Gang Activity in Montgomery County Shcools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I never claimed that the school's overall scores on standardized tests relate to your individual child's learning. I claimed that statistically, a school with high FARMS rates doesn't perform as well as a school with low FARMS rates.

Now we're going around in circles. What does it mean for a school to perform well, and how do you know if it's doing that?

Click the link: https://education.umd.edu/research/centers/mep/research/k-12-education/does-school-composition-matter-estimating-relationship

Yes, I've done that, and so has at least one other PP. The piece at the link measures school performance by overall PARCC score at the school. "Well-performing schools" have higher overall PARCC scores than "not-well-performing" schools. According to this, you know that a school "performs well" if it has high overall PARCC scores. Schools with lots of poor kids have lower overall PARCC scores and therefore do not "perform well".

But the purpose of a school is not to have a high overall PARCC score. It's to provide an education to its individual students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I never claimed that the school's overall scores on standardized tests relate to your individual child's learning. I claimed that statistically, a school with high FARMS rates doesn't perform as well as a school with low FARMS rates.

Now we're going around in circles. What does it mean for a school to perform well, and how do you know if it's doing that?

Click the link: https://education.umd.edu/research/centers/mep/research/k-12-education/does-school-composition-matter-estimating-relationship

Yes, I've done that, and so has at least one other PP. The piece at the link measures school performance by overall PARCC score at the school. "Well-performing schools" have higher overall PARCC scores than "not-well-performing" schools. According to this, you know that a school "performs well" if it has high overall PARCC scores. Schools with lots of poor kids have lower overall PARCC scores and therefore do not "perform well".

But the purpose of a school is not to have a high overall PARCC score. It's to provide an education to its individual students.

And how do you suggest we measure that? World of mouth on DCUM?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I never claimed that the school's overall scores on standardized tests relate to your individual child's learning. I claimed that statistically, a school with high FARMS rates doesn't perform as well as a school with low FARMS rates.

Now we're going around in circles. What does it mean for a school to perform well, and how do you know if it's doing that?

Click the link: https://education.umd.edu/research/centers/mep/research/k-12-education/does-school-composition-matter-estimating-relationship

Yes, I've done that, and so has at least one other PP. The piece at the link measures school performance by overall PARCC score at the school. "Well-performing schools" have higher overall PARCC scores than "not-well-performing" schools. According to this, you know that a school "performs well" if it has high overall PARCC scores. Schools with lots of poor kids have lower overall PARCC scores and therefore do not "perform well".

But the purpose of a school is not to have a high overall PARCC score. It's to provide an education to its individual students.

And how do you suggest we measure that? World of mouth on DCUM?

That's a good question, and researchers are working on answers (which do not include word of mouth on DCUM).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I never claimed that the school's overall scores on standardized tests relate to your individual child's learning. I claimed that statistically, a school with high FARMS rates doesn't perform as well as a school with low FARMS rates.

Now we're going around in circles. What does it mean for a school to perform well, and how do you know if it's doing that?

Click the link: https://education.umd.edu/research/centers/mep/research/k-12-education/does-school-composition-matter-estimating-relationship

Yes, I've done that, and so has at least one other PP. The piece at the link measures school performance by overall PARCC score at the school. "Well-performing schools" have higher overall PARCC scores than "not-well-performing" schools. According to this, you know that a school "performs well" if it has high overall PARCC scores. Schools with lots of poor kids have lower overall PARCC scores and therefore do not "perform well".

But the purpose of a school is not to have a high overall PARCC score. It's to provide an education to its individual students.

And how do you suggest we measure that? World of mouth on DCUM?

That's a good question, and researchers are working on answers (which do not include word of mouth on DCUM).

And what do we do in the meantime? Believe that all the schools are created equal and FARMS rates don't affect school performance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would be satisfied if we could just stop using FARMS rate as a proxy for whether parents should buy in-bounds for a certain school.

First, it tells you NOTHING about how your non-FARMS kid will perform.

Second, it sends all sorts of implicit messages about working class families.

Third, it is a bullshit dog whistle for race. You don't see people talking about FARMS rates in places with poor whites, and people only talk about it here because DC's history means there is a strong correlation between poverty and race.

