Interesting article about school quality when demographics factored out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW should pull the article. The authors clearly have no understanding of the lottery, preferences, and feeders.

That stuff was extraneous, but the article still highlights important data re which schools are doing better than anticipated with at-risk kids.

While it may not be relevant to your school search, certainly both DCPS and charters should be looking at what these schools are doing and try to emulate it.

The fate of at-risk kids affects everyone with a child in the city. We should applaud those schools that are helping these kids succeed.

It is relevant to why people choose Two Rivers over L-T and why peopke leave L-T in upper grades. They want to basically call everyone a racist and anti-poor for the crime of wanting a good middle school.

I assume this poster is a grumpy TR or ITS parent.

Nope. I am a preschool parent at a Title I with abysmal test scores and no good middle school. I want better for all kids in DC and poorly-researched articles that obfuscate the real issues do not serve anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW should pull the article. The authors clearly have no understanding of the lottery, preferences, and feeders.

That stuff was extraneous, but the article still highlights important data re which schools are doing better than anticipated with at-risk kids.

While it may not be relevant to your school search, certainly both DCPS and charters should be looking at what these schools are doing and try to emulate it.

The fate of at-risk kids affects everyone with a child in the city. We should applaud those schools that are helping these kids succeed.

It is relevant to why people choose Two Rivers over L-T and why peopke leave L-T in upper grades. They want to basically call everyone a racist and anti-poor for the crime of wanting a good middle school.

I assume this poster is a grumpy TR or ITS parent.

Nope. I am a preschool parent at a Title I with abysmal test scores and no good middle school. I want better for all kids in DC and poorly-researched articles that obfuscate the real issues do not serve anyone.

What real issue did this research, not the blog post, obfuscate exactly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW should pull the article. The authors clearly have no understanding of the lottery, preferences, and feeders.

That stuff was extraneous, but the article still highlights important data re which schools are doing better than anticipated with at-risk kids.

While it may not be relevant to your school search, certainly both DCPS and charters should be looking at what these schools are doing and try to emulate it.

The fate of at-risk kids affects everyone with a child in the city. We should applaud those schools that are helping these kids succeed.

It is relevant to why people choose Two Rivers over L-T and why peopke leave L-T in upper grades. They want to basically call everyone a racist and anti-poor for the crime of wanting a good middle school.

I assume this poster is a grumpy TR or ITS parent.

Nope. I am a preschool parent at a Title I with abysmal test scores and no good middle school. I want better for all kids in DC and poorly-researched articles that obfuscate the real issues do not serve anyone.

What real issue did this research, not the blog post, obfuscate exactly?

The research is fine as far as I know, but the blog post obfuscates an issue DCPS is really struggling with: providing quality middle school anywhere other than Hardy and arguably Deal. And the problem of transporting your child to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW should pull the article. The authors clearly have no understanding of the lottery, preferences, and feeders.

That stuff was extraneous, but the article still highlights important data re which schools are doing better than anticipated with at-risk kids.

While it may not be relevant to your school search, certainly both DCPS and charters should be looking at what these schools are doing and try to emulate it.

The fate of at-risk kids affects everyone with a child in the city. We should applaud those schools that are helping these kids succeed.

It is relevant to why people choose Two Rivers over L-T and why peopke leave L-T in upper grades. They want to basically call everyone a racist and anti-poor for the crime of wanting a good middle school.

I assume this poster is a grumpy TR or ITS parent.

Nope. I am a preschool parent at a Title I with abysmal test scores and no good middle school. I want better for all kids in DC and poorly-researched articles that obfuscate the real issues do not serve anyone.

What real issue did this research, not the blog post, obfuscate exactly?

The research is fine as far as I know, but the blog post obfuscates an issue DCPS is really struggling with: providing quality middle school anywhere other than Hardy and arguably Deal. And the problem of transporting your child to school.

Oops, I meant Deal and arguably Hardy!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW should pull the article. The authors clearly have no understanding of the lottery, preferences, and feeders.

