Brent, Maury & Watkins Trend-lines

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coddling parents and outliers are against data driven instruction.

It takes time to test and testing brings anxiety (mostly to parents). Sure, we'd always rather our children get more higher order learning, but we need to prioritize, and most stakeholders want data. A better assertion to make is something along the lines of:

"You know, I'd like to see fewer and more efficient tests, and I'd also like to see a longer day and more days of instruction."

Note the buzz words - data driven instruction, higher order learning, stakeholders.

Sounds more like an administrator than a parent

[Anonymous]

One of the problems that the Brent/Maury/Watkins parents face is they are deep into debt on their homes. There are parents who have completely gutted their homes and taken fabulous vacations all while using their home as a ATM.

Just wanted to pull this hilariously off-base quote out. Given that Capitol Hill housing has kept its value better than almost any other neighborhood in the region, I think you may be projecting here.

We bought in 2004. The housing bubble "collapse" sees our house's value at +5%. I know folks in the burbs who are off 25% from buying at the peak. Couple this with the fact that the ration between rents/mortgage has finally equalized, and we can actually cover our monthly mortgage payment and maintenance by renting our house out, and...no, we're not fighting for our lives underwater.

Given how laughable your analysis of the RE market on the Hill, I'll take the rest of your "analysis" with a grain of salt, thanks.

:roll"

[Anonymous]

Ditto. Things looking fine as far as house value. Wish I'd been on a fabulous vacation, though. Where do people come up with these things?

[Anonymous]

Parents who bought in 2007 are kinda screwed and hence the frenzy to boost their schools on these boards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents who bought in 2007 are kinda screwed and hence the frenzy to boost their schools on these boards.

I'm interested in some of whatever it is you've been smoking:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1250-C-St-NE-Washington-DC-20002/422264_zpid

My brother-in-law outside of Denver has two kids under 3 yo, and lives in a condo they bought for $250k four years ago. It's now worth $160k. The idea that generally middle- to upper-middle class Capitol Hill parents whose house values have *increased* over the last 4 years are "screwed" is something you seem loathe to let go of, but it's also pure fantasy on your part.

[Anonymous]

I think the fact that Hill parents are so dedicated to making the DCPS schools work out speaks more to the shittiness of suburban living than to parents' financial straits. Given that Hill parents are probably some of the few people in the area who *are* tied to their homes, it actually is more heartening to see such dedication.

Hell, I bought in 2006, and I could rent the place out and move out of the area tomorrow.

[Anonymous]

Check yourself, "using Hill houses as an ATM" poster. I'm a Hill mom who bought in 2001. While I can't speak for everyone who lives here, I can say that, among my circle of friends on the Hill, no one is even close to being underwater on their house, whether because of home equity loans for renovations or otherwise. Conservatively speaking, my profit on an as-is, "I ain't staging nothin', don't mind that pile of laundry" sale of our home would be more than enough for a 20% down on the magical, mystical $1m+ house that's spoken of so often on DCUM.

