can't read or write English to a high standard. English instruction at YY isn't too hot, and neither is Mandarin. Knock yourself out at home to compensate and you're "a tiger parent." Things should change.

Spanish is the easiest language. Chinese is one of the hardest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:YY had a large class on 3rd grade (100+ kids).
ITS/CMI do NOT teach to the test -- I suspect that most DCPS did only that for the most part of the month before the test...

FWIW: Told my kid to ignore the PPARC test ("No need to read the questions. Answer randomly. Just be done with it quickly"). Not sure how many kids/parents did the same.

You have no idea what DCPS does, or what other charters do, other than what you have "heard." You also gave your child lousy advice--sends a terrible message. I suspect that you routinely make poor decisions in other areas of your life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haven't they spent only half the amount of time in English as all the other children their age? Mandarin and English don't even share an alphabet. The cognitive benefits of a second language have been well established, however it takes until approximately 5th grade for some of that to begin to show up on standardized tests.

Give me a break. Oyster-Adams ELA scores are in the 80s for all grades. My YY kid scored a 5 on ELA last year (we've moved on to a private). The cognitive benefits of a 2nd language don't do a lot for Americans who can't read or write English to a high standard. English instruction at YY isn't too hot, and neither is Mandarin. Knock yourself out at home to compensate and you're "a tiger parent." Things should change.

Spanish is the easiest language. Chinese is one of the hardest.

Uh oh. Can we not have another thread hijacked by the "quality of Chinese spoken at YY" debate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haven't they spent only half the amount of time in English as all the other children their age? Mandarin and English don't even share an alphabet. The cognitive benefits of a second language have been well established, however it takes until approximately 5th grade for some of that to begin to show up on standardized tests.

Give me a break. Oyster-Adams ELA scores are in the 80s for all grades. My YY kid scored a 5 on ELA last year (we've moved on to a private). The cognitive benefits of a 2nd language don't do a lot for Americans who can't read or write English to a high standard. English instruction at YY isn't too hot, and neither is Mandarin. Knock yourself out at home to compensate and you're "a tiger parent." Things should change.

Spanish is the easiest language. Chinese is one of the hardest.

The test is administered ONLY in English. So, does YY need to work on its English instruction? What's your next excuse to explain YY's relatively lackluster test scores?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:YY had a large class on 3rd grade (100+ kids).
ITS/CMI do NOT teach to the test -- I suspect that most DCPS did only that for the most part of the month before the test...

FWIW: Told my kid to ignore the PPARC test ("No need to read the questions. Answer randomly. Just be done with it quickly"). Not sure how many kids/parents did the same.

Just curious, why would you tell your kid that? My kid's not yet in a testing grade, but I'd want her to give her best effort on whatever she's working on..

Not pp, but I think the same. The tests make sense to politicians and "ed. reform" advocates, not actual education experts -- especially in the early years.

The teachers and admins make a big deal about the tests because it matters to *them* (the adults). But they are spending the children's time and stressing them out over something at best irrelevant (and arguably harmful) to the children.

Countering the pressure put on the kids is one of the few ways parents can fight back against this nonsense.

I respectfully disagree. As much as I dislike standardized testing, taxpayers and parents deserve some metrics on how the kids are doing. It's like spitting in the teachers' faces to tell kids to ignore the testing that literally can affect their livelihoods. We all should be invested in seeing good performances for our city schools.</vent>

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haven't they spent only half the amount of time in English as all the other children their age? Mandarin and English don't even share an alphabet. The cognitive benefits of a second language have been well established, however it takes until approximately 5th grade for some of that to begin to show up on standardized tests.

Give me a break. Oyster-Adams ELA scores are in the 80s for all grades. My YY kid scored a 5 on ELA last year (we've moved on to a private). The cognitive benefits of a 2nd language don't do a lot for Americans who can't read or write English to a high standard. English instruction at YY isn't too hot, and neither is Mandarin. Knock yourself out at home to compensate and you're "a tiger parent." Things should change.

Spanish is the easiest language. Chinese is one of the hardest.

The test is administered ONLY in English. So, does YY need to work on its English instruction? What's your next excuse to explain YY's relatively lackluster test scores?

