PARCC Scores for Grades 3-8

[Anonymous]

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We disagree. I think the schools are much better than they were 10 or 15 years ago. There are many more schools that I'd want my kid attending. Some charters, some DCPS that weren't good options when I moved to DC. Perhaps you feel the system was just the same before Brent, Murch, Maury and the charters were viable options. I simply don't.

NP. It's interesting that the school's you named are all on capital hill. The notion that Rhee made the DCPS schools better is an asinine notion. At least for the schools in Brookland and Woodridge, Rhee decimated them. What Rehee did do was provide the remaining middle class families in the area who were giving DCPS a go a valid, guilt-free reason for abandoning these schools to the families who had neither the financial or political will to improve the schools. Rhee took a Blue ribbon, momtessorie elementary school with good numerical stats and provided five hours of weekly Spanish and tuned into a school for PS3 to 8. She removed the entire Spanish curriculum and called the school a stem school. Interesting, since the school had absolutely no facilities for science experiments, computer labs, etc. The school was without a gym, or even an acceptable playing field for the older children to exercise and release energy. I, and apparently many other families, had no desire for my 4-year old DC to be in an environment among teenagers and their raging only reason to send your DC to said school was because of lack of options. Guess what, the middle class families exercised their options. Kaya 's administration put the nail in the coffin when momtessorie was taken away from the school. A couple of years ago, out of curiosity, I looked up the school's scores and was not surprised that they had plummeted. DCPS has a very hard job in getting Brookland and Woodridge parents to return to DCPS. They started with recreating two middle schools, McKinley and Brookland. I don't know if it's enough for the middle class parents, but surely DCPS can do something for the other children.

And yes, I am one of many who believes that Rhee's primary job was to decimate a tenuously struggling public school system and push it off the cliff for privatilization. She did hire private companies to take over some DCPS high schools. Her protégée, Ms Henderson, readily testified that the middle schools should be privatized. And now, Ms Rhee is making her living off of the privatization of public schools. How quaint.

When did Murch relocate to the Hill?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We disagree. I think the schools are much better than they were 10 or 15 years ago. There are many more schools that I'd want my kid attending. Some charters, some DCPS that weren't good options when I moved to DC. Perhaps you feel the system was just the same before Brent, Murch, Maury and the charters were viable options. I simply don't.

NP. It's interesting that the school's you named are all on capital hill. The notion that Rhee made the DCPS schools better is an asinine notion. At least for the schools in Brookland and Woodridge, Rhee decimated them. What Rehee did do was provide the remaining middle class families in the area who were giving DCPS a go a valid, guilt-free reason for abandoning these schools to the families who had neither the financial or political will to improve the schools. Rhee took a Blue ribbon, momtessorie elementary school with good numerical stats and provided five hours of weekly Spanish and tuned into a school for PS3 to 8. She removed the entire Spanish curriculum and called the school a stem school. Interesting, since the school had absolutely no facilities for science experiments, computer labs, etc. The school was without a gym, or even an acceptable playing field for the older children to exercise and release energy. I, and apparently many other families, had no desire for my 4-year old DC to be in an environment among teenagers and their raging only reason to send your DC to said school was because of lack of options. Guess what, the middle class families exercised their options. Kaya 's administration put the nail in the coffin when momtessorie was taken away from the school. A couple of years ago, out of curiosity, I looked up the school's scores and was not surprised that they had plummeted. DCPS has a very hard job in getting Brookland and Woodridge parents to return to DCPS. They started with recreating two middle schools, McKinley and Brookland. I don't know if it's enough for the middle class parents, but surely DCPS can do something for the other children.

And yes, I am one of many who believes that Rhee's primary job was to decimate a tenuously struggling public school system and push it off the cliff for privatilization. She did hire private companies to take over some DCPS high schools. Her protégée, Ms Henderson, readily testified that the middle schools should be privatized. And now, Ms Rhee is making her living off of the privatization of public schools. How quaint.

Murch on the Hill now is it? And I do adore you conspiracy theorists. Crazy, sure. But imminently amusing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We disagree. I think the schools are much better than they were 10 or 15 years ago. There are many more schools that I'd want my kid attending. Some charters, some DCPS that weren't good options when I moved to DC. Perhaps you feel the system was just the same before Brent, Murch, Maury and the charters were viable options. I simply don't.

