PARCC data is up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:most depressing experience so far is looking at the EOTP schools near me and seeing in the spreadsheets that of any group, the number of students that actually hit the exceeds category at the top reflects 1 student, sometimes 2 students.

I’m a teacher and I feel the same way. I think a lot of my kids should have done better, but they just had no interest in taking the test.

Well that's a tough spot. Do you push them all to invest in their PARCC outcomes so a few kids can get trophy scores for your school or do you manage realistic expectations for the overwhelming majority who struggle to meet that goal (likely through no fault yours)?

The overall scores largely correlate to income and at-risk status.

I’m the teacher in the PP. I teach elementary math. I try to build them up throughout the year so they constantly hear that they can do hard things. I do very little test prep, but did spend time working on how to explain your answers in writing, but because that’s a good skill to have outside of testing. The kids want to know how they will do so I’ll show them their previous scores and say “I think you can get X This year if you Y.” But the reality is the kids (for the most part) don’t have any interest or investment in doing well. They’ll ask if they need to pass PARCC to go on to the next grade and the answer is no. I had kids finish in 7 minutes, not finish at all, sleep through the test, walk out and sit in the hallway, cry, and be disruptive so we are forced to remove them. I saw some kids grow but most just stayed the same and a few went down. I wouldn’t say there are any trophy kids, though we do look at what kids were close to the next level up and could make it with some extra TLC. [/quotes]

Thanks for sharing your experience. That's a good reminder of the challenges in many schools. Some schools have students overall struggling with PARCC but will have a small set of outliers, which I suspect reflects that extra support.

[Anonymous]

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

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

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

At risk is low. Poor performers counseled out before PARCC testing too. BASIS also doesn't sugarcoat high student demands and at a minimum the student body reflects a willingness to accept the school culture of mountains of testing/homework. Their at-risk population is somewhat self-selected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

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

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

Go YY, for killing it!

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

She changes nothing, period, but most parents and the board love her anyway. She doesn't like having parents or kids who complicate her work on her hands, and has her ways of dissuading them from applying, or convincing them to go. The annoying families fall into various categories - at-risk kids who may score low on PARCC, SPED kids, bilingual ethnic Chinese families who can hear the poor Mandarin she and the majority of the kids speak, even really high-performing kids who get bored in YY ELA and math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

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

At risk is low. Poor performers counseled out before PARCC testing too. BASIS also doesn't sugarcoat high student demands and at a minimum the student body reflects a willingness to accept the school culture of mountains of testing/homework. Their at-risk population is somewhat self-selected.

Agree with this, but not "somewhat self-selected," rather thoroughly self-selected and at times phony at-risk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

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

At risk is low. Poor performers counseled out before PARCC testing too. BASIS also doesn't sugarcoat high student demands and at a minimum the student body reflects a willingness to accept the school culture of mountains of testing/homework. Their at-risk population is somewhat self-selected.

Data doesn't back up what you are saying for 5th grade, obviously. And the attrition level, outside of 8th to 9th, has been going down in the last 2-3 years (I would credit the new HOS who is starting year 3 -- a major step forward). And maybe "mountains of testing" could also be the kind of student by student tracking and catching skills gaps to get kids to proficiency?

I'm guessing you don't have much use for DC Prep, KIPP, Banneker and other schools that perform well with high needs students. But I don't think it's fair to lament the achievement gap and at the same time reject the style of instruction in schools where it is low or declining.

[Anonymous]

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

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

Again with the nonsense. At-risk kids need more time at school because their parents don't drill multiplication facts and are more likely to park them in front of screens for hours on end. You don't mke up for that handicap with observations. You don't even make up for that handicap by making those parenta drive from SE to upper NW every morning to a rich white public or private school, other than driving the self-selection of at-risk familiea who are able to support their kids and pull their scores up.
Observe and learn. Sounds like thoughts and prayers to me. Name two schools that are doing what you say and dcum will tell you why their gap is narrower. Whatever it is, I bet it's not magical equity skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

Again with the nonsense. At-risk kids need more time at school because their parents don't drill multiplication facts and are more likely to park them in front of screens for hours on end. You don't mke up for that handicap with observations. You don't even make up for that handicap by making those parenta drive from SE to upper NW every morning to a rich white public or private school, other than driving the self-selection of at-risk familiea who are able to support their kids and pull their scores up.
Observe and learn. Sounds like thoughts and prayers to me. Name two schools that are doing what you say and dcum will tell you why their gap is narrower. Whatever it is, I bet it's not magical equity skills.

I guess I'm not being clear. I don't think we disagree. The achievement gap data shows that several of the so-called progressive charter models are failing at-risk kids right now (ITS, CMI, 2R at 4th and most of the Montessori elementaries).

