OOB for Wilson feeders: What is your neighborhood school missing?

[Anonymous]

I'm sure the #1 reason across the board is

1)high achieving peer cohort.

That's pretty much what drives each and every one of these parents.


It's what drives parents to spend a million dollars to live in Chevy Chase DC and AU Park and it's what drives parents to drive across the city daily for schools.

That's it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure the #1 reason across the board is

1)high achieving peer cohort.

That's pretty much what drives each and every one of these parents.


It's what drives parents to spend a million dollars to live in Chevy Chase DC and AU Park and it's what drives parents to drive across the city daily for schools.

That's it.

If DCPS found the secret sauce, and could miraculously pull each and every school in the city up to >50% proficiency, would people still fight to attend the NWDC schools OOB because they hit 80% proficiency? In other words, is it having some base level of proficiency (50%?) that will keep parents in their neighborhood schools? Or are parents always going to fight to push their children into the next better school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And because of the way that DC allocates per pupil funding, Deal will always be the monster school that can offer everything, and all the other middle schools will pale in comparison. If they could tweak the formula somehow so that Deal got less incremental money for each student over a certain number, and the other middle schools were funded based on their capacity not their enrollment, some of the funding inequity would balance.

And then DCPS schools would have NO reason to ever improve, as money doesn't follow the student. (Deal and Wilson are getting screwed already with per pupil funding). Then more students would seek to go to charters...

What are you talking about? Money does follow the student. A school gets a baseline amount for every student enrolled. On top of that, a school gets additional funds if a high number of students live in poverty, are not native English speakers or have special needs.

Different poster responding to answer your question. I assume what PP meant by money not following the students was the first PP's tweak-the-formula proposal that funding should be based on capacity not enrollment. Key parts of each comment underlined. HTH

Thank you!(middle poster)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure the #1 reason across the board is

1)high achieving peer cohort.

That's pretty much what drives each and every one of these parents.


It's what drives parents to spend a million dollars to live in Chevy Chase DC and AU Park and it's what drives parents to drive across the city daily for schools.

That's it.

If DCPS found the secret sauce, and could miraculously pull each and every school in the city up to >50% proficiency, would people still fight to attend the NWDC schools OOB because they hit 80% proficiency? In other words, is it having some base level of proficiency (50%?) that will keep parents in their neighborhood schools? Or are parents always going to fight to push their children into the next better school?

No. Maybe people who live closer would still try, but EOTP the commute would be just too far. It would foreclose a lot of other activities and opportunities and just isn't worth it. People would still have personal preferences about programming, and would seek better middle school options. But there is only so many hours I can spend in the car each day, period.

[Anonymous]

Test scores are important but not enough for everyone. High test scores plus bullying and other behavior problems, indifferent teachers, foolish parents, limited outdoor time, and no language immersion will still lead many parents to search for greener pastures.

And on the flip side, many parents could handle a school where fewer than a quarter of the kids get 4s and 5s if the kids and parents were well behaved.

Agree with the PP that says it doesn't matter so much whether it's 20% or 40% of kids scoring 4s and 5s. What does matter is whether there are 50% of the kids at level 1 or 50% at level 3.

[Anonymous]

Test scores are not everything. My DD2 does not tesy especially well, and of course, many of the kids who get 4s and 5s are getting 3s in the other subject.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:no one gives a shit about the extracurriclars if the academics are a mess. But go on DCPS, Im sure adding in art classes and archery will totally get all those high SES parents of Brents 4th grade class to stick around for Jefferson.

OP here. I tend to agree. I'm sure we all have long wish lists of what our neighborhood schools are missing, and suggestions for how they could be improved. But what I'm really looking for, and I think what DCPS needs to hear, is about the key "dealbreaker" elements that caused us to reject our neighborhood schools.

Lots of people are saying test scores, and that makes sense to me. Yes, there may be situations where parents tempted to look OOB will stomach low test scores, for example if you know your local school is really good despite the test scores or if you don't have another good option. And on the flip side, I can imagine situations where parents might reject a high test score school, for example if it's in an inconvenient location. The break point where each parent decides probably depends on a lot of small personal factors that are specific to each family. It really seems like a school with low test scores just doesn't get the benefit of the doubt, so parents will look for ways to avoid those low test scores.

What do people think about that description of the problem? Generally true for most people (although obviously not every single person), or way off base?

As a for instance test case, if your local neighborhood schools (ES/MS/HS) started consistently hitting 35% proficient (level 4+5) in the PARCC scores, would you choose to attend them rather than going OOB? What if they reach 50% proficiency? Here are the 2016 PARCC scores by school for reference - https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/publication/attachments/2016%20PARCC%20FINAL%20Results%20Press%20Deck%20FINAL.pdf If you look at page 11, you can see the PARCC scores for each school. The "% L4 + L5" column shows the total percentage of students testing proficient at each school.