That stuff was extraneous, but the article still highlights important data re which schools are doing better than anticipated with at-risk kids.

While it may not be relevant to your school search, certainly both DCPS and charters should be looking at what these schools are doing and try to emulate it.

The fate of at-risk kids affects everyone with a child in the city. We should applaud those schools that are helping these kids succeed.

It is relevant to why people choose Two Rivers over L-T and why peopke leave L-T in upper grades. They want to basically call everyone a racist and anti-poor for the crime of wanting a good middle school.

Don't be naïve. Yes, there are families who leave schools for a better feeder (and for other reasons) but don't think for a minute that there aren't families out there that don't feel comfortable with all the children (and families) of color at a school and leave for only that reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW should pull the article. The authors clearly have no understanding of the lottery, preferences, and feeders.

That stuff was extraneous, but the article still highlights important data re which schools are doing better than anticipated with at-risk kids.

While it may not be relevant to your school search, certainly both DCPS and charters should be looking at what these schools are doing and try to emulate it.

The fate of at-risk kids affects everyone with a child in the city. We should applaud those schools that are helping these kids succeed.

It is relevant to why people choose Two Rivers over L-T and why peopke leave L-T in upper grades. They want to basically call everyone a racist and anti-poor for the crime of wanting a good middle school.

I assume this poster is a grumpy TR or ITS parent.

Nope. I am a preschool parent at a Title I with abysmal test scores and no good middle school. I want better for all kids in DC and poorly-researched articles that obfuscate the real issues do not serve anyone.

What real issue did this research, not the blog post, obfuscate exactly?

The research is fine as far as I know, but the blog post obfuscates an issue DCPS is really struggling with: providing quality middle school anywhere other than Hardy and arguably Deal. And the problem of transporting your child to school.

That's not obfuscating the real issues. That's just an entirely different subject. Just encourage them to write on this subject or do it yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW should pull the article. The authors clearly have no understanding of the lottery, preferences, and feeders.

That stuff was extraneous, but the article still highlights important data re which schools are doing better than anticipated with at-risk kids.

While it may not be relevant to your school search, certainly both DCPS and charters should be looking at what these schools are doing and try to emulate it.

The fate of at-risk kids affects everyone with a child in the city. We should applaud those schools that are helping these kids succeed.

It is relevant to why people choose Two Rivers over L-T and why peopke leave L-T in upper grades. They want to basically call everyone a racist and anti-poor for the crime of wanting a good middle school.

Don't be naïve. Yes, there are families who leave schools for a better feeder (and for other reasons) but don't think for a minute that there aren't families out there that don't feel comfortable with all the children (and families) of color at a school and leave for only that reason.

Sure, but at Ludlow-Taylor? It isn't even Title I anymore!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW should pull the article. The authors clearly have no understanding of the lottery, preferences, and feeders.

That stuff was extraneous, but the article still highlights important data re which schools are doing better than anticipated with at-risk kids.

While it may not be relevant to your school search, certainly both DCPS and charters should be looking at what these schools are doing and try to emulate it.

The fate of at-risk kids affects everyone with a child in the city. We should applaud those schools that are helping these kids succeed.

It is relevant to why people choose Two Rivers over L-T and why peopke leave L-T in upper grades. They want to basically call everyone a racist and anti-poor for the crime of wanting a good middle school.

I assume this poster is a grumpy TR or ITS parent.

Nope. I am a preschool parent at a Title I with abysmal test scores and no good middle school. I want better for all kids in DC and poorly-researched articles that obfuscate the real issues do not serve anyone.

What real issue did this research, not the blog post, obfuscate exactly?

The research is fine as far as I know, but the blog post obfuscates an issue DCPS is really struggling with: providing quality middle school anywhere other than Hardy and arguably Deal. And the problem of transporting your child to school.

Ok but the blog post isn't about DCPS or even focused on middle schools.

