DC School Report Cards are up

[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.

So the answer to PP’s question is YES. For example, Brent is probably hurt because kids jump ship for Basis and Latin in 4th, whereas more kids probably stay in the elementary schools that have a feeder to deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So the answer to PP’s question is YES. For example, Brent is probably hurt because kids jump ship for Basis and Latin in 4th, whereas more kids probably stay in the elementary schools that have a feeder to deal.

But Brent has 8 grades. So the overall attrition rate isn’t that large.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our white kids go to a 3 star majority minority/majority "high risk" elementary school. We know the school has lots of kids from families facing challenges that ours do not. We also know that our kids are doing very well academically while having a real world experience. We don't care how many silly stars our school has.

Parents who care about these kinds of things are just overcompensating for not being around their kids enough. They think living in the most expensive and whitest neighborhood and keep working too hard and call it "good parenting." The most important thing isn't having your kids at a top ranked school. The most important thing is being there.

The research certainly bears this out. But then being there is an endless challenge for most parents in hyper competitive and expensive DC. You make a good point but please don't be so judgmental, PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am baffled by these tables and the results. There is just no way Eliot-Hine is one of the 10 worst schools in the city. I toured and I know people who send their kids there. I would be comfortable sending DD10 there next year. These weird equations have produced some very odd results. We'll take the money, but come on. It's nowhere near that bad.

It must suck to be one of the actual 10 worst schools in the city and miss out on so much money because of this strange calculation.

They may not be one of the worst schools but they performed abysmally on PARCC last year, which determines most of the STAR rating. Put aside the formula there are issues with proficiency.

http://results.osse.dc.gov/school/407

I know teachers that work there, maybe not the worst but apparently there is a lot going on there and not the best...

[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.

Then you should be shouting this from the roof tops, because unfortunately the rating system for content teachers is based on just this, heard of IMPACT. The impact being that teachers and principals keep quitting or being impacted out adding to the churn and instability of the schools. This is all so ridiculous and will add another layer of stress for principals to make sure they don't lose any stars. At this rate their will be even less stability in DC schools and test scores will drop even lower

[Anonymous]

The key metrics (proficiency, growth) were available to principals and schools score - and were part of their evaluations.

Only new thing is presenting it to the public in a (sort of) digestible format.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The key metrics (proficiency, growth) were available to principals and schools score - and were part of their evaluations.

Only new thing is presenting it to the public in a (sort of) digestible format.

This whole exercise seems to me a massive effort to avoid accountability by manipulating what public education means.

[Anonymous]

I can't believe they somehow managed to give elementary schools ap classes. This is so typical of OSSE to not do a basic review before going live..not DCPS's fault

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The key metrics (proficiency, growth) were available to principals and schools score - and were part of their evaluations.

Only new thing is presenting it to the public in a (sort of) digestible format.

I don't find it digestible, if anything it obfuscates by overcomplicating and making questionable analytical choices (like only using one year of PARCC data rather than a weighted average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe they somehow managed to give elementary schools ap classes. This is so typical of OSSE to not do a basic review before going live..not DCPS's fault

My DCI feeder is a single sex campus, teaches online learning, career training, and offers dual college enrollment. We are very proud.

[Anonymous]

WaPo has a few more details on the money going to the ten lowest-rated schools — they are taking the same amount money that has gone to schools to improve in the past, but now are concentrating it in fewer schools.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/local/education/star-ratings-show-dc-schools-that-need-the-most-help/2018/12/07/76f1f6d2-fa43-11e8-863c-9e2f864d47e7_story.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Strong High schools

SWW - 5
Ellington - 4
McKinley Tech - 4
Banneker - 5
Washington Leadership Academy - 5
Capital City HS - 4

Wilson also a 4

DCI: 4

Amazing. The magnets are 5s but DCI, who has to take anyone and everyone, gets a 4! This actually means DCI is better because it can't cherry-pick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Strong High schools

SWW - 5
Ellington - 4
McKinley Tech - 4
Banneker - 5
Washington Leadership Academy - 5
Capital City HS - 4

Wilson also a 4

DCI: 4

Amazing. The magnets are 5s but DCI, who has to take anyone and everyone, gets a 4! This actually means DCI is better because it can't cherry-pick.

BASIS, Latin and Washington Leadership Academy are all 5-stars. Not magnets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WaPo has a few more details on the money going to the ten lowest-rated schools — they are taking the same amount money that has gone to schools to improve in the past, but now are concentrating it in fewer schools.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/local/education/star-ratings-show-dc-schools-that-need-the-most-help/2018/12/07/76f1f6d2-fa43-11e8-863c-9e2f864d47e7_story.html

I honestly think it's really unfair that Langley's getting money. I know people that send their kids there, well beyond preschool, and there's just no way it's the second-worst elementary school in the entire city. That may be what the numbers spit out, but there's no way it's actually that bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WaPo has a few more details on the money going to the ten lowest-rated schools — they are taking the same amount money that has gone to schools to improve in the past, but now are concentrating it in fewer schools.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/local/education/star-ratings-show-dc-schools-that-need-the-most-help/2018/12/07/76f1f6d2-fa43-11e8-863c-9e2f864d47e7_story.html

I honestly think it's really unfair that Langley's getting money. I know people that send their kids there, well beyond preschool, and there's just no way it's the second-worst elementary school in the entire city. That may be what the numbers spit out, but there's no way it's actually that bad.

This. It should go to our IB Walker-Jones. They got three stars and that is crazy to me. I toured last year and would definitely rather be at Langley.