Yes, I think you are getting at something with the benefit of the doubt idea. But it is more complicater than that.

35% 4s and 5s is actually more than I need. 20% would be fine, as long as most of the others are 3s. Too many 1s is a red flag that the school is failing to adequately serve a large high-needs population. I am fine with low income kids being the majority of students, but only if DCPS gives them what they need to succeed (or at least get 2s and 3s).

Still, ultimately without a good middle school feeder, people will leave when they can. To me, these are the necessary conditions:

1) Good test scores, or middling scores and great faculty, adequate number of peers at my child's level academically.
2) Lack of serious behavior problems in my child's age group
3) Good middle school feeder. High school not a necessity as we can hope for McKinley, Walls, etc.
4) Programming I want, high quality not pretend, academically and after school.

Must have all 4 of those things or people will leave when they can.

But do the numbers have to be higher than 20% proficiency for you for middle school, which is really the key indicator? Hardy Middle School, for example, is at 31% and 40% proficiency in math/ELA (vs 51% and 62% at Deal and 54% and 60% at Oyster-Adams). Yet most in-boundary families still won't give it a shot. I think the assumption (rightly or wrongly), with proficiency numbers <50%, is that classes will be taught at too low a level, behavioral issues will be too disruptive in the classroom, and students who are way ahead might end up losing motivation, while students on the edge of proficiency might get caught in the prevailing winds and fall to lower achievement levels.

Middle school and adolescence are scary to parents, and they will do anything they can to try to keep kids on track. Lacking better ways to evaluate, they'll use test scores as a proxy to evaluate the peer group for motivation and behavior, and numbers below 50% will scare them off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Test scores are important but not enough for everyone. High test scores plus bullying and other behavior problems, indifferent teachers, foolish parents, limited outdoor time, and no language immersion will still lead many parents to search for greener pastures.

And on the flip side, many parents could handle a school where fewer than a quarter of the kids get 4s and 5s if the kids and parents were well behaved.

Agree with the PP that says it doesn't matter so much whether it's 20% or 40% of kids scoring 4s and 5s. What does matter is whether there are 50% of the kids at level 1 or 50% at level 3.

+1. If the test scores are achieved by giving everything else short shrift and drilling the kids, no thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:no one gives a shit about the extracurriclars if the academics are a mess. But go on DCPS, Im sure adding in art classes and archery will totally get all those high SES parents of Brents 4th grade class to stick around for Jefferson.

OP here. I tend to agree. I'm sure we all have long wish lists of what our neighborhood schools are missing, and suggestions for how they could be improved. But what I'm really looking for, and I think what DCPS needs to hear, is about the key "dealbreaker" elements that caused us to reject our neighborhood schools.

Lots of people are saying test scores, and that makes sense to me. Yes, there may be situations where parents tempted to look OOB will stomach low test scores, for example if you know your local school is really good despite the test scores or if you don't have another good option. And on the flip side, I can imagine situations where parents might reject a high test score school, for example if it's in an inconvenient location. The break point where each parent decides probably depends on a lot of small personal factors that are specific to each family. It really seems like a school with low test scores just doesn't get the benefit of the doubt, so parents will look for ways to avoid those low test scores.

What do people think about that description of the problem? Generally true for most people (although obviously not every single person), or way off base?

As a for instance test case, if your local neighborhood schools (ES/MS/HS) started consistently hitting 35% proficient (level 4+5) in the PARCC scores, would you choose to attend them rather than going OOB? What if they reach 50% proficiency? Here are the 2016 PARCC scores by school for reference - https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/publication/attachments/2016%20PARCC%20FINAL%20Results%20Press%20Deck%20FINAL.pdf If you look at page 11, you can see the PARCC scores for each school. The "% L4 + L5" column shows the total percentage of students testing proficient at each school.

Yes, I think you are getting at something with the benefit of the doubt idea. But it is more complicater than that.

35% 4s and 5s is actually more than I need. 20% would be fine, as long as most of the others are 3s. Too many 1s is a red flag that the school is failing to adequately serve a large high-needs population. I am fine with low income kids being the majority of students, but only if DCPS gives them what they need to succeed (or at least get 2s and 3s).

Still, ultimately without a good middle school feeder, people will leave when they can. To me, these are the necessary conditions:

1) Good test scores, or middling scores and great faculty, adequate number of peers at my child's level academically.
2) Lack of serious behavior problems in my child's age group
3) Good middle school feeder. High school not a necessity as we can hope for McKinley, Walls, etc.
4) Programming I want, high quality not pretend, academically and after school.

Must have all 4 of those things or people will leave when they can.