I've stayed here because my daughter and I love the neighborhood and our neighbors; I love it here more than I love the idea of selling my home at a profit. She's in DCPS now, and I am happy with her school and teacher. But, for external reasons, I'm looking at private for next year. If my home equity becomes an issue in the FA process, then so be it. I'll re-evaluate my position on staying here then, but not before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Comparing AYP between schools is fraught with all kinds of caveats:
1) Although these are of course standardized tests and despite efforts to make sure every school administers them in the same manner, there are often significant differences between schools, for example in how they approach special ed children to be tested. Some schools have relied more heavily on portfolios than others, the latter score lower as a result. And some just have more declared special ed children.
2) Also to be kept in mind very much, is that some of these schools have very few actual numbers the tests rely on, simply because the testing grades (3, 4, 5) are small and few. The results are therefore volatile, making trends difficult to interpret.
3) Add a little school choice to that, with sometimes a significant number of children returning from poorly run charters or leaving to other destinations, the trends aren't even trends about schools but simply about year-to-year student composition. Given the low numbers of testers in some of the hill schools, you can see scores move up and down based on just a hand full of particularly good or particularly bad students. The same goes for a random teacher turn-over or two.
4) Oh yes, and let's not forget that the AYP% is about the roughest measure anyone could have come up with (as it's the total of those in the 3rd and 4th quartile). Say, someone scores 375 in reading, whereby the span of what's called "proficient runs from 343 to 375, that student is declared "proficient". The one scoring 376 is declared "advanced". If a school has a lot of kids on those cut-offs, especially when they're between what's called "basic" (2nd quartile) and "proficient" (3rd quartile), then a school's scores can go from "made it" to "didn't make it" with just a few strokes of a pen.
5) Not to mention that test scores in elementary schools do not reflect the current status but past successes and failures (when those kids were in K, 1st, 2nd etc.).

Beyond these caveats, what you're looking at is essentially a correlation between the % of students from socio-economically weaker backgrounds and that really rough AYP %. What's interesting if you care to look a little more deeply (and you'll have to do a little calculations yourself because the scores for groups that are two small will not be reported), then you'll see that socio-economically well off (esp. white) children, will likely score well no matter the context. By contrast, the average less well-off child will score better in an environment that has fewer than about 50% of economically challenged children. This applies to all the three schools that are listed at the outset of this thread. And what that composition looks like at any given grade level is as much a factor of a particular neighborhood as it is of a school's year-to-year history. For example, in the late 1990s and early 2000, Maury attracted economically well of children from all over the city, then hit a leadership road-bump in about 2000, which subsequently left it with but the comparatively poorer neighborhood children and the very real prospect of a school closure. I'm sure you can look back at Brent and maybe to a lesser extent Watkins, which has seen more continuity and also has a much bigger and less volatile body of testing students, and see similar random impacts on its student body. In the early 2000, all three mentioned here suffered from the head-start charter schools got in dipping into the educationally involved parent pool by enrolling 3 year-olds while DCPS continued to only take them at age 4 for a few more years.

So now that you're probably left scratching your head to know what to do with the data, especially if you were hoping to draw any conclusions about choosing schools, let me say that there is really no way around going to check things out first hand in those grades. And what you may find is that they're really very similar and all really quite good. They've all been doing well, especially if you focus your attention on the average child from an socio-economically well off (and often educationally involved) background and children who've been with that one and the same school for years, something that unfortunately the AYP scores say little about.

Hi Gina Arlotto.

For everyone else? I wouldn't worry about the highly educated and involved Hill parents who've not only chosen to leave, but then (despite their high expectations) somehow blundered into poorly run charters, and THEN decided the remedy was to return to their unsatisfactory DCPS. If there's a sample size of such students to be counted on more than one hand, it would be shocking.

Families leave. The better-off they are, the earlier they go. This opens up lots of seats for poorly-served OOB students. The later the grade, the more seats that are open. The more seats that are open, the poorer the results in the testing grades. It's a difficult cycle to break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents who bought in 2007 are kinda screwed and hence the frenzy to boost their schools on these boards.

Parents who bought in 2007 have 4 year-olds. They're lucky to even get in to a Pre-K, and they sure as hell don't know enough yet to be boosters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents who bought in 2007 are kinda screwed and hence the frenzy to boost their schools on these boards.

Parents who bought in 2007 have 4 year-olds. They're lucky to even get in to a Pre-K, and they sure as hell don't know enough yet to be boosters.

I want you to handle all my business analysis. Your hypothesis is that among "parents who bought in 2007," no families with children (0) had other than 4 year olds. Coincidentally, each and every one of of these home-buying parents that year had a 4-year-old and no other kids in school. Fascinating, cult-like behavior!

