PARCC results: how will they be communicated to families?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do BASIS students ever leave for academic or social reasons? If so, where do they go?

Serious question?! BASIS has been admitting more than 120 5th graders annually for more than a decade and graduating fewer than 70 seniors.

Is BASIS the only acceptable middle school in the DC Metropolitan area for UMC families EotP? Of course not. We know kids who left BASIS after 1-4 years for non-sectarian privates, parochial schools, suburban schools, homeschooling, schools abroad, Stuart Hobson, DCI, Two Rivers, Inspired Teaching etc.

So BASIS regularly loses a large percent of its students from fifth to 12th grade? Currently, the fifth grade has 143 students and the 12th grade has 50. They have 1% ELL students and 4% students with disabilities. And they do not backfill or have to take any new students no matter how well those students may test.

Why wouldn’t they score well on PARCC?

BASIS comes under almost no pressure to serve ELL students and those with the disabilities in the absence of other equally high-performing middle schools East of the Park. BASIS requires ELL students to study either their language spoken at home at the beginning level from 8th grade (yes, the beginning level even if a student is fully bilingual and biliterate), or a second foreign language, a tall order for a kid who already faces challenges learning English. This policy turns many ELL families off, never mind that it's defended tooth and nail by admins and the parent community.

What on earth is the justification for this? Neither option makes sense -- it is not academically sensible to force a fluent speaker into an entry-level course, but most ELL students, while fluent, are often not as fully literate in their first language as they would be were they attending school in that language, so it is more appropriate to take high level language courses in their first language than to start a third language at that age.

It also makes no sense to me because as a school with a MS and HS, it's not like they don't have the high level language courses available, which is the main reason I can think of for doing this.

BASIS sounds like a great school for the right kid but, even though we have an extremely academic child, there are enough little details like this that just confound me that we are likely going to preference ITS and Stuart Hobson over BASIS in the lottery (Latin being our first choice but of course it's a crapshoot). I think our child would do well there academically but I think it would be a tough fit for our family.

Very, very, VERY much so. It is a great for some kids and not for others. As a BASIS parent, one of the things that bothers me about much of the chatter on DCUM is how many people take issue with KNOWN quantities of how the school operates as if the school needs to be all things to all people. It doesn't and it isn't. BASIS is a great fit for the kid I have there now. It would grind my younger child to a stub; she is NOT going to BASIS. As a parent it is my job to know what is and is not a good fit for my kid. Even after the kid starts at BASIS, I need to be aware of what is and is not working. If I need to make a change then it is up to me to make a change. The idea, however, that if a school doesn't work for me that it is somehow a failure of the school is self-centered nonsense. Stuart Hobson would be a bad fit for my kid now at BASIS. It is too large and frenetic and the range of levels in all classes would not sit well with them - they suffered through that in ES. That doesn't make SH a bad school. In all likelihood is going to be where my younger kid goes because it is a good fit for who and what that kid is.

Question to PP: Are you a bilingual ELL family? If not, why would how they address ELL language impact whether you would send your kid there? Is your kid currently on an IEP/504? If not, do you know how well our current school handles those? Do you care?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do BASIS students ever leave for academic or social reasons? If so, where do they go?

With all due respect, that is a really dumb question. Of course they do. That's true of every school on earth. If a kid wants a robust arts and theater program then BASIS is a bad fit. If they want to play D1 sports in college it is a bad fit. If they want a large school it is a bad fit.

I was educated in elite prep schools. It was the best education money could buy. And kids left for larger public schools, or better sports programs, or to go to other elite prep schools with larger theater budgets, or because they didn't have the friend groups they wanted/needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just love all the reasoning and justifications to why scores are what they are. How about we just accept the scores. They are what they are. It looks like kids at BASIS score very high. Let's move on and see what can be done to help other students/schools score better.

Amen!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do BASIS students ever leave for academic or social reasons? If so, where do they go?

With all due respect, that is a really dumb question. Of course they do. That's true of every school on earth. If a kid wants a robust arts and theater program then BASIS is a bad fit. If they want to play D1 sports in college it is a bad fit. If they want a large school it is a bad fit.

I was educated in elite prep schools. It was the best education money could buy. And kids left for larger public schools, or better sports programs, or to go to other elite prep schools with larger theater budgets, or because they didn't have the friend groups they wanted/needed.

