Westbrook and relatively low PARCC test scores

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But didn't MCPS get rid of final exams so smart students could "focus on the PARCC exams" in May?

I still wouldn't put an ounce of brainpower into it. conserve energy for other things.

Hm.. well, I guess if you don't care about having your kid get into a magnet program, then sure, ignore PARCC. But, if you do want to have your DC try for magnet, then you would want them to do well on PARCC. Also, I'm thinking that schools use PARCC score for other things, like maybe compacted math placement,etc...

We aren't talking about HS here. Westbrook is an ES.

we live 90 minutes in traffic from a HS magnet; it's off the table for us and most of our school pyramid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Westbrook has one of the lowest FARM rate in all of MoCo school and has a highly-educated parent population. Yet, its PARCC scores are not as good as other MoCo elementary schools in the area like Bannockburn, Carcderock, Bradley Hills, etc. Any thoughts as to why Westbrook’s PARCC scores are not that good?

first of all MCPS is getting rid of Pearson's horrible PARCC, most states or districts dropped it several years ago.

second of all, with curriculum 2.0 written on the fly over its first 3 years during new PARCC testing, most people don't put weighting on it. or now. it's a computerized aptitude test that increases its difficulty level until you get things incorrect. kids of whatever ability level don't leave the computer room happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But didn't MCPS get rid of final exams so smart students could "focus on the PARCC exams" in May?

I still wouldn't put an ounce of brainpower into it. conserve energy for other things.

Hm.. well, I guess if you don't care about having your kid get into a magnet program, then sure, ignore PARCC. But, if you do want to have your DC try for magnet, then you would want them to do well on PARCC. Also, I'm thinking that schools use PARCC score for other things, like maybe compacted math placement,etc...

We aren't talking about HS here. Westbrook is an ES.

we live 90 minutes in traffic from a HS magnet; it's off the table for us and most of our school pyramid.

But your kid at Westbrook would go east in the morning while the traffic goes west, and west in the afternoon while the traffic goes east, so the amount of time it takes in traffic isn't really relevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Westbrook has one of the lowest FARM rate in all of MoCo school and has a highly-educated parent population. Yet, its PARCC scores are not as good as other MoCo elementary schools in the area like Bannockburn, Carcderock, Bradley Hills, etc. Any thoughts as to why Westbrook’s PARCC scores are not that good?

first of all MCPS is getting rid of Pearson's horrible PARCC, most states or districts dropped it several years ago.

second of all, with curriculum 2.0 written on the fly over its first 3 years during new PARCC testing, most people don't put weighting on it. or now. it's a computerized aptitude test that increases its difficulty level until you get things incorrect. kids of whatever ability level don't leave the computer room happy.

MCPS can't do that. It's a decision made by the state of Maryland. Has the state of Maryland made this decision, and if so, have they decided what they will replace the PARCC tests with?

Also, no, the PARCC test is not a computer-adaptive test. You are probably thinking of the MAP test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But didn't MCPS get rid of final exams so smart students could "focus on the PARCC exams" in May?

I still wouldn't put an ounce of brainpower into it. conserve energy for other things.

Hm.. well, I guess if you don't care about having your kid get into a magnet program, then sure, ignore PARCC. But, if you do want to have your DC try for magnet, then you would want them to do well on PARCC. Also, I'm thinking that schools use PARCC score for other things, like maybe compacted math placement,etc...

We aren't talking about HS here. Westbrook is an ES.

we live 90 minutes in traffic from a HS magnet; it's off the table for us and most of our school pyramid.

But your kid at Westbrook would go east in the morning while the traffic goes west, and west in the afternoon while the traffic goes east, so the amount of time it takes in traffic isn't really relevant.

and a lot of parents don't want their kids sitting in 30-60 minutes of traffic each morning when they can walk to school in 10 minutes. people in my area (not Westbrook, but another BCC feeders) tend to turn down magnets for that reason. it's not that attractive (particularly in high income areas like Westbrook where parents can supplement educational opportunities.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But didn't MCPS get rid of final exams so smart students could "focus on the PARCC exams" in May?

I still wouldn't put an ounce of brainpower into it. conserve energy for other things.

Hm.. well, I guess if you don't care about having your kid get into a magnet program, then sure, ignore PARCC. But, if you do want to have your DC try for magnet, then you would want them to do well on PARCC. Also, I'm thinking that schools use PARCC score for other things, like maybe compacted math placement,etc...

We aren't talking about HS here. Westbrook is an ES.

we live 90 minutes in traffic from a HS magnet; it's off the table for us and most of our school pyramid.

But your kid at Westbrook would go east in the morning while the traffic goes west, and west in the afternoon while the traffic goes east, so the amount of time it takes in traffic isn't really relevant.

and a lot of parents don't want their kids sitting in 30-60 minutes of traffic each morning when they can walk to school in 10 minutes. people in my area (not Westbrook, but another BCC feeders) tend to turn down magnets for that reason. it's not that attractive (particularly in high income areas like Westbrook where parents can supplement educational opportunities.)

