DC School Report Cards are up

Anonymous
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So, the way this is weighed, white kids scoring quite a bit lower than expected/average on PARCC does pretty much nothing to the ranking of the school. Yu Ying getting a score in the 90's with a white kid score of 41. Even though it is 30% white.

Maybe you understand this, but just to clarify, it doesn’t mean the white kids’ score are objectively very low. It just means that they are lower compared to other white kids across the district. The other population groups far exceed the scores for their relevant populations. And scores are just one factor in the mix.



This is important!


Agreed this is important. Taking CMI, for example, to pick on just one school that's been mentioned--it doesn't mean that the white kids at the school are doing horribly. It just means that they aren't doing as well as expected, relative to their counterparts at other schools.


Sure. Since I have a white kid, though, this matters to me. I don't really want my kid at a school where the white kids are doing worse than average, do I? Just like any other subgroup may have the same feeling about a school which does not do well in their demographic.

But, I understood that already - I know white kids are still overall going to score fairly well. My point was that this star system is HEAVILY weighted toward the progress of disabled (for some reason more than any other group by far), and secondarily weighted by at risk etc.

FINE> BUT, parents will simply read it as "this is the average score of the school relative to every other school". So there is no strong emphasis. Maybe it should be called STAR Rankings for Underperforming Demographics in DCPS and Charter Schools. But it isn't.

The weighting also appears to have little to do with the population in the school of any one demographic - ie, if the school is largely white, shouldn't their underperformance (yes, relative to expectation) be quite a bit more apparent in the scoring?

I'd love to see Bowser take to the powerpoint and explain all this convoluted math to parents in DC in some kind of town halls.


Agree with this. So how do you ask your school about this without seeming to be racist? Because at the end of the day, at our school, it appears that my (white) kids are not performing as well as they should be, even though the oldest got a 4 on both areas of PARCC. Would they have gotten a 5 at a school where white kids performed better, based on expectations of how white kids should have performed. Every subgroup should be asking this question.



At a few schools I've looked at, white students are lagging in some of the "minor" categories, including attendance. So dig in and look at every measure.

Are you in a school where there aren't many white students, particularly in testing grades or just a small school overall? Small sample size can really skew these report cards. Also, in DC, white, high SES students are the most likely students to opt-out of PARCC. If a couple of the best students aren't being tested, that will show up.

As for how to ask, I would ask the principal why he/she thinks some subgroups are performing better than others, particularly in X domain (not just overall but see what metric seems to be dragging them down). And ask how he/she plans to address it.


Thanks this is helpful. Our charter is small and white kids make up about a 1/3 of all kids. I did think about that factor and the impact of one or two kids with a small sample size.



No one should put this much importance into a f**king standardized test. It doesn’t tell you much about what your kids are learning.


THIS. As a parent, this is what I really want to know.

Can we open the black box of the PARCC a bit more? Parents whose kids take it (mine is too young), what do you feel it's measuring and is it showing learning accurately in your view? Because all these many many dissections of metrics really boil down to these tests.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Question: If student turnover is a factor, aren't DCPS elementary schools that have bad feeder patterns to an undesirable middle school at a disadvantage? Or for charter elementaries that have no feeder, aren't they also at a disadvantage because kids jump ship to get into a desirable middle?


Reenrollment is 7.5 points out of 95 points for ES and MS.

Attrition only ‘counts’ when there is a grade available for students to continue on to — so leaving Brent after 5th or Two Rivers after 8th — wouldn’t hurt a school’s score.


Anonymous
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Anonymous wrote:Wilson is listed as not offering AP classes or dual enrollment. In fact, Wilson offers more AP classes than any other public school in the city. Pretty hard to get that basic info wrong. And my child is currently dual enrolled at Wilson and a local
university, as are several of my child’s friends at Wilson, so that one is also wrong.


Considering the picture on Wilson's page isn't actually Wilson HS, I am not surprised there is other information wrong there.


Not seeing the same issues with charter profiles, suggesting a DCPS data entry or database problem.

The testing data originated with OSSE so it’s probably accurate or at least consistent with what was released in Sept/Oct.


I still judge OSSE for poor quality control even if the data came from DCPS. A picture of Wilson is not a complicated thing to get right.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Question: If student turnover is a factor, aren't DCPS elementary schools that have bad feeder patterns to an undesirable middle school at a disadvantage? Or for charter elementaries that have no feeder, aren't they also at a disadvantage because kids jump ship to get into a desirable middle?


Reenrollment is 7.5 points out of 95 points for ES and MS.

Attrition only ‘counts’ when there is a grade available for students to continue on to — so leaving Brent after 5th or Two Rivers after 8th — wouldn’t hurt a school’s score.