The point is, when comparing PARCC scores, you have to take into account the fact that BASIS controls the composition of their student body in a way that a traditional neighborhood DCPS school cannot. Some students who leave BASIS for academic reasons go to their DCPS school which takes all comers who are IB, whatever their strengths/weaknesses, whenever they show up. BASIS does not have to do this. They don’t even have to backfill with the next student on their lottery waitlist. Their model depends on DCPS being there to absorb at least some of the kids who leave.

BASIS is a good school and does well by its students. It is a particular model that works well for some and it is a good thing it is available for those students who thrive there. BUT comparing BASIS PARCC scores with schools that do not control who sits in their classrooms to the same degree is not useful.

It was not a stupid question; it was a leading question that you followed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why don't you BASIS folks start your own thread. Just start a "Fall 2022 BASIS thread". You can have all your talks there.

I would LOVE this...except all of you non basis people will feel the need to come over and let us know how happy your kid is at the magical VA suburb middle school with a library, rolling greens, gym, stage and perfect teachers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do BASIS students ever leave for academic or social reasons? If so, where do they go?

With all due respect, that is a really dumb question. Of course they do. That's true of every school on earth. If a kid wants a robust arts and theater program then BASIS is a bad fit. If they want to play D1 sports in college it is a bad fit. If they want a large school it is a bad fit.

I was educated in elite prep schools. It was the best education money could buy. And kids left for larger public schools, or better sports programs, or to go to other elite prep schools with larger theater budgets, or because they didn't have the friend groups they wanted/needed.

The point is, when comparing PARCC scores, you have to take into account the fact that BASIS controls the composition of their student body in a way that a traditional neighborhood DCPS school cannot. Some students who leave BASIS for academic reasons go to their DCPS school which takes all comers who are IB, whatever their strengths/weaknesses, whenever they show up. BASIS does not have to do this. They don’t even have to backfill with the next student on their lottery waitlist. Their model depends on DCPS being there to absorb at least some of the kids who leave.

BASIS is a good school and does well by its students. It is a particular model that works well for some and it is a good thing it is available for those students who thrive there. BUT comparing BASIS PARCC scores with schools that do not control who sits in their classrooms to the same degree is not useful.

It was not a stupid question; it was a leading question that you followed.

Useful for whom or for what purpose? This is the crux of the issue and why there exists such a disconnect. It all depends on why you are looking at PARCC scores. For people trying to assess the overall academic success rates for students with an eye towards the population as a whole, the fact that BASIS is a self-selecting (and regressing) population causes people to say "apples to oranges". I think that's fair. But if you aren't trying to solve for larger issues and you want to know where your kid is going to be surrounded by top performers and working with advanced and high caliber students, you don't give a damn why there are mostly high performers. You just want your kid an an environment surrounded by high caliber students. In that use case the explanations and excuses don't matter; there is nothing you can say to me that will make me feel better about a HS with less than 1/2 of the kids scoring a 4 or better. And even that's a frighteningly low bar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don't you BASIS folks start your own thread. Just start a "Fall 2022 BASIS thread". You can have all your talks there.

I would LOVE this...except all of you non basis people will feel the need to come over and let us know how happy your kid is at the magical VA suburb middle school with a library, rolling greens, gym, stage and perfect teachers

You forgot the oft-mentioned and loved "computer lab"!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just love all the reasoning and justifications to why scores are what they are. How about we just accept the scores. They are what they are. It looks like kids at BASIS score very high. Let's move on and see what can be done to help other students/schools score better.

Amen!

Score better, but not as well as BASIS does. Once you hit that level it ceases to be an indication of successful educational outcomes and is apparently nothing more than evidence of being "good test takers".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do BASIS students ever leave for academic or social reasons? If so, where do they go?

With all due respect, that is a really dumb question. Of course they do. That's true of every school on earth. If a kid wants a robust arts and theater program then BASIS is a bad fit. If they want to play D1 sports in college it is a bad fit. If they want a large school it is a bad fit.

I was educated in elite prep schools. It was the best education money could buy. And kids left for larger public schools, or better sports programs, or to go to other elite prep schools with larger theater budgets, or because they didn't have the friend groups they wanted/needed.

The point is, when comparing PARCC scores, you have to take into account the fact that BASIS controls the composition of their student body in a way that a traditional neighborhood DCPS school cannot. Some students who leave BASIS for academic reasons go to their DCPS school which takes all comers who are IB, whatever their strengths/weaknesses, whenever they show up. BASIS does not have to do this. They don’t even have to backfill with the next student on their lottery waitlist. Their model depends on DCPS being there to absorb at least some of the kids who leave.