OK, if you don't want your kid to go to a magnet and a magnet is not that attractive, then don't send your kid to a magnet!

[Anonymous]

OP here: so the reason mentioned to explain Westbrook’s PARCC scores is that there’s no incentive to do well in the test because it does not affect student grades and parents do not want to go to the magnets. However, my understanding is that this same reason also applies to other MoCo schools and schools with higher FARMs still score higher. So don’t think the reason provided explains the score. Am I missing something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here: so the reason mentioned to explain Westbrook’s PARCC scores is that there’s no incentive to do well in the test because it does not affect student grades and parents do not want to go to the magnets. However, my understanding is that this same reason also applies to other MoCo schools and schools with higher FARMs still score higher. So don’t think the reason provided explains the score. Am I missing something?

There's also a bit of a slight-of-hand here with regard to the elementary school magnets. I can see a Westbook (B-CC) family deciding Blair was just too far to commute, but Chevy Chase ES isn't nearly that far. So, I would assume that some of the parents would like their high performing kids to make it to the CES program.

[Anonymous]

CES decisions don’t depend on PARCC scores because the kids don’t take PARCC until 3rd grade and the scores aren’t available even for just 3rd grade until after the CES decisions are made.

That’s not to say I agree that PARCC scores would be lower at Westbrook than at another B-CC feeder because parents care less there - doesn’t seem to make a huge amount of sense. I suppose if they had a large cohort opt out that could affect the scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:CES decisions don’t depend on PARCC scores because the kids don’t take PARCC until 3rd grade and the scores aren’t available even for just 3rd grade until after the CES decisions are made.

That’s not to say I agree that PARCC scores would be lower at Westbrook than at another B-CC feeder because parents care less there - doesn’t seem to make a huge amount of sense. I suppose if they had a large cohort opt out that could affect the scores.

Ah, you are correct. MAP scores go into CES, but not PARCC.

Still, with the advanced curriculum being added at middle schools, you would think there is some incentive for parents to encourage kids to do their best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But didn't MCPS get rid of final exams so smart students could "focus on the PARCC exams" in May?

I still wouldn't put an ounce of brainpower into it. conserve energy for other things.

Hm.. well, I guess if you don't care about having your kid get into a magnet program, then sure, ignore PARCC. But, if you do want to have your DC try for magnet, then you would want them to do well on PARCC. Also, I'm thinking that schools use PARCC score for other things, like maybe compacted math placement,etc...

We aren't talking about HS here. Westbrook is an ES.

we live 90 minutes in traffic from a HS magnet; it's off the table for us and most of our school pyramid.

But your kid at Westbrook would go east in the morning while the traffic goes west, and west in the afternoon while the traffic goes east, so the amount of time it takes in traffic isn't really relevant.

My kid (and most kids at Westbrook) walks to school, and will walk to Westland. I'm not interested in him sitting on a bus. It's one of the reasons we bought in this area.

We love Westbrook. Of course, we came from DC, so our calculus for what constitutes a "not good" school is slightly different than many people in Montgomery County who agonize over minute differences in test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here: so the reason mentioned to explain Westbrook’s PARCC scores is that there’s no incentive to do well in the test because it does not affect student grades and parents do not want to go to the magnets. However, my understanding is that this same reason also applies to other MoCo schools and schools with higher FARMs still score higher. So don’t think the reason provided explains the score. Am I missing something?

Most likely, yes. What I am missing, though, is why you care so much about this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here: so the reason mentioned to explain Westbrook’s PARCC scores is that there’s no incentive to do well in the test because it does not affect student grades and parents do not want to go to the magnets. However, my understanding is that this same reason also applies to other MoCo schools and schools with higher FARMs still score higher. So don’t think the reason provided explains the score. Am I missing something?

There's also a bit of a slight-of-hand here with regard to the elementary school magnets. I can see a Westbook (B-CC) family deciding Blair was just too far to commute, but Chevy Chase ES isn't nearly that far. So, I would assume that some of the parents would like their high performing kids to make it to the CES program.

+1. Plus, CCES PARCC scores are skewed upward by a huge magnet cohort in each grade.

[Anonymous]

^ Well, 4th and 5th, there's no magnet class in 3rd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

we live 90 minutes in traffic from a HS magnet; it's off the table for us and most of our school pyramid.

But your kid at Westbrook would go east in the morning while the traffic goes west, and west in the afternoon while the traffic goes east, so the amount of time it takes in traffic isn't really relevant.

My kid (and most kids at Westbrook) walks to school, and will walk to Westland. I'm not interested in him sitting on a bus. It's one of the reasons we bought in this area.

We love Westbrook. Of course, we came from DC, so our calculus for what constitutes a "not good" school is slightly different than many people in Montgomery County who agonize over minute differences in test scores.

And that's fine, but "I'm not sending my kid to a magnet because I prefer for him to walk to school" would be meaningfully different from "I'm not sending my kid to a magnet because it's 90 minutes on the bus in traffic" even if it did actually take 90 minutes on the bus.