NP. It's interesting that the school's you named are all on capital hill. The notion that Rhee made the DCPS schools better is an asinine notion. At least for the schools in Brookland and Woodridge, Rhee decimated them. What Rehee did do was provide the remaining middle class families in the area who were giving DCPS a go a valid, guilt-free reason for abandoning these schools to the families who had neither the financial or political will to improve the schools. Rhee took a Blue ribbon, momtessorie elementary school with good numerical stats and provided five hours of weekly Spanish and tuned into a school for PS3 to 8. She removed the entire Spanish curriculum and called the school a stem school. Interesting, since the school had absolutely no facilities for science experiments, computer labs, etc. The school was without a gym, or even an acceptable playing field for the older children to exercise and release energy. I, and apparently many other families, had no desire for my 4-year old DC to be in an environment among teenagers and their raging only reason to send your DC to said school was because of lack of options. Guess what, the middle class families exercised their options. Kaya 's administration put the nail in the coffin when momtessorie was taken away from the school. A couple of years ago, out of curiosity, I looked up the school's scores and was not surprised that they had plummeted. DCPS has a very hard job in getting Brookland and Woodridge parents to return to DCPS. They started with recreating two middle schools, McKinley and Brookland. I don't know if it's enough for the middle class parents, but surely DCPS can do something for the other children.

And yes, I am one of many who believes that Rhee's primary job was to decimate a tenuously struggling public school system and push it off the cliff for privatilization. She did hire private companies to take over some DCPS high schools. Her protégée, Ms Henderson, readily testified that the middle schools should be privatized. And now, Ms Rhee is making her living off of the privatization of public schools. How quaint.

Murch on the Hill now is it? And I do adore you conspiracy theorists. Crazy, sure. But imminently amusing.

amused by the people who come on these boards to call "conspiracy theory" to ideas they don't agree with

[Anonymous]

Best part is that those people have no earthly idea how crazy they actually are! I cannot for the life of me figure out their blind rage. If the crazies were all DCPS teachers I'd understand it. But there's no way all of these people are DCPS teachers. I think there's an academic paper in this study.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This presentation is pretty good:

http://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/OSSE%20PARCC%203-8%20ReleasePresentation_finalv14.pdf

What I find most interesting are the bar charts of aggregated test results by grade, which show a clear progression -- 3rd graders performed better than fourth-graders, fourth graders performed better than fifth-graders, etc. These results imply that DC's early childhood interventions *are working*, as well as improvements in elementary school education. It is expected that those younger students who have had more exposure to these changes would perform better.

My child attends a Title I preschool, where she is one of two white children in her class. And at this stage, honestly, all the kids are about the same. At three years-old, they are allr writing their names, telling stories, counting objects, etc. I would not be surprised at all if that by the time this class takes the 3rd grade PARCC, their scores would be on par not just with the rest of the country, but that the gap between races would merge as well.

As for the PARCC itself -- The presentation also has a nice comparison between a DC CAS math question and a PARCC question. It is just so obvious why the PARCC exam is superior and why teaching to this kind of test would be very different than teaching to the kinds of tests we grew up with. I have taken some of the practice exams to see what all the fuss is about and have been very pleasantly surprised by the level of critical thinking and skills that would be required to do well. We know that previous standardized exam systems have been failing our students -- and maybe even our own generation. I agree with the administration that this is a good baseline upon which to measure students' progress, rather than the CAS. Using the PARCC also frees up resources that had been devoted to the DC exam's design to more useful purposes. Maybe states can afford their own bureaucracies for designing their own unique standards and exams, but DC cannot.

So. (1) Results show that DC actions to improve early childhood and elementary education are working, and that the more exposure students have to these changes, the better they perform; and (2) The PARCC is not just a more meaningful exam than the DC CAS, its adoption frees up District resources for other uses.

Parents, please stop trying to tear this down. My family is willing to give this system a shot, and we hope you do, too.