BASIS is a good school and does well by its students. It is a particular model that works well for some and it is a good thing it is available for those students who thrive there. BUT comparing BASIS PARCC scores with schools that do not control who sits in their classrooms to the same degree is not useful.

Agree with this, and this is part of why I am wondering when we are going to see the data that breaks down scores by 4s and 5s. Currently, "4/5" is one category. What I want to know is how many 5s a school has, because that is what is going to tell me if my kid is going to have the cohort that he needs. I don't give a damn if it is at a school like BASIS that might have 40 5s, 40 4s, and a small handful of 3 and below because they counsel out their low-performers, or a comprehensive school that also has 40 5s, but has a much larger population with a high percentage of kids scoring in the 1-3 range. I want to know that above-grade-level learning is possible where I send my kid to school.

It was not a stupid question; it was a leading question that you followed.

Useful for whom or for what purpose? This is the crux of the issue and why there exists such a disconnect. It all depends on why you are looking at PARCC scores. For people trying to assess the overall academic success rates for students with an eye towards the population as a whole, the fact that BASIS is a self-selecting (and regressing) population causes people to say "apples to oranges". I think that's fair. But if you aren't trying to solve for larger issues and you want to know where your kid is going to be surrounded by top performers and working with advanced and high caliber students, you don't give a damn why there are mostly high performers. You just want your kid an an environment surrounded by high caliber students. In that use case the explanations and excuses don't matter; there is nothing you can say to me that will make me feel better about a HS with less than 1/2 of the kids scoring a 4 or better. And even that's a frighteningly low bar.

[Anonymous]

The results are out today for schools.

[Anonymous]

Some posted results for White kids somewhere up thread. Where can you see PARCC results broken down by race?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The results are out today for schools.

Link?

[Anonymous]

https://osse.dc.gov/page/2021-22-parcc-and-msaa-results-and-resources

This data doesn’t appear to be broken down by race. It is also grouped differently than the data from 2018-19, so it is very hard to compare the data to last year (at least, for me). They released this data on the Friday before a long weekend, in a format that is really hard to digest. I know the results are bad but this really feels like they are trying to make it hard for ppl to see.

[Anonymous]

Use the tabs at top and bottom and the drop down menus to select subgroups.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do BASIS students ever leave for academic or social reasons? If so, where do they go?

With all due respect, that is a really dumb question. Of course they do. That's true of every school on earth. If a kid wants a robust arts and theater program then BASIS is a bad fit. If they want to play D1 sports in college it is a bad fit. If they want a large school it is a bad fit.

I was educated in elite prep schools. It was the best education money could buy. And kids left for larger public schools, or better sports programs, or to go to other elite prep schools with larger theater budgets, or because they didn't have the friend groups they wanted/needed.

The point is, when comparing PARCC scores, you have to take into account the fact that BASIS controls the composition of their student body in a way that a traditional neighborhood DCPS school cannot. Some students who leave BASIS for academic reasons go to their DCPS school which takes all comers who are IB, whatever their strengths/weaknesses, whenever they show up. BASIS does not have to do this. They don’t even have to backfill with the next student on their lottery waitlist. Their model depends on DCPS being there to absorb at least some of the kids who leave.

BASIS is a good school and does well by its students. It is a particular model that works well for some and it is a good thing it is available for those students who thrive there. BUT comparing BASIS PARCC scores with schools that do not control who sits in their classrooms to the same degree is not useful.

It was not a stupid question; it was a leading question that you followed.

Your analysis is a bit off. True, Basis doesn’t admit after 5th grade (with some previous minor exceptions for 6th grade). But that doesn’t mean that Basis “controls the composition of their student body.” Sure, some kids leave because they can’t handle Basis. But some leave because the parents move or opt for private. In fact, every year, Basis loses some top students that it doesn’t and can’t replace. Worse, if top kids want to go to Basis after 5th grade, they can’t.

In comparison, other schools admit all comers, either because the kids are in-bounds or they get in through the lottery. Some of these are poor students and some are top students; they go to DCPS schools or other charters, not Basis. If DC allowed Basis to backfill slots with top students admitted through some sort of application/testing process, then you could fairly say that they “control the composition of their student body.” However, DC doesn’t permit that for charters.