It is bad for schools that take kids who did not get into their own IB preschool so they will always leave for K. For example Miner, Payne, JO Wilson. There is really nothing wrong with being next to school that is at capacity yet they are penalized.
Anonymous
My suspicion is that these were produced by consultants who are probably experts in data and web design but have no clue about schools in DC and wouldn’t notice the issues (Title 1 at Janney?).

OSSE should have caught it or at least brought in some fresh eyes to validate before going live.

But of course not the first time OSSE has gotten out ahead of its skis before - see Ellington resident fraud investigation, failed attempt to create a city-wide science assessment.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Wilson is listed as not offering AP classes or dual enrollment. In fact, Wilson offers more AP classes than any other public school in the city. Pretty hard to get that basic info wrong. And my child is currently dual enrolled at Wilson and a local
university, as are several of my child’s friends at Wilson, so that one is also wrong.


Considering the picture on Wilson's page isn't actually Wilson HS, I am not surprised there is other information wrong there.


Not seeing the same issues with charter profiles, suggesting a DCPS data entry or database problem.

The testing data originated with OSSE so it’s probably accurate or at least consistent with what was released in Sept/Oct.


I still judge OSSE for poor quality control even if the data came from DCPS. A picture of Wilson is not a complicated thing to get right.


Also the PP is not even right. Our charter school’s profile is all screwed up.
Anonymous
Only thing wrong (or dated) with my kid’s charter is students per grade; it is the 17-18 data. I think that is what is supposed to be there since enrollment audit hasn’t been released and the test data is last year’s.
Anonymous
How is the data collected for classroom organization, emotional support and instructional support? These seem like hard things to measure.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Only thing wrong (or dated) with my kid’s charter is students per grade; it is the 17-18 data. I think that is what is supposed to be there since enrollment audit hasn’t been released and the test data is last year’s.


Our data is wrong for either year. I am wondering if they mixed up our school with a different school.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:How is the data collected for classroom organization, emotional support and instructional support? These seem like hard things to measure.


They use the CLASS assessment - a trained person observes classes. It has been done in charters for a while as part of their tier reports.

You can google CLASS early education for more details.


Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Only thing wrong (or dated) with my kid’s charter is students per grade; it is the 17-18 data. I think that is what is supposed to be there since enrollment audit hasn’t been released and the test data is last year’s.


Our data is wrong for either year. I am wondering if they mixed up our school with a different school.



Does it match the enrollment data OSSE released for your school last year?
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Only thing wrong (or dated) with my kid’s charter is students per grade; it is the 17-18 data. I think that is what is supposed to be there since enrollment audit hasn’t been released and the test data is last year’s.


Our data is wrong for either year. I am wondering if they mixed up our school with a different school.



Does it match the enrollment data OSSE released for your school last year?


No, it is more than 10% too high for either year.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Only thing wrong (or dated) with my kid’s charter is students per grade; it is the 17-18 data. I think that is what is supposed to be there since enrollment audit hasn’t been released and the test data is last year’s.


Our data is wrong for either year. I am wondering if they mixed up our school with a different school.



Does it match the enrollment data OSSE released for your school last year?


No, it is more than 10% too high for either year.


Weird. Unless your school has a lot of students in private placement due to special needs and OSSE is counting them since they take PARCC or MSAA (unlikely bc so many). I’d ask your principal or call OSSE next week.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Only thing wrong (or dated) with my kid’s charter is students per grade; it is the 17-18 data. I think that is what is supposed to be there since enrollment audit hasn’t been released and the test data is last year’s.


Our data is wrong for either year. I am wondering if they mixed up our school with a different school.



Does it match the enrollment data OSSE released for your school last year?


No, it is more than 10% too high for either year.


Weird. Unless your school has a lot of students in private placement due to special needs and OSSE is counting them since they take PARCC or MSAA (unlikely bc so many). I’d ask your principal or call OSSE next week.


Good point, that is a possibility. But after the Title I status correction and Kindergarten being entirely absent, I have little faith in this info.

I hope the $11 million is going to the schools that truly need it, and is not being handed out based on calculation errors.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Only thing wrong (or dated) with my kid’s charter is students per grade; it is the 17-18 data. I think that is what is supposed to be there since enrollment audit hasn’t been released and the test data is last year’s.


Our data is wrong for either year. I am wondering if they mixed up our school with a different school.



Does it match the enrollment data OSSE released for your school last year?


No, it is more than 10% too high for either year.


Weird. Unless your school has a lot of students in private placement due to special needs and OSSE is counting them since they take PARCC or MSAA (unlikely bc so many). I’d ask your principal or call OSSE next week.


Good point, that is a possibility. But after the Title I status correction and Kindergarten being entirely absent, I have little faith in this info.

I hope the $11 million is going to the schools that truly need it, and is not being handed out based on calculation errors.
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