new insights into what went wrong with Wilson's PARCC scores
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Anonymous
The deputy mayor is wrong. Kids need to be taught to take responsibility for things, including time management. You can also blame the parents that knew their kids were skipping, the teachers, the principal. None of these parties felt enough responsibility for the reputation of the school to try and move a review session? |
Anonymous
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The deputy mayor is not wrong.
Worse, the obsession that DCPS has with PARCC as a measure of their progress sets the example for the students that they should strongly prioritize those things that directly reward them in the near term. |
Anonymous
| Our osse rep said that a big part of the problem was that dcps scheduled kids for tests in classes they were not taking, and couldn't switch them to the correct test, so the kids just skipped them. |
Anonymous
High school kids are old enough to self-advocate. The AP and PARCC schedules come out MONTHS in advance. If they can't manage that they'll be lost in college. |
Anonymous
And this is why we can't have nice things in DC. |
Anonymous
They did manage the competing priorities. They chose to blow off the one that has no consequence. Like the deputy mayor said, rational. |
Anonymous
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Well here's an email form Ruth Wattenberg that tells a different story about the test scores. Walls had their students take the test. Participation was at 99%, so how do you explain the drop? On the flip side, why do some schools have huge increases.
From Ruth Wattenberg: Why did scores drop so dramatically at Wilson and Walls? The release of PARCC (the annual test taken by DC public school students) scores showed small average increases in PARCC scores across most grades and subjects across the city, coupled with dramatic score drops at Wilson, and School Without Walls. Why the drops? As I explain below, these scores cannot and should not be regarded as valid for concluding anything about achievement at either school. Validity requires that there is something constant, known, and relevant about the students taking the test this year and last. In the case of these two schools, these conditions are absent. Reasons Offered... One idea about why the scores dropped--offered by the Chancellor, according to the Washington Post--is that many high- performing students didn’t take the test or didn’t try hard because they and their parents weren’t sufficiently aware of its importance. Another argument, made at the press conference releasing the citywide scores, attributes it to poor handling of administrative issues (artfully worded so that blame is diffuse and no one is held accountable.) A new Post article interviews students who say they were more concerned with doing well on their AP tests, which were scheduled during the same time frame. I’ve also heard it suggested that this is the beginning of an opt-out movement in DC., with parents and students just blowing the test off, as some communities elsewhere have done. Based on what I know, I don’t think any of these, on their own, are the primary cause for the score drop. And some of these reasons sound an awful lot like efforts to shift the accountability for the problem to the students and schools, and away from the agency (ies) that is/are responsible, as explained next. And, based on what I know, a more likely, fuller cause: Students at Wilson and Walls were inexplicably assigned to take exams for courses in which they weren't enrolled. DCPS did not correct the problem, then allowed many exemptions, and problems ensued. Here's what happened and the context for it. First, across the country, where PARCC is used, students are supposed to take the PARCC exams that correspond to the classes they are enrolled in. So, in the upper grades, where students from multiple grades may take the same course (9th, 10,th, and 11th graders may all be enrolled in geometry, for example), students are supposed to take the exam that corresponds to the course they are enrolled in; Algebra 1 students should take the Algebra 1 exam, Geometry students the Geometry exam, English 2 students the English 2 exam, etc. If students aren’t enrolled in a course with a corresponding PARCC test (e.g. an AP English test, statistics, etc.), they aren’t supposed to take a PARCC test. This is how it is done in nearby Maryland and New Jersey--and it’s how PARCC recommends that it should be done. Second, for reasons that remain unclear and unexplained, DCPS did something else: It assigned students to take exams in courses that they were not enrolled in, which struck many people, rightly, as quite nonsensical. How is it useful for a student who took geometry in 8th or 9th grade to take a test in it in 12th grade? Third, school officials asked the central office to re-assign students, so that they weren’t being asked to take an irrelevant test “wrong” test. Parents raised the problem as well. I raised the problem multiple times with DCPS and with the state education agency (OSSE). The concerns of school officials and parents were ignored; DCPS refused to change it. DCPS and OSSE blamed each other for the problem. (DCPS claims that they were required by OSSE to do what they were doing. OSSE claims