DCI college acceptances

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact is that we don't have a high-performing IB Diploma program in the DC public school realm, and don't seem to be on track to get one.

We've got BASIS, Walls and Banneker as competitive AP programs, but nothing comparable for IB Diploma. It's never been clear to me why Wilson doesn't offer IB when Deal has for a long time.

I assumed that most of last year's DCI Diploma candidates would earn the Diploma. I couldn't quite believe that not even 1/4, 15 students out of 63 candidates, could clear the bar. Can we expect significantly more robust results this year?

When I attended an info night for the IBD program at Washington-Liberty HS in Arlington before Covid, I learned that their annual pass rate is more than 85%, although the program has never been test-in/selective. The W-L program is around the same size as a DCI class, 100 students.

I don't understand why most DCI parents don't see a red flag in last year's results. Because they're confident that most candidates will pass this year, or maybe in 2022? Serious question.

Well looks like Washington Liberty HS has been around since 1925. DCI just graduated their 1st class last year. You are not comparing apples to apples. Give DCI another 90 years to work on refining their program and see what their pass rate is.

I say look at the trend in the next 5 years. Is it on an upward trajectory, downward, or stagnate? That will tell you a lot.

I think it will be trending upwards especially since 14 or whatever number of kids just missed it by 2 points last year. I also predict the average pass score will trend up too.

Not a DCI parent, but I was an IB Diploma candidate back in the day. 1995. We literally were the only program in the state. We were the third full diploma class and 15 out of 20 of us qualified. Give it time.

[Anonymous]

Washington Liberty kids have to apply to get into their IB Program. It’s certainly not IB for All like DCI. And certainly the demographics of the IB kids at WL are not close to the same as the DCI kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact is that we don't have a high-performing IB Diploma program in the DC public school realm, and don't seem to be on track to get one.

We've got BASIS, Walls and Banneker as competitive AP programs, but nothing comparable for IB Diploma. It's never been clear to me why Wilson doesn't offer IB when Deal has for a long time.

I assumed that most of last year's DCI Diploma candidates would earn the Diploma. I couldn't quite believe that not even 1/4, 15 students out of 63 candidates, could clear the bar. Can we expect significantly more robust results this year?

When I attended an info night for the IBD program at Washington-Liberty HS in Arlington before Covid, I learned that their annual pass rate is more than 85%, although the program has never been test-in/selective. The W-L program is around the same size as a DCI class, 100 students.

I don't understand why most DCI parents don't see a red flag in last year's results. Because they're confident that most candidates will pass this year, or maybe in 2022? Serious question.

Well looks like Washington Liberty HS has been around since 1925. DCI just graduated their 1st class last year. You are not comparing apples to apples. Give DCI another 90 years to work on refining their program and see what their pass rate is.

I say look at the trend in the next 5 years. Is it on an upward trajectory, downward, or stagnate? That will tell you a lot.

I think it will be trending upwards especially since 14 or whatever number of kids just missed it by 2 points last year. I also predict the average pass score will trend up too.

Washington Liberty's IBD program dates from the late 90s.

If the DCI feeders were better run, along with DCI itself, we could essentially compare apples to apples because DC public schools already have the demographics to support at least one high-performing IBD program. We need to wait 5 years to watch trends, although the city has the inputs for competitive results right now. What's annoying is that policy decisions have been made not to establish a high-performing magnet IBD program, or a hybrid DCPS-DCPC IBD program, despite the fact that DC has long supported several high-performing test-in AP programs. I'm not blaming charter sector leaders. They tried to set DCI up as a hybrid DCPS-charter IBD program ten years ago. Last year's IBD results at DCI tell me that it's a real shame that they failed. Mayoral control of schools has left a lot to be desired under Gray and Bowser.

You guys may way patiently for the day when most DCI IBD candidates earn the Diploma. But many families in the DCI feeders won't. I've been surprised by how many parents we know who seemed serious about immersion in the feeders, hosting au pairs etc. have given up on IB. They've mainly moved their children to BASIS, or went with DCI for MS before bailing for high schools that don't offer IBD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Washington Liberty kids have to apply to get into their IB Program. It’s certainly not IB for All like DCI. And certainly the demographics of the IB kids at WL are not close to the same as the DCI kids.