I'm not sure you can draw the conclusions you think you can from your PK3 experience. I, too, have a child in PK3 at a Title I school. If I just looked at the kids, I might agree that they are mostly in the same ballpark in terms of development. But I have to look at the parents, too. They are not your average crowd, and much higher SES than the rest of the school. This is partially because folks are utilizing free PK3, and then plan to move on next year when they can get into PK4 at their (non-Title I) inbound. There are others who are high SES and live in hot nearby neighborhoods, and are trying it out for a year. But they are the exception to the rule. I also have a kindergartener at the same school, and her class utterly lacks that same cohort of high SES families. The disparity shows. The children are most decidedly not achieving at the same level across the board. I didn't think it would be like this at this age, but it is. My K child is learning a lot (great resources and devoted teachers), but I am not sure we'll return. The reason? Because I think children need to have peers who are at their level, and there just are not enough in the K class to make me want to return for first next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This presentation is pretty good:

http://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/OSSE%20PARCC%203-8%20ReleasePresentation_finalv14.pdf

What I find most interesting are the bar charts of aggregated test results by grade, which show a clear progression -- 3rd graders performed better than fourth-graders, fourth graders performed better than fifth-graders, etc. These results imply that DC's early childhood interventions *are working*, as well as improvements in elementary school education. It is expected that those younger students who have had more exposure to these changes would perform better.

My child attends a Title I preschool, where she is one of two white children in her class. And at this stage, honestly, all the kids are about the same. At three years-old, they are allr writing their names, telling stories, counting objects, etc. I would not be surprised at all if that by the time this class takes the 3rd grade PARCC, their scores would be on par not just with the rest of the country, but that the gap between races would merge as well.

As for the PARCC itself -- The presentation also has a nice comparison between a DC CAS math question and a PARCC question. It is just so obvious why the PARCC exam is superior and why teaching to this kind of test would be very different than teaching to the kinds of tests we grew up with. I have taken some of the practice exams to see what all the fuss is about and have been very pleasantly surprised by the level of critical thinking and skills that would be required to do well. We know that previous standardized exam systems have been failing our students -- and maybe even our own generation. I agree with the administration that this is a good baseline upon which to measure students' progress, rather than the CAS. Using the PARCC also frees up resources that had been devoted to the DC exam's design to more useful purposes. Maybe states can afford their own bureaucracies for designing their own unique standards and exams, but DC cannot.

So. (1) Results show that DC actions to improve early childhood and elementary education are working, and that the more exposure students have to these changes, the better they perform; and (2) The PARCC is not just a more meaningful exam than the DC CAS, its adoption frees up District resources for other uses.

Parents, please stop trying to tear this down. My family is willing to give this system a shot, and we hope you do, too.

I'm not sure you can draw the conclusions you think you can from your PK3 experience. I, too, have a child in PK3 at a Title I school. If I just looked at the kids, I might agree that they are mostly in the same ballpark in terms of development. But I have to look at the parents, too. They are not your average crowd, and much higher SES than the rest of the school. This is partially because folks are utilizing free PK3, and then plan to move on next year when they can get into PK4 at their (non-Title I) inbound. There are others who are high SES and live in hot nearby neighborhoods, and are trying it out for a year. But they are the exception to the rule. I also have a kindergartener at the same school, and her class utterly lacks that same cohort of high SES families. The disparity shows. The children are most decidedly not achieving at the same level across the board. I didn't think it would be like this at this age, but it is. My K child is learning a lot (great resources and devoted teachers), but I am not sure we'll return. The reason? Because I think children need to have peers who are at their level, and there just are not enough in the K class to make me want to return for first next year.

30 MILLION WORD GAP - for children from families of Low SES by AGE 3

This is the study that others have already referenced on this thread, and why SES is important and why PreK is important. It also matters about the quality of pre-K education, the importance of parental and family environment, and why teachers cannot possibly make-up in middle and high school for the deficit that children have in their education without being able to use targeted interventions and support from wrap-around services.

http://literacy.rice.edu/thirty-million-word-gap

A summary from "The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3" by University of Kansas researchers Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley. (2003). American Educator. Spring: 4-9, which was exerpted with permission from B. Hart and T.R. Risley (1995). Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American Children. Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing.