But do the numbers have to be higher than 20% proficiency for you for middle school, which is really the key indicator? Hardy Middle School, for example, is at 31% and 40% proficiency in math/ELA (vs 51% and 62% at Deal and 54% and 60% at Oyster-Adams). Yet most in-boundary families still won't give it a shot. I think the assumption (rightly or wrongly), with proficiency numbers <50%, is that classes will be taught at too low a level, behavioral issues will be too disruptive in the classroom, and students who are way ahead might end up losing motivation, while students on the edge of proficiency might get caught in the prevailing winds and fall to lower achievement levels.

Middle school and adolescence are scary to parents, and they will do anything they can to try to keep kids on track. Lacking better ways to evaluate, they'll use test scores as a proxy to evaluate the peer group for motivation and behavior, and numbers below 50% will scare them off.

Numbers like Hardy's would be ok with me, assuming the absolute number of adequately performing kids is also enough for DD to have a good peer group. What really matters is the percentage of 1s and how the kids behave. A kid who is sweet and responsible, gets a 3 in ELA but really struggles with math, is one thing. The kids who assault people on the metro are not ok no matter what their scores are.

[Anonymous]

Are there any middle schools with better test scores than some of their feeders?

[Anonymous]

OP, as long as there are OOB spots offered at these excellent schools, SOMEONE in the city will be willing to drive across town for them. SOMEONE in the city will have a bad IB.

suppose for the sake of argument there are a lot of Ward 4 people OOB at Hearst and Eaton right now. So following your logic, you work hard on improving Ward 4 options (which would be a worthy thing in and of itself!). What do you find 10 years later, are all the OOB spots going unclaimed? No, they are now filled by families from Wards 7 and 8.

So long as OOB spots at excellent schools are offered, there will be applicants, until every single school in DC is great. And especially when it's not just elementary on offer but a path to grade 12.

Just trying to offer some realism to this conversation!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Test scores are important but not enough for everyone. High test scores plus bullying and other behavior problems, indifferent teachers, foolish parents, limited outdoor time, and no language immersion will still lead many parents to search for greener pastures.

And on the flip side, many parents could handle a school where fewer than a quarter of the kids get 4s and 5s if the kids and parents were well behaved.

Agree with the PP that says it doesn't matter so much whether it's 20% or 40% of kids scoring 4s and 5s. What does matter is whether there are 50% of the kids at level 1 or 50% at level 3.

+1. If the test scores are achieved by giving everything else short shrift and drilling the kids, no thanks.

Thats the basis model. Many find it more appealing than dcps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, as long as there are OOB spots offered at these excellent schools, SOMEONE in the city will be willing to drive across town for them. SOMEONE in the city will have a bad IB.

suppose for the sake of argument there are a lot of Ward 4 people OOB at Hearst and Eaton right now. So following your logic, you work hard on improving Ward 4 options (which would be a worthy thing in and of itself!). What do you find 10 years later, are all the OOB spots going unclaimed? No, they are now filled by families from Wards 7 and 8.

So long as OOB spots at excellent schools are offered, there will be applicants, until every single school in DC is great. And especially when it's not just elementary on offer but a path to grade 12.

Just trying to offer some realism to this conversation!

That's a perceptive point. So that means the DCPS goal of solving the overcapacity problem at Deal and Wilson by "drawing" or attracting students to other schools is ultimately doomed to failure. For every group of students you draw out by improving their neighborhood school, another group of OOB students will fill their place. Does this suggest that DCPS's proposed approach is doomed to failure, and it needs to use a different approach?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, as long as there are OOB spots offered at these excellent schools, SOMEONE in the city will be willing to drive across town for them. SOMEONE in the city will have a bad IB.

suppose for the sake of argument there are a lot of Ward 4 people OOB at Hearst and Eaton right now. So following your logic, you work hard on improving Ward 4 options (which would be a worthy thing in and of itself!). What do you find 10 years later, are all the OOB spots going unclaimed? No, they are now filled by families from Wards 7 and 8.

So long as OOB spots at excellent schools are offered, there will be applicants, until every single school in DC is great. And especially when it's not just elementary on offer but a path to grade 12.

Just trying to offer some realism to this conversation!

That's a perceptive point. So that means the DCPS goal of solving the overcapacity problem at Deal and Wilson by "drawing" or attracting students to other schools is ultimately doomed to failure. For every group of students you draw out by improving their neighborhood school, another group of OOB students will fill their place. Does this suggest that DCPS's proposed approach is doomed to failure, and it needs to use a different approach?

Having other options would reduce the overcrowding at Wilson/Deal feeders, and that would reduce inflow of students that they have to admit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having other options would reduce the overcrowding at Wilson/Deal feeders, and that would reduce inflow of students that they have to admit.

Can you please explain how that works? I do not understand how that fits with PP's point. Sorry for being slow to see your thinking.