Cap City is doing significantly better than the city average for at-risk students. They are NOT drilling or putting students in front of screens for hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

Again with the nonsense. At-risk kids need more time at school because their parents don't drill multiplication facts and are more likely to park them in front of screens for hours on end. You don't mke up for that handicap with observations. You don't even make up for that handicap by making those parenta drive from SE to upper NW every morning to a rich white public or private school, other than driving the self-selection of at-risk familiea who are able to support their kids and pull their scores up.
Observe and learn. Sounds like thoughts and prayers to me. Name two schools that are doing what you say and dcum will tell you why their gap is narrower. Whatever it is, I bet it's not magical equity skills.

I guess I'm not being clear. I don't think we disagree. The achievement gap data shows that several of the so-called progressive charter models are failing at-risk kids right now (ITS, CMI, 2R at 4th and most of the Montessori elementaries).

Cap City is doing significantly better than the city average for at-risk students. They are NOT drilling or putting students in front of screens for hours.

Cap City's scores generally and for at risk are terrible, tho.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

Again with the nonsense. At-risk kids need more time at school because their parents don't drill multiplication facts and are more likely to park them in front of screens for hours on end. You don't mke up for that handicap with observations. You don't even make up for that handicap by making those parenta drive from SE to upper NW every morning to a rich white public or private school, other than driving the self-selection of at-risk familiea who are able to support their kids and pull their scores up.
Observe and learn. Sounds like thoughts and prayers to me. Name two schools that are doing what you say and dcum will tell you why their gap is narrower. Whatever it is, I bet it's not magical equity skills.

The thing about ITS is that it doesn't really have that hard a job to do. No second language. The facility is fine, the neighborhood is okay. No leadership turmoil. No self-contained classrooms, unlike many DCPS schools. Low at-risk pop, low SPED, low ELLs. No SEL overlay. All they do that's extra is train some teachers, but they also get a lot of extra staff through that. So it should not be too hard for them to do well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

Again with the nonsense. At-risk kids need more time at school because their parents don't drill multiplication facts and are more likely to park them in front of screens for hours on end. You don't mke up for that handicap with observations. You don't even make up for that handicap by making those parenta drive from SE to upper NW every morning to a rich white public or private school, other than driving the self-selection of at-risk familiea who are able to support their kids and pull their scores up.
Observe and learn. Sounds like thoughts and prayers to me. Name two schools that are doing what you say and dcum will tell you why their gap is narrower. Whatever it is, I bet it's not magical equity skills.

I guess I'm not being clear. I don't think we disagree. The achievement gap data shows that several of the so-called progressive charter models are failing at-risk kids right now (ITS, CMI, 2R at 4th and most of the Montessori elementaries).

Cap City is doing significantly better than the city average for at-risk students. They are NOT drilling or putting students in front of screens for hours.

I'm not clear either. Rich parents drill multiplication facts at home, poor parents park their kids in front of screens. No public or public charter school can make up the gap from that handicap without a ton of resources that would have to come from the city.
The progressive charters do some amazing things that stodgy publics should do too. The Montessoris, ITS, Cap City, all put in a lot of work and energy and optimistic hard work to implement innovative methods, best practices, culture, that they should be applauded for and modeled after, and that do wonderful things for at-risk students and for diversity in DC schools. It would be unreasonable and counter-productive to tell them "close the achievement gap or die." Current at-risk funding is insufficient, and innovation/hard work can't make up for that. Doubting their good will is also a mistake. It's so obvious that ITS isn't intentionally keeping at-risk kids out.

[Anonymous]

I'm starting to agree with this article that says fixing education isn't the answer. Solving poverty is.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-isnt-enough/590611/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm starting to agree with this article that says fixing education isn't the answer. Solving poverty is.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-isnt-enough/590611/

Yup no school district has closed the achievement gap none

At the same time there are lessons to be learned. What are KIPP, DC Prep, and schools like Ketcham ES doing.

There are plenty of lessons to be learned

https://empowerk12.org/bold-improvement-schools

At the same time, to close achievement gaps in DC even faster and at more schools, these educators have several requests of officials who oversee schools and determine priorities and budgets:

More funding to hire additional staff, including social workers, interventionists, and instructional coaches;
A three-year plan to meet the adequate funding rate and organize a task force to generate a comprehensive plan to recruit, train, and support the additional staff schools need;
More collaboration time for teachers and leaders, and more cross-school collaboration focused on continuous improvement and challenges such as middle school readiness, growth for students with disabilities, and pre-kindergarten instructional support; and
A citywide student, family, and teacher survey to attain better data around key indicators of excellent trauma-informed brain science practices in schools. Train schools and teachers on brain science and these effective practices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm starting to agree with this article that says fixing education isn't the answer. Solving poverty is.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-isnt-enough/590611/

Yes!
But after reading about DCPS leadership and their resumes, I'm also starting to agree that fixing institutions and eliminating corruption might be another necessary first step.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm starting to agree with this article that says fixing education isn't the answer. Solving poverty is.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-isnt-enough/590611/

Yup, this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm starting to agree with this article that says fixing education isn't the answer. Solving poverty is.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-isnt-enough/590611/

Yup, this.

+ 1 million.