that DCPS chose to do it this way, despite OSSE’s contrary recommendation, but that OSSE couldn’t prevent it. I can’t say which is actually the case). What I can say is that both agencies understood the problem. Each blamed the other; neither solved the problem. Fourth, in an apparent acknowledgement that the practice was wrong, DCPS made clear (to any parent that asked) that it would exempt from the test any mis-assigned student whose parent asked for such an exemption, further assuring that the testing sample for this year would be so questionable that scores from this year could in no way be used to compare student achievement with the previous year’s. Fifth, DCPS never publicly acknowledged the problem, never reassigned students, and has known since spring that participation would be both low and random. Therefore, it knew that whether the scores were extra high or extra low, they would be invalid. OSSE knew all of this as well. It’s a mystery to me why these scores were reported out at all. As my mother always said: there are reasons--and real reasons. It is true that many students chose not to tae the tests--and that many families supported them. It is also true that DCPS enabled these exemptions. But, it seems like the real reason for the low participation and low effort was an official approach to the tests that was entirely dismissive of good practice, common sense, and reasonable complaints. That led many students and families in these schools to lose their faith in the credibility and usefulness of the city's testing system. If we want families and students to support and participate in the testing program--and I very much do--the authorities need to do their part to make it a credible system worth everyone's time. Take heart in the knowledge that these scores do not in any way indicate that achievement at Walls or Wilson has dropped! Of course, since the scores are in effect meaningless, we don’t now that scores haven’t dropped, either. If folks at the schools have concerns that shifts in programming, budget, or anything else have effected achievement, these issues should be carefully examined. The need for greater responsiveness--and the search for a new Chancellor Final note: I have heard from many people, both parents and staff—from all over the city--about DCPS’s increasing lack of responsiveness to concerns and issues raised by school communities. That kind of insularity produces bad decisions. In this case, the result is un-useable test scores. In other cases, the result is that students get a lesser quality education. This is why, in discussions around hiring a new Chancellor, I have been very clear: It is vital that the Mayor hire someone who is committed to taking seriously the voices of school communities—parents, students and staff. People at the school level have an intimate understanding of how issues are playing out. They see problems that can’t be seen by a central office. That doesn’t mean that the school level people are always right or can always be accommodated; we are a citywide system. But, there needs to be a balance. Increasingly, DCPS has been acting in ways that have willfully neglected and rejected the input and information from school communities. Hiring someone who can help find the right balance should be a priority of the Mayor. |
Anonymous
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Really glad my kids are in a charter school.
No one took tests they weren't supposed to, AP review sessions were plentiful and not nearly the amount of drama. |
Anonymous
| Shows how deeply flawed the whole system is: zero stakes for students / high stakes for teachers. At least for high-school why not assess school performance by the tests kids care about: SAT and APs. Or turn it around and require colleges to consider PARCC scores for admission purposes. |
Anonymous
Your analysis is dated. In 5 years DC will be majority white. The Montgomery County schools are no longer a guarantee and the traffic makes moving even less appealing. The current upper NW crowd will stay and fight for their neighborhood schools emboldened by the lessons learned and victories won over school renovations. DCPS will have to deliver or be marginalized even further. |
Anonymous
This is what teachers have been saying, but you still get the blame the teacher contingent!!! |
Anonymous
OR use it as a graduation requirement, whoops then few kids will graduate. Better scratch that! It's not that the tests are that difficult, but those who can don't care, and the rest could hardly pass the DCCAS and that was a joke 
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Anonymous
Not only that the PARCC is not supposed to be something you study for like the AP, if the info was covered in class or the curriculum you just show up and take the assessment - it's not a test. |
Anonymous
New Poster to the thread. Hasn't dcurbanmom been making the claim that DC will be majority white in 5 years for at least 6 years already??? And do you really believe DCPS is concerned about being 'marginalized even further'? And is such a thing possible? |
Anonymous
Oh yeah, and do you really think school renovations was about attracting white families--or about giving poor black kids nice schools to go to --- or renovating buildings that were so dated and destroyed they posed dangers to a person's safety? |