[Anonymous]

STEREOTYPES OF HILL PARENTS

(1) Drink bubbly wine with cheese while fraternizing in the halls of power.

(2) Perception: House = ATM frenzy in 2007, settling for DCPS.
Reality: decent income & great take-out near-by, DCPS elementary ain’t half bad.

(3) Likes walking / biking / Metro. 1.5 vehicles (minivan, Zip Car).

(4) Has one, two or three kids – never more.

(4) Supplements school with “enrichment activities.”

(5) South mountain Creamery / CSA / neighborhood garden.

(6) Two Rivers, Watkins, Brent, Maury, Cap Hill Day, St. Peter’s.

(7) Someone you know has a weekend home in the country, and it’s awesome.

(8) Same sex (Modern Family), single, bi-racial, Mongolian, female breadwinner - unique families are the norm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:STEREOTYPES OF HILL PARENTS

(1) Drink bubbly wine with cheese while fraternizing in the halls of power.

(2) Perception: House = ATM frenzy in 2007, settling for DCPS.
Reality: decent income & great take-out near-by, DCPS elementary ain’t half bad.

(3) Likes walking / biking / Metro. 1.5 vehicles (minivan, Zip Car).

(4) Has one, two or three kids – never more.

(4) Supplements school with “enrichment activities.”

(5) South mountain Creamery / CSA / neighborhood garden.

(6) Two Rivers, Watkins, Brent, Maury, Cap Hill Day, St. Peter’s.

(7) Someone you know has a weekend home in the country, and it’s awesome.

(8) Same sex (Modern Family), single, bi-racial, Mongolian, female breadwinner - unique families are the norm.

LOL! Damn, you got me! Except for #1. I'd rather hang out with my family and neighbors at the local park or pub.

[Anonymous]

STEREOTYPES OF HILL PARENTS

(1) Perception: bubbly wine & cheese fraternizing in halls of power.
Reality: dashing to Eastern Market in pajamas.

(2) Perception: House = ATM frenzy in 2007, settling for DCPS.
Reality: decent income & great take-out near-by, DCPS elementary ain’t half bad.

(3) Perception: Walking / biking / Metro. 1.5 vehicles (minivan, Zip Car).
Reality: The car just works better for our life.

(4) Has one, two or three kids – never more.

(4) Supplements school with “enrichment activities.”

(5) South mountain Creamery / CSA / neighborhood garden.

(6) Two Rivers, Watkins, Brent, Maury, Cap Hill Day, St. Peter’s.

(7) Someone you know has a weekend home in the country, and it’s awesome.

(8) Same sex (a-la Modern Family), single, bi-racial, Mongolian, female breadwinner, no biggie.

(9) Complaint about visiting the Air & Space Museum “again.”

(10) Nationals games are actually fun. And you can bring food in.

(11) Where is Kingman Park? Payne’s field? Marine field? Watkins multi-sport?

(12) When we’re at 8th Street, I get coffee, you get doughnuts.

(13) “I am not taking the kids for 8 dollar hamburgers on Pennsylvania Ave.”

(14) Dads do serious stroller research. And then tell you.

(15) CHAW is not chewed.

[Anonymous]

This is entertaining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looking at the data for 2011. Data order total, non econ dis, white

Brent: tested 87 students, 56 non econ dis (64%), 16 white (18%)
Reading pass rate: 75.87%, 78.57%, 93.75%
Math pass rate: 62.07, 66.07, 81.25

Maury: tested 64 students, 25 non econ dis (39%), 2 white (3%)
Reading pass rate: 37.51, 53.85, white not reported
Math pass rate: 45.31, 40.00, white not reported

Watkins: tested 212 students, 146 (69%) non econ, 59 (28%) white.
Reading pass rate: 62.73%, 73.97, 86.44
Math pass rate: 61.32, 73.97, 84.74

It seems there was a big discrepancy in the reading scores of Brent. Why so?
Maury's scores look pretty bad.