Less Crazy this year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:<<I would say that the vast majority of the class is at grade level in reading and math, with a handful of kids above average and a handful of kids below average.>>

Please tell me which east of the park DCPS this is. I sincerely want to know. Because this is so far removed from the testing scores, I am struggling to understand it. If you look at the % of kids in East of the Park DCPS, a typical testing score is that fewer than 20% of kids meet or exceed expectations in either math or english language arts.

It is in kindergarten, so the scores you are seeing do not apply. I am talking about internal data used for measurement within the classroom. I would be the first to tell you that the little assessments they used to get those scores were really basic - it was basically sight word ability and being able to do a few "more than, less than, or equal to" math problems in a certain amount of time. But I can only work with the scores I'm given by the classroom on whatever assessment tools they are using, and for the ones they did prior to parent teacher conferences this month, most kids were able to complete the assessments at grade level. The scores you are seeing online apply to kids in grades 3-5 and they are aggregate scores of all students that are in testing grades. We have 3 classrooms per grade.

I think it would be really helpful if DCPS broke the testing data at the school level down better so that it was easier to observe an individual grade level's progress. I think it would be a better way to gauge school trajectory. I also think (and there are a lot of people who agree) the PARCC scores last year are very misleading. Our students had a lot of trouble with the test itself because of actual computer operation skills. We have kids in our school who have had iPads since they were 2 years old, but we also have kids who had never even seen a computer until a couple years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:<<I would say that the vast majority of the class is at grade level in reading and math, with a handful of kids above average and a handful of kids below average.>>

Please tell me which east of the park DCPS this is. I sincerely want to know. Because this is so far removed from the testing scores, I am struggling to understand it. If you look at the % of kids in East of the Park DCPS, a typical testing score is that fewer than 20% of kids meet or exceed expectations in either math or english language arts.

It is in kindergarten, so the scores you are seeing do not apply. I am talking about internal data used for measurement within the classroom. I would be the first to tell you that the little assessments they used to get those scores were really basic - it was basically sight word ability and being able to do a few "more than, less than, or equal to" math problems in a certain amount of time. But I can only work with the scores I'm given by the classroom on whatever assessment tools they are using, and for the ones they did prior to parent teacher conferences this month, most kids were able to complete the assessments at grade level. The scores you are seeing online apply to kids in grades 3-5 and they are aggregate scores of all students that are in testing grades. We have 3 classrooms per grade.

I think it would be really helpful if DCPS broke the testing data at the school level down better so that it was easier to observe an individual grade level's progress. I think it would be a better way to gauge school trajectory. I also think (and there are a lot of people who agree) the PARCC scores last year are very misleading. Our students had a lot of trouble with the test itself because of actual computer operation skills. We have kids in our school who have had iPads since they were 2 years old, but we also have kids who had never even seen a computer until a couple years ago.

NP. That sounds similar to my kids EOTP school. At parent teacher conference for my kindergartner a few weeks ago, they talked about the class as a whole. More than half (I think about 60%, so not a vast majority) of the class (one of two K classes) was already at grade level half way through the year, which is a good start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:<<I would say that the vast majority of the class is at grade level in reading and math, with a handful of kids above average and a handful of kids below average.>>

Please tell me which east of the park DCPS this is. I sincerely want to know. Because this is so far removed from the testing scores, I am struggling to understand it. If you look at the % of kids in East of the Park DCPS, a typical testing score is that fewer than 20% of kids meet or exceed expectations in either math or english language arts.

It is in kindergarten, so the scores you are seeing do not apply. I am talking about internal data used for measurement within the classroom. I would be the first to tell you that the little assessments they used to get those scores were really basic - it was basically sight word ability and being able to do a few "more than, less than, or equal to" math problems in a certain amount of time. But I can only work with the scores I'm given by the classroom on whatever assessment tools they are using, and for the ones they did prior to parent teacher conferences this month, most kids were able to complete the assessments at grade level. The scores you are seeing online apply to kids in grades 3-5 and they are aggregate scores of all students that are in testing grades. We have 3 classrooms per grade.

I think it would be really helpful if DCPS broke the testing data at the school level down better so that it was easier to observe an individual grade level's progress. I think it would be a better way to gauge school trajectory. I also think (and there are a lot of people who agree) the PARCC scores last year are very misleading. Our students had a lot of trouble with the test itself because of actual computer operation skills. We have kids in our school who have had iPads since they were 2 years old, but we also have kids who had never even seen a computer until a couple years ago.

They do this already. You need to play with the settings a bit but you can see grade level PARCC data on this website.

http://results.osse.dc.gov/state/DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:<<I would say that the vast majority of the class is at grade level in reading and math, with a handful of kids above average and a handful of kids below average.>>

Please tell me which east of the park DCPS this is. I sincerely want to know. Because this is so far removed from the testing scores, I am struggling to understand it. If you look at the % of kids in East of the Park DCPS, a typical testing score is that fewer than 20% of kids meet or exceed expectations in either math or english language arts.

It is in kindergarten, so the scores you are seeing do not apply. I am talking about internal data used for measurement within the classroom. I would be the first to tell you that the little assessments they used to get those scores were really basic - it was basically sight word ability and being able to do a few "more than, less than, or equal to" math problems in a certain amount of time. But I can only work with the scores I'm given by the classroom on whatever assessment tools they are using, and for the ones they did prior to parent teacher conferences this month, most kids were able to complete the assessments at grade level. The scores you are seeing online apply to kids in grades 3-5 and they are aggregate scores of all students that are in testing grades. We have 3 classrooms per grade.

I think it would be really helpful if DCPS broke the testing data at the school level down better so that it was easier to observe an individual grade level's progress. I think it would be a better way to gauge school trajectory. I also think (and there are a lot of people who agree) the PARCC scores last year are very misleading. Our students had a lot of trouble with the test itself because of actual computer operation skills. We have kids in our school who have had iPads since they were 2 years old, but we also have kids who had never even seen a computer until a couple years ago.

They do this already. You need to play with the settings a bit but you can see grade level PARCC data on this website.

http://results.osse.dc.gov/state/DC

Thanks for this. I remember looking at it when it came out and finding it confusing and that opinion hasn't changed.

However, I think it's worth considering what the meaningful differences are between PARCC levels 3 and 4. For ELA, the different descriptions of performance levels seem fairly small, but if you expand the school scoring from levels 4-5 to levels 3-5, at least at my school, the scores nearly triple. I know that there are adjustments made for kids who speak English as a second or third language, but at my school, which is more than 60% Spanish-speaking, it seems like the small, nuanced differences between ELA level 3 and ELA level 4 (general understanding vs. basic understanding? what does that mean?) would be more profound for non-native English speakers.

[Anonymous]

Way less crazy this year.

[Anonymous]

My guess is that everyone knows SOMEONE who is happy enough at their local DCPS or less-that-HRCS, and they realize it is going to be ok.

People will lottery. Folks will try to lottery into and out of Mundo Verde, etc. etc. The kids will be alright.

That doesn't mean that you are not going to hate your neighbor in a few weeks who gets into ITS and has top 10 numbers for Two Rivers, YY, Stokes, and Mundo Verde, and laments that they only got into their 5th choice.