Not really. Any Washington-Liberty student with a B average freshman and sophomore year can pursue IBD junior and senior year. W-L does not offer a test-in IBD program like Richard Montgomery in Rockville and some of the Fairfax IBD programs. The demographics of Washington-Liberty are similar to the demographics in several of the DCI feeders, particularly YY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact is that we don't have a high-performing IB Diploma program in the DC public school realm, and don't seem to be on track to get one.

We've got BASIS, Walls and Banneker as competitive AP programs, but nothing comparable for IB Diploma. It's never been clear to me why Wilson doesn't offer IB when Deal has for a long time.

I assumed that most of last year's DCI Diploma candidates would earn the Diploma. I couldn't quite believe that not even 1/4, 15 students out of 63 candidates, could clear the bar. Can we expect significantly more robust results this year?

When I attended an info night for the IBD program at Washington-Liberty HS in Arlington before Covid, I learned that their annual pass rate is more than 85%, although the program has never been test-in/selective. The W-L program is around the same size as a DCI class, 100 students.

I don't understand why most DCI parents don't see a red flag in last year's results. Because they're confident that most candidates will pass this year, or maybe in 2022? Serious question.

Well looks like Washington Liberty HS has been around since 1925. DCI just graduated their 1st class last year. You are not comparing apples to apples. Give DCI another 90 years to work on refining their program and see what their pass rate is.

I say look at the trend in the next 5 years. Is it on an upward trajectory, downward, or stagnate? That will tell you a lot.

I think it will be trending upwards especially since 14 or whatever number of kids just missed it by 2 points last year. I also predict the average pass score will trend up too.

Washington Liberty's IBD program dates from the late 90s.

If the DCI feeders were better run, along with DCI itself, we could essentially compare apples to apples because DC public schools already have the demographics to support at least one high-performing IBD program. We need to wait 5 years to watch trends, although the city has the inputs for competitive results right now. What's annoying is that policy decisions have been made not to establish a high-performing magnet IBD program, or a hybrid DCPS-DCPC IBD program, despite the fact that DC has long supported several high-performing test-in AP programs. I'm not blaming charter sector leaders. They tried to set DCI up as a hybrid DCPS-charter IBD program ten years ago. Last year's IBD results at DCI tell me that it's a real shame that they failed. Mayoral control of schools has left a lot to be desired under Gray and Bowser.

You guys may way patiently for the day when most DCI IBD candidates earn the Diploma. But many families in the DCI feeders won't. I've been surprised by how many parents we know who seemed serious about immersion in the feeders, hosting au pairs etc. have given up on IB. They've mainly moved their children to BASIS, or went with DCI for MS before bailing for high schools that don't offer IBD.

I don’t really agree with your “failure” analysis here but I do admit many of the kids from our feeder aren’t considering DCI at all. They’re talking to other parents and making other choices. They are heading to Latin, Deal, private schools, I assume Basis, Truth. That alone will not help DCI improve. Hope it changes in the next five years.

[Anonymous]

It's a fair point that Walls, Wilson and Banneker were never struggling AP HS programs. DCI could also have started out strong.

[Anonymous]

New poster. 15 students out of 100 seniors earning the IB diploma sure sounds like a failure to this lady (who earned the diploma).

It's just not too hard to scrape by with 24 points, particularly for students who started in language immersion in early childhood or the lower elementary grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Liberty kids have to apply to get into their IB Program. It’s certainly not IB for All like DCI. And certainly the demographics of the IB kids at WL are not close to the same as the DCI kids.

Not really. Any Washington-Liberty student with a B average freshman and sophomore year can pursue IBD junior and senior year. W-L does not offer a test-in IBD program like Richard Montgomery in Rockville and some of the Fairfax IBD programs. The demographics of Washington-Liberty are similar to the demographics in several of the DCI feeders, particularly YY.

Well that is still applying and self selecting kids. No DCI demographics isn’t like WL. Some kids at YY don’t continue to DCI and their demographics get diluted with all the other schools who feed into DCI in addition to taking new kids in 9th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a fair point that Walls, Wilson and Banneker were never struggling AP HS programs. DCI could also have started out strong.

Walls and Banneker are test in schools that self select. BTW the average pass points at DCI in the IB diploma is just as good as Banneker.