Of course, you do, if you are in an area with poor whites. There are many types of dysfunctional behaviors that are more prevalent among the poor, which is why most of us who have made it out of those situations want our children in middle-class schools. No one "hates" the poor people, but most people want to make sure that their child doesn't mimic these behaviors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would be satisfied if we could just stop using FARMS rate as a proxy for whether parents should buy in-bounds for a certain school.

First, it tells you NOTHING about how your non-FARMS kid will perform.

Second, it sends all sorts of implicit messages about working class families.

Third, it is a bullshit dog whistle for race. You don't see people talking about FARMS rates in places with poor whites, and people only talk about it here because DC's history means there is a strong correlation between poverty and race.

Of course, you do, if you are in an area with poor whites. There are many types of dysfunctional behaviors that are more prevalent among the poor, which is why most of us who have made it out of those situations want our children in middle-class schools. No one "hates" the poor people, but most people want to make sure that their child doesn't mimic these behaviors.

There are advantages to going to school with a diverse population. Kids can learn things that can't be easily tested for, like empathy, resiliency, and seeing things from other cultural perspectives. I think this outweighs the idea that bad behavior might rub off on a child. There are a lot more to schools than test scores.

That's not to say DCC schools don't have problems. They do and they need to be (and are being) addressed. But there are also many good kids there getting great educations whose parents enjoy their "s*** shacks" (as one poster described the houses) and don't regret buying property there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
And what do we do in the meantime? Believe that all the schools are created equal and FARMS rates don't affect school performance?

We focus on our kid's education, instead of overall school scores on standardized tests. As I'm sure you know, kids can get lousy educations at schools with high overall school scores on standardized tests, and kids can get good educations at schools with mediocre overall school scores on standardized tests. As I'm also sure you know, there is more to education than standardized test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And what do we do in the meantime? Believe that all the schools are created equal and FARMS rates don't affect school performance?

We focus on our kid's education, instead of overall school scores on standardized tests. As I'm sure you know, kids can get lousy educations at schools with high overall school scores on standardized tests, and kids can get good educations at schools with mediocre overall school scores on standardized tests. As I'm also sure you know, there is more to education than standardized test scores.

Of course, we can talk about special cases proving whatever we want to prove or we can look at available statistics. You claim that ongoing research will come up with a better way to evaluate school performance. Here is a link that I already posted several times: https://education.umd.edu/research/centers/mep/research/k-12-education/does-school-composition-matter-estimating-relationship
It is research already done at University of Maryland looking at school performance from different angles. Do you have any other empirical data that you can share?

[Anonymous]

I like the empirical data of percent of kids who score 3 or higher on an AP test. For instance at Einstein, 49.5% of graduates are in this category. This is similar to other middle class schools like QO, Sherwood, and Rockville. It's actually more impressive because a larger percent of kids at Einstein come from less wealthy families. Sure there are kids who are failing, but literally half of the school is taking AP classes and doing well.

It's true that that percentage in the Bethesda schools is in the 70s, but how substantial of a difference is it if 50% or 70% of kids are taking advanced classes and doing well? Are we that afraid that the presence of some non-superstars will bring our kid down?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And what do we do in the meantime? Believe that all the schools are created equal and FARMS rates don't affect school performance?

We focus on our kid's education, instead of overall school scores on standardized tests. As I'm sure you know, kids can get lousy educations at schools with high overall school scores on standardized tests, and kids can get good educations at schools with mediocre overall school scores on standardized tests. As I'm also sure you know, there is more to education than standardized test scores.

Of course, we can talk about special cases proving whatever we want to prove or we can look at available statistics. You claim that ongoing research will come up with a better way to evaluate school performance. Here is a link that I already posted several times: https://education.umd.edu/research/centers/mep/research/k-12-education/does-school-composition-matter-estimating-relationship
It is research already done at University of Maryland looking at school performance from different angles. Do you have any other empirical data that you can share?

If you think that the school with the highest overall standardized test scores will provide the best education for your child, then you should send your child there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And what do we do in the meantime? Believe that all the schools are created equal and FARMS rates don't affect school performance?

We focus on our kid's education, instead of overall school scores on standardized tests. As I'm sure you know, kids can get lousy educations at schools with high overall school scores on standardized tests, and kids can get good educations at schools with mediocre overall school scores on standardized tests. As I'm also sure you know, there is more to education than standardized test scores.