It's about ALL public schools and who is serving ALL the kids they have well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW should pull the article. The authors clearly have no understanding of the lottery, preferences, and feeders.

That stuff was extraneous, but the article still highlights important data re which schools are doing better than anticipated with at-risk kids.

While it may not be relevant to your school search, certainly both DCPS and charters should be looking at what these schools are doing and try to emulate it.

The fate of at-risk kids affects everyone with a child in the city. We should applaud those schools that are helping these kids succeed.

It is relevant to why people choose Two Rivers over L-T and why peopke leave L-T in upper grades. They want to basically call everyone a racist and anti-poor for the crime of wanting a good middle school.

I assume this poster is a grumpy TR or ITS parent.

Nope. I am a preschool parent at a Title I with abysmal test scores and no good middle school. I want better for all kids in DC and poorly-researched articles that obfuscate the real issues do not serve anyone.

What real issue did this research, not the blog post, obfuscate exactly?

The research is fine as far as I know, but the blog post obfuscates an issue DCPS is really struggling with: providing quality middle school anywhere other than Hardy and arguably Deal. And the problem of transporting your child to school.

Ok but the blog post isn't about DCPS or even focused on middle schools.

It's about ALL public schools and who is serving ALL the kids they have well.

They are suggesting that people lottery differently, but they do not understand that test scores (which may still be very low even if not as bad as expected) are just one piece of the puzzle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW should pull the article. The authors clearly have no understanding of the lottery, preferences, and feeders.

That stuff was extraneous, but the article still highlights important data re which schools are doing better than anticipated with at-risk kids.

While it may not be relevant to your school search, certainly both DCPS and charters should be looking at what these schools are doing and try to emulate it.

The fate of at-risk kids affects everyone with a child in the city. We should applaud those schools that are helping these kids succeed.

It is relevant to why people choose Two Rivers over L-T and why peopke leave L-T in upper grades. They want to basically call everyone a racist and anti-poor for the crime of wanting a good middle school.

Don't be naïve. Yes, there are families who leave schools for a better feeder (and for other reasons) but don't think for a minute that there aren't families out there that don't feel comfortable with all the children (and families) of color at a school and leave for only that reason.

More likely they don't even consider the school and so aren't there in the first place to leave. Of the people who leave, they tend to end up at schools with better test scores, just not better test scores than would be statistically expected, which would not be enough for me to stay at a school if a better option was available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW should pull the article. The authors clearly have no understanding of the lottery, preferences, and feeders.

That stuff was extraneous, but the article still highlights important data re which schools are doing better than anticipated with at-risk kids.

While it may not be relevant to your school search, certainly both DCPS and charters should be looking at what these schools are doing and try to emulate it.

The fate of at-risk kids affects everyone with a child in the city. We should applaud those schools that are helping these kids succeed.

It is relevant to why people choose Two Rivers over L-T and why peopke leave L-T in upper grades. They want to basically call everyone a racist and anti-poor for the crime of wanting a good middle school.

Don't be naïve. Yes, there are families who leave schools for a better feeder (and for other reasons) but don't think for a minute that there aren't families out there that don't feel comfortable with all the children (and families) of color at a school and leave for only that reason.

More likely they don't even consider the school and so aren't there in the first place to leave. Of the people who leave, they tend to end up at schools with better test scores, just not better test scores than would be statistically expected, which would not be enough for me to stay at a school if a better option was available.

Yes, this in bold is the relevant point regarding school choice. I liked the research but the main problem with the blog post is that it tried to make this into an issue of school choice and gentrification, which it mostly isn't.

What the research really shows is that the admin and teachers at the winning schools should be rewarded with praise, leadership posts at struggling schools, and so on, and that there are a number of charters that are doing an excellent job teaching at-risk students using a model that is specifically designed for at-risk students (longer school day, focus on test prep).

