DC CAPE SCORES

[Anonymous]

Your floor should be looking at schools where majority are at grade level. Then very good chance that is where the teaching will be.

Then you need to know if there is a good cohort of higher performing kids by looking at number of 5’s.

Only kids good at test taking do well on CAPE is a myth that families at poorly performing schools want you to believe and how they justify low scores.

CAPE is not hard. It tests you grade level content and what kids should know. 5 shows that the kids have a deeper understanding of concepts.

Then go talk to parents at these schools and see how the curriculum and teaching is set up

[Anonymous]

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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.

My kid's DCPS put the advanced kids on apps so that they could learn math by themselves. While this wouldn't work with most kids, it was excellent for my kid, who received a better education from the app than from all his math teachers combined.

[Anonymous]

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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).

Plus most teachers aren't even that good, so small group isn't that much of an advantage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Then that is a big red flag. I would look at other schools.

Our school does not teach to the test at all. Parents get communication that there is going to be testing coming up. School recommends kids get good nights rest and that’s it. Our kids do well.

Teaching to the test only gets you so far. It is not going to get you top scores especially higher up in the grades. This is true in ELA and especially true in math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Then that is a big red flag. I would look at other schools.

Our school does not teach to the test at all. Parents get communication that there is going to be testing coming up. School recommends kids get good nights rest and that’s it. Our kids do well.

Teaching to the test only gets you so far. It is not going to get you top scores especially higher up in the grades. This is true in ELA and especially true in math.

PP here, I also want to add that spending a month teaching to the test takes away from quality teaching that could have been done in those 30 days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I worked as a grader and this is not true. I think the only “test taking strategies” you could teach that would be helpful would be to answer the question asked and check conventions (spelling, grammar). Everything else is providing evidence and student voice which can’t be taught as a test taking strategy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your floor should be looking at schools where majority are at grade level. Then very good chance that is where the teaching will be.

Then you need to know if there is a good cohort of higher performing kids by looking at number of 5’s.

Only kids good at test taking do well on CAPE is a myth that families at poorly performing schools want you to believe and how they justify low scores.

CAPE is not hard. It tests you grade level content and what kids should know. 5 shows that the kids have a deeper understanding of concepts.

Then go talk to parents at these schools and see how the curriculum and teaching is set up

I’m very familiar with the secondary math CAPE test. It IS hard. In fact, it is significantly harder than the SOLs in VA. There’s a reason DC was the only place left taking PARCC from the original group that started with it. They changed the name because it’s now only taken in DC, not because the test changed.

A lot of the questions on the math section are harder (intentionally imo) than they need to be if you simply created a question to assess proficiency of a particular standard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I worked as a grader and this is not true. I think the only “test taking strategies” you could teach that would be helpful would be to answer the question asked and check conventions (spelling, grammar). Everything else is providing evidence and student voice which can’t be taught as a test taking strategy.

That’s funny because the teacher told us the tricks are indeed worth a lot points-wise and that her class has scored majority 5s for years because of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting how Stokes is one of the few schools that has most kids getting 4+ on both tests yet underperforms for 3+ given its at risk percentage. That indicates a significant achievement gap: mostly 4s and 5s but also more 1s and 2s than one might expect. If I were considering the school I would want to know how it works with such a range of students.

Stokes is a small school that can lead to some variation in the data. Not sure if why you would pick out Stokes, but here is some data that shows why Stokes is doing better than other well regarded schools.

- For economically disadvantaged kids scoring 3+ on ELA Stokes Brookland is 14 points higher than Janney and 18 points than Mann.

- For Black students there are a total of 6 ES in all of DC that have higher 3+ scores on the ELA portion. There are too many WOTP schools scoring lower to list, but Janney is 28 points lower.

- For Black students there are only 18 ES that have higher 3+ scores for math. Not as good there, but still 10 points above Janney.

So why would you call out Stokes and not Janney for achievement gaps? If I were a family of a Black child, I would think Stokes is a fine option.

[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.

Smart kids who have had year over year grade level content taught to them. Center City’s ward 8 school has 8th grade math results just below BASIS and above Latin because the principal decided to institute a rigorous math pathway. The school is mostly black. Not wealthy.

Plenty of smart kids in DC but too few opportunities for those kids to be taught well year over year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your floor should be looking at schools where majority are at grade level. Then very good chance that is where the teaching will be.

Then you need to know if there is a good cohort of higher performing kids by looking at number of 5’s.

Only kids good at test taking do well on CAPE is a myth that families at poorly performing schools want you to believe and how they justify low scores.

CAPE is not hard. It tests you grade level content and what kids should know. 5 shows that the kids have a deeper understanding of concepts.

Then go talk to parents at these schools and see how the curriculum and teaching is set up

I’m very familiar with the secondary math CAPE test. It IS hard. In fact, it is significantly harder than the SOLs in VA. There’s a reason DC was the only place left taking PARCC from the original group that started with it. They changed the name because it’s now only taken in DC, not because the test changed.

A lot of the questions on the math section are harder (intentionally imo) than they need to be if you simply created a question to assess proficiency of a particular standard.

FWIW, I hear that the SOL in VA have gotten easier. They have lowers the standards and it is not good.

[Anonymous]

My kid is a high performer at an immersion charter.

CAPE is helpful because it gives you one data point and you can see how that compares with kids in DC. But it is limited because only DC takes it

Our kids also take MAP which is additive and does test above grade level. More importantly, other states also takes it and you can see where your kid stands compared to a larger population of kids in the country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is a high performer at an immersion charter.

CAPE is helpful because it gives you one data point and you can see how that compares with kids in DC. But it is limited because only DC takes it

Our kids also take MAP which is additive and does test above grade level. More importantly, other states also takes it and you can see where your kid stands compared to a larger population of kids in the country.

Typo adaptive

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting how Stokes is one of the few schools that has most kids getting 4+ on both tests yet underperforms for 3+ given its at risk percentage. That indicates a significant achievement gap: mostly 4s and 5s but also more 1s and 2s than one might expect. If I were considering the school I would want to know how it works with such a range of students.

Stokes is a small school that can lead to some variation in the data. Not sure if why you would pick out Stokes, but here is some data that shows why Stokes is doing better than other well regarded schools.

- For economically disadvantaged kids scoring 3+ on ELA Stokes Brookland is 14 points higher than Janney and 18 points than Mann.

- For Black students there are a total of 6 ES in all of DC that have higher 3+ scores on the ELA portion. There are too many WOTP schools scoring lower to list, but Janney is 28 points lower.

- For Black students there are only 18 ES that have higher 3+ scores for math. Not as good there, but still 10 points above Janney.

So why would you call out Stokes and not Janney for achievement gaps? If I were a family of a Black child, I would think Stokes is a fine option.

A 3 is not considered on/above grade level in dcps. Only 4’s and 5’s are. Charters, however, include 3’s for some reason.

[Anonymous]

Stokes is actually ranked 12th in DC (african american achievement) according to schooldigger.