Of course, we can talk about special cases proving whatever we want to prove or we can look at available statistics. You claim that ongoing research will come up with a better way to evaluate school performance. Here is a link that I already posted several times: https://education.umd.edu/research/centers/mep/research/k-12-education/does-school-composition-matter-estimating-relationship
It is research already done at University of Maryland looking at school performance from different angles. Do you have any other empirical data that you can share?

If you think that the school with the highest overall standardized test scores will provide the best education for your child, then you should send your child there.

You can always point to that one person failing in a school with highest overall test scores to make a point. But statistically speaking, the schools with the highest overall test scores provide the best education to the most students attending. I keep asking: do you have an alternative quantitative measure to measure student success?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like the empirical data of percent of kids who score 3 or higher on an AP test. For instance at Einstein, 49.5% of graduates are in this category. This is similar to other middle class schools like QO, Sherwood, and Rockville. It's actually more impressive because a larger percent of kids at Einstein come from less wealthy families. Sure there are kids who are failing, but literally half of the school is taking AP classes and doing well.

It's true that that percentage in the Bethesda schools is in the 70s, but how substantial of a difference is it if 50% or 70% of kids are taking advanced classes and doing well? Are we that afraid that the presence of some non-superstars will bring our kid down?

49.5% of graduates scoring 3 or higher on an AP test doesn't tell you much. It doesn't tell you how many students take AP. It doesn't tell you how many AP each student takes. It doesn't tell you how well the students do on their APs. A highly dubious metric.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You can always point to that one person failing in a school with highest overall test scores to make a point. But statistically speaking, the schools with the highest overall test scores provide the best education to the most students attending. I keep asking: do you have an alternative quantitative measure to measure student success?

No, statistically speaking, the schools with the highest overall test scores have the most students with high test scores.

Schools with lots of kids from affluent, well-educated families have high test scores. Do you think that's because the teachers and administrators at those schools are better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like the empirical data of percent of kids who score 3 or higher on an AP test. For instance at Einstein, 49.5% of graduates are in this category. This is similar to other middle class schools like QO, Sherwood, and Rockville. It's actually more impressive because a larger percent of kids at Einstein come from less wealthy families. Sure there are kids who are failing, but literally half of the school is taking AP classes and doing well.

It's true that that percentage in the Bethesda schools is in the 70s, but how substantial of a difference is it if 50% or 70% of kids are taking advanced classes and doing well? Are we that afraid that the presence of some non-superstars will bring our kid down?

49.5% of graduates scoring 3 or higher on an AP test doesn't tell you much. It doesn't tell you how many students take AP. It doesn't tell you how many AP each student takes. It doesn't tell you how well the students do on their APs. A highly dubious metric.

Ok. There's where we differ. If you will only be comfortable sending your child to a school where literally everyone is at the top of the class (ha), then that is a priority for you. It sounds like a race to nowhere to me. My husband and I both went to average high schools and graduated at the top of our classes and went on to do very well. There may be comfort in statistics that show literally everyone doing well at one school or another, but have faith in your kid. Bright kids with good attitudes do well everywhere if they have advanced classes and opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School digger says 45 percent on farms. But maybe that is old data.

No dog in this fight but there are plenty of neighborhoods with feds and professionals zoned for Einstein. Yes some poor kids for sure but you are really cherry picking demographics.

No matter, I absolutely love the anti Einstein DCUM poster who gets so outraged on the every thread! So funny.

It also says 68% have been on FARMs recently

No, they don't post data about people who have received FARMs "recently". At Einstein HS in 2016-2017, 42.2% of students were receiving FARMs, and 68.1% were either receiving FARMs or had received FARMs in the past. Conventionally this is referred to as "ever FARMs".

Then one day they were shootin at some food and up from the ground came sum bubblin crude! Next thing you know ole Jose is a millionaire and kin folk said don’t move away from there- stay and show DCUM that just because you were poor last year doesn’t mean you can’t be rich the next.

Or maybe the bar is so low that the working poor bounce from one side to the next from time to time but most of not all are still poor. Not many people escape poverty in this country percentage wise.