In this groundbreaking study, University of Kansas researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley entered the homes of 42 families from various socio-economic backgrounds to assess the ways in which daily exchanges between a parent and child shape language and vocabulary development. Their findings were unprecedented, with extraordinary disparities between the sheer number of words spoken as well as the types of messages conveyed. After four years these differences in parent-child interactions produced significant discrepancies in not only children’s knowledge, but also their skills and experiences with children from high-income families being exposed to 30 million more words than children from families on welfare. Follow-up studies showed that these differences in language and interaction experiences have lasting effects on a child’s performance later in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aggregate for WOTP
Janney ES 74%
Ross ES 73%
Lafayette ES 72%
Mann ES 71%
Eaton ES 69%
Murch ES 68%
Key ES 65%
Oyster Adams Bilingual School 52%
Hearst ES 42%

The bolded are the only two that are significantly off.

Way to go Eaton with all your OOB and 15% low income kids!!

Hearst and Oyster also have significantly more OOB and FARMS students than all of the schools (including Eaton) listed here.

Still, the scores should be higher. Oyster is a mess.

[Anonymous]

Doesn't Oyster only go until third grade? Then kids switch to Adams.

How are the third grade Oyster scores?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Best part is that those people have no earthly idea how crazy they actually are! I cannot for the life of me figure out their blind rage. If the crazies were all DCPS teachers I'd understand it. But there's no way all of these people are DCPS teachers. I think there's an academic paper in this study.

Hello Ms Teach for America and/or Walmart Lobbyist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best part is that those people have no earthly idea how crazy they actually are! I cannot for the life of me figure out their blind rage. If the crazies were all DCPS teachers I'd understand it. But there's no way all of these people are DCPS teachers. I think there's an academic paper in this study.

Hello Ms Teach for America and/or Walmart Lobbyist.

What???!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aggregate for WOTP
Janney ES 74%
Ross ES 73%
Lafayette ES 72%
Mann ES 71%
Eaton ES 69%
Murch ES 68%
Key ES 65%
Oyster Adams Bilingual School 52%
Hearst ES 42%

The bolded are the only two that are significantly off.

I am curious about Oyster's results? Is it lower because they are counting the results in middle school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aggregate for WOTP
Janney ES 74%
Ross ES 73%
Lafayette ES 72%
Mann ES 71%
Eaton ES 69%
Murch ES 68%
Key ES 65%
Oyster Adams Bilingual School 52%
Hearst ES 42%

The bolded are the only two that are significantly off.

I am curious about Oyster's results? Is it lower because they are counting the results in middle school?

Yes, they are counting middle school years too, so it's a bit of an apples vs oranges comparison. Hopefully we'll see the grade-by-grade results soon, I am really curios.

(Also, it is worth remembering that Oyster students learn math in Spanish, yet they are obviously tested in English. What would happen if Janney students got tested in Spanish?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aggregate for WOTP
Janney ES 74%
Ross ES 73%
Lafayette ES 72%
Mann ES 71%
Eaton ES 69%
Murch ES 68%
Key ES 65%
Oyster Adams Bilingual School 52%
Hearst ES 42%

The bolded are the only two that are significantly off.

I am curious about Oyster's results? Is it lower because they are counting the results in middle school?

Yes, they are counting middle school years too, so it's a bit of an apples vs oranges comparison. Hopefully we'll see the grade-by-grade results soon, I am really curios.

(Also, it is worth remembering that Oyster students learn math in Spanish, yet they are obviously tested in English. What would happen if Janney students got tested in Spanish?)

Grade by grade came out last Monday. Nothing holding you back from satisfying your curiousity tonight.

[Anonymous]

No time tonight, will check them tomorrow. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aggregate for WOTP
Janney ES 74%
Ross ES 73%
Lafayette ES 72%
Mann ES 71%
Eaton ES 69%
Murch ES 68%
Key ES 65%
Oyster Adams Bilingual School 52%
Hearst ES 42%

The bolded are the only two that are significantly off.

Way to go Eaton with all your OOB and 15% low income kids!!

Hearst and Oyster also have significantly more OOB and FARMS students than all of the schools (including Eaton) listed here.

Still, the scores should be higher. Oyster is a mess.

Oyster has a lot of diversity. When you compare apples to apples (white vs white or Hispanic vs hispanic), Oyster is amongst the top and Janney drops down significantly (only 2% farm). Janney's white only performance was low 70s/high 60s, Oyster in 80s.