P.S. We already know that the vast majority of YY's students speak English at home. That's not the case at Oyster, where 60% of the students are Hispanic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haven't they spent only half the amount of time in English as all the other children their age? Mandarin and English don't even share an alphabet. The cognitive benefits of a second language have been well established, however it takes until approximately 5th grade for some of that to begin to show up on standardized tests.

Give me a break. Oyster-Adams ELA scores are in the 80s for all grades. My YY kid scored a 5 on ELA last year (we've moved on to a private). The cognitive benefits of a 2nd language don't do a lot for Americans who can't read or write English to a high standard. English instruction at YY isn't too hot, and neither is Mandarin. Knock yourself out at home to compensate and you're "a tiger parent." Things should change.

Spanish is the easiest language. Chinese is one of the hardest.

The test is administered ONLY in English. So, does YY need to work on its English instruction? What's your next excuse to explain YY's relatively lackluster test scores?

Their scores are not really lackluster, compared to other language charters. Only LAMB, the other Tier 1 language charter, performed better. Let's let the YY parents get the answers from their administration themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you shoud look deeper than just FARMS.

ELL/Special Ed/Economically Disadvantaged %s

CMI: 5.5/33.7/22.7
LAMB: 37.7/12.3/24.6
MV: 20.8/7.4/32.9
YY: 5.9/8.3/9.5
ITS: 4.4/12.3/18.3

Oyster: 12.9/12.0/20.8

You just made my point. YY's FARMS rate is the lowest by far--it's in the single digits! All of these other schools have double-digit poverty rates; most of them reach into the 20-30% range. YY also also has some of the lowest ELL and Spec. Ed. rates. Based on those facts, YY should out score all of those schools, including Oyster. Clearly, it does not.

And if the PARCC was administered in Mandarin, this would look different. Maybe that's too complicated for some of you, but the kind of families that choose YY aren't interested in the "teach to the test philosophy" - if we were, our children wouldn't spend half their time in Chinese instead of English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haven't they spent only half the amount of time in English as all the other children their age? Mandarin and English don't even share an alphabet. The cognitive benefits of a second language have been well established, however it takes until approximately 5th grade for some of that to begin to show up on standardized tests.

Give me a break. Oyster-Adams ELA scores are in the 80s for all grades. My YY kid scored a 5 on ELA last year (we've moved on to a private). The cognitive benefits of a 2nd language don't do a lot for Americans who can't read or write English to a high standard. English instruction at YY isn't too hot, and neither is Mandarin. Knock yourself out at home to compensate and you're "a tiger parent." Things should change.

Spanish is the easiest language. Chinese is one of the hardest.

The test is administered ONLY in English. So, does YY need to work on its English instruction? What's your next excuse to explain YY's relatively lackluster test scores?

Isn't it obvious? The scores are abysmal because you pulled your 5 scoring child for private school. Please come back so scores can rebound!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:YY had a large class on 3rd grade (100+ kids).
ITS/CMI do NOT teach to the test -- I suspect that most DCPS did only that for the most part of the month before the test...

FWIW: Told my kid to ignore the PPARC test ("No need to read the questions. Answer randomly. Just be done with it quickly"). Not sure how many kids/parents did the same.

You have no idea what DCPS does, or what other charters do, other than what you have "heard." You also gave your child lousy advice--sends a terrible message. I suspect that you routinely make poor decisions in other areas of your life.

She knows more than enough. After all, she still got her DC into IT as opposed to the local DCPS dogpile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haven't they spent only half the amount of time in English as all the other children their age? Mandarin and English don't even share an alphabet. The cognitive benefits of a second language have been well established, however it takes until approximately 5th grade for some of that to begin to show up on standardized tests.

Give me a break. Oyster-Adams ELA scores are in the 80s for all grades. My YY kid scored a 5 on ELA last year (we've moved on to a private). The cognitive benefits of a 2nd language don't do a lot for Americans who can't read or write English to a high standard. English instruction at YY isn't too hot, and neither is Mandarin. Knock yourself out at home to compensate and you're "a tiger parent." Things should change.

Spanish is the easiest language. Chinese is one of the hardest.

The test is administered ONLY in English. So, does YY need to work on its English instruction? What's your next excuse to explain YY's relatively lackluster test scores?

Isn't it obvious? The scores are abysmal because you pulled your 5 scoring child for private school. Please come back so scores can rebound!!!

My child never attended YY. There's more than one person posting who is underwhelmed by YY's scores, despite YY parents' boosterism.