But the research is not very relevant to school choice because affluent parents are unlikely to want the KIPP model, it's probably mutual from KIPP's perspective, and affluent parents are more interested in overall test scores than in demographic-adjusted test scores. This is because parents are seeking the best atmosphere for their children, taking into account peer groups and to what extent they will be challenged. Demographic-adjusted scores are of more interest to policy-makers and the people who run the schools.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure I agree that Ludlow-Taylor is THAT hard to get into. We started off on the PK4 waitlist as an OOB student at number 23 and were offered a spot within the first weeks. We turned it down as we've decided to stay at our current school. Just thought I'd share....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW should pull the article. The authors clearly have no understanding of the lottery, preferences, and feeders.

That stuff was extraneous, but the article still highlights important data re which schools are doing better than anticipated with at-risk kids.

While it may not be relevant to your school search, certainly both DCPS and charters should be looking at what these schools are doing and try to emulate it.

The fate of at-risk kids affects everyone with a child in the city. We should applaud those schools that are helping these kids succeed.

It is relevant to why people choose Two Rivers over L-T and why peopke leave L-T in upper grades. They want to basically call everyone a racist and anti-poor for the crime of wanting a good middle school.

Don't be naïve. Yes, there are families who leave schools for a better feeder (and for other reasons) but don't think for a minute that there aren't families out there that don't feel comfortable with all the children (and families) of color at a school and leave for only that reason.

More likely they don't even consider the school and so aren't there in the first place to leave. Of the people who leave, they tend to end up at schools with better test scores, just not better test scores than would be statistically expected, which would not be enough for me to stay at a school if a better option was available.

Yes, this in bold is the relevant point regarding school choice. I liked the research but the main problem with the blog post is that it tried to make this into an issue of school choice and gentrification, which it mostly isn't.

What the research really shows is that the admin and teachers at the winning schools should be rewarded with praise, leadership posts at struggling schools, and so on, and that there are a number of charters that are doing an excellent job teaching at-risk students using a model that is specifically designed for at-risk students (longer school day, focus on test prep).

But the research is not very relevant to school choice because affluent parents are unlikely to want the KIPP model, it's probably mutual from KIPP's perspective, and affluent parents are more interested in overall test scores than in demographic-adjusted test scores. This is because parents are seeking the best atmosphere for their children, taking into account peer groups and to what extent they will be challenged. Demographic-adjusted scores are of more interest to policy-makers and the people who run the schools.

But the reason why the test scores may be better at the schools everyone is fleeing to has more to do with demographics and not on true school quality. The schools showcased in this article defy the stereotype that high-poverty schools will not succeed. They are doing something right despite the demographics and because of school quality. That is the point of the article. And not all of the schools that are highlighted in this article are longer school day, test prep schools like Ludlow-Taylor, Seaton, Barnard, and Thomson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW should pull the article. The authors clearly have no understanding of the lottery, preferences, and feeders.

That stuff was extraneous, but the article still highlights important data re which schools are doing better than anticipated with at-risk kids.

While it may not be relevant to your school search, certainly both DCPS and charters should be looking at what these schools are doing and try to emulate it.

The fate of at-risk kids affects everyone with a child in the city. We should applaud those schools that are helping these kids succeed.

I agree with that assessment and agree with the importance of succeeding with at-risk students, but I disagree with the author's assumptions that success with at-risk kids is a primary indicator of a successful school for every family. It's a reductionist approach lacking nuance. There are plenty of parents who wrongly overemphasize demographics in evaluating schools, but for many parents it's more nuanced than that.

School culture matters too, not just success on PARCC. Copying and cloning successful programs ignores school culture. And as others have mentioned not all "at-risk" children are interchangeable (ie working parent in stable housing receiving SNAP may have less barriers than family without stable housing or employment).

[Anonymous]

There's nothing compelling in the article that would lead a typical GGW-reading parent to change their lottery philosophy. The Thomson-IT comparison shows how badly they don't get it, since listing Thomson would be a wasted lottery spot for any OOB parent.