You really don’t know the history of Wilson at all. It wasn’t always a higher performing school.

[Anonymous]

And did you know that Banneker has less than 25 kids each year who even attempt the IB Proram? what a scam....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And did you know that Banneker has less than 25 kids each year who even attempt the IB Proram? what a scam....

Wow, that’s really low. Looks like they have about 525 students so that’s less than 5%. This for a test in school too.

Looks like DCI is doing better than Banneker right out of the gate in their 1st graduating class with higher percentage of students getting IB diploma and average scores just as good for not being a self selecting school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Liberty kids have to apply to get into their IB Program. It’s certainly not IB for All like DCI. And certainly the demographics of the IB kids at WL are not close to the same as the DCI kids.

Not really. Any Washington-Liberty student with a B average freshman and sophomore year can pursue IBD junior and senior year. W-L does not offer a test-in IBD program like Richard Montgomery in Rockville and some of the Fairfax IBD programs. The demographics of Washington-Liberty are similar to the demographics in several of the DCI feeders, particularly YY.

Well that is still applying and self selecting kids. No DCI demographics isn’t like WL. Some kids at YY don’t continue to DCI and their demographics get diluted with all the other schools who feed into DCI in addition to taking new kids in 9th.

Come on, the demographics get diluted mainly because DCI refuses to track academically in middle school, other than for math and languages. Arlington offers low-key GT programming in middle school and stronger admins than DCI does, not just more favorable demographics. DCI's system just doesn't support IB Diploma-worthy high school academics for all that many students.

If DCI would only stop tossing YY graduates etc. who work at or above grade level into humanities and science classes with kids who work behind grade level, they'd keep more of the stronger feeder students. Admins don't seem to give a hoot that they lose around half of these kids to programs offering more rigor, and better discipline, BASIS, Latin, privates, the burbs. It's a vicious circle that needs political attention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a fair point that Walls, Wilson and Banneker were never struggling AP HS programs. DCI could also have started out strong.

Walls and Banneker are test in schools that self select. BTW the average pass points at DCI in the IB diploma is just as good as Banneker.

You really don’t know the history of Wilson at all. It wasn’t always a higher performing school.

I know the history of Wilson. The school struggled until Dunbar, the jewel in the DCPS crown until the early 1980s, fell on hard times as the city pushed to desegregate neighborhood schools. This led to a big influx of strong black students into Wilson in just a few years.

DCI could easily offer more test-in classes within the school, and stop socially promoting. They're happy to support acceleration in middle school math, and that's about it DCI's "advanced" language classes just aren't very advanced.

BASIS doesn't socially promote, the key to their success.

[Anonymous]

DCI would have to apply to amend their charter to work more like BASIS. '

No chance. No political will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Liberty kids have to apply to get into their IB Program. It’s certainly not IB for All like DCI. And certainly the demographics of the IB kids at WL are not close to the same as the DCI kids.

Not really. Any Washington-Liberty student with a B average freshman and sophomore year can pursue IBD junior and senior year. W-L does not offer a test-in IBD program like Richard Montgomery in Rockville and some of the Fairfax IBD programs. The demographics of Washington-Liberty are similar to the demographics in several of the DCI feeders, particularly YY.

Well that is still applying and self selecting kids. No DCI demographics isn’t like WL. Some kids at YY don’t continue to DCI and their demographics get diluted with all the other schools who feed into DCI in addition to taking new kids in 9th.

Come on, the demographics get diluted mainly because DCI refuses to track academically in middle school, other than for math and languages. Arlington offers low-key GT programming in middle school and stronger admins than DCI does, not just more favorable demographics. DCI's system just doesn't support IB Diploma-worthy high school academics for all that many students.

If DCI would only stop tossing YY graduates etc. who work at or above grade level into humanities and science classes with kids who work behind grade level, they'd keep more of the stronger feeder students. Admins don't seem to give a hoot that they lose around half of these kids to programs offering more rigor, and better discipline, BASIS, Latin, privates, the burbs. It's a vicious circle that needs political attention.

And that's exactly the problem - politically, the winds are against any tracking, haven't you noticed?

Somehow the test in schools are managing to still exist, not sure how they defend themselves while tracking goes by the wayside, but I don't see tracking being added, only removed these days (Wilson).