Westbrook and relatively low PARCC test scores

[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.)

still doesn't really explain why only Westbrook ES has such low PARCC compared to comparable ESs in that area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.)

still doesn't really explain why only Westbrook ES has such low PARCC compared to comparable ESs in that area.

What exactly are these low PARCC scores? Have they shifted over time? Would be good if someone used data rather than just saying "low."

[Anonymous]

PARCC scores reflex wgat students learned in school. No student or parent puts extra time to prepare for PARCC test. If the teachers dont teach able students to prepare for PARCC test, these students could fail the test but still do well on MAP test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PARCC scores reflex wgat students learned in school. No student or parent puts extra time to prepare for PARCC test. If the teachers dont teach able students to prepare for PARCC test, these students could fail the test but still do well on MAP test.

So does this mean that Westbrook teachers aren't doing a good job teaching? Why do the other ESs in that area have higher PARCC scores? We keep coming back to OP's question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PARCC scores reflex wgat students learned in school. No student or parent puts extra time to prepare for PARCC test. If the teachers dont teach able students to prepare for PARCC test, these students could fail the test but still do well on MAP test.

So does this mean that Westbrook teachers aren't doing a good job teaching? Why do the other ESs in that area have higher PARCC scores? We keep coming back to OP's question.

And others keep asking to see data. What are the scores? How much lower are they that other schools with similarly low FARMs rates. What were they over the past few years? Is this low score a 1 year aberration or a trend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PARCC scores reflex wgat students learned in school. No student or parent puts extra time to prepare for PARCC test. If the teachers dont teach able students to prepare for PARCC test, these students could fail the test but still do well on MAP test.

So does this mean that Westbrook teachers aren't doing a good job teaching? Why do the other ESs in that area have higher PARCC scores? We keep coming back to OP's question.

And others keep asking to see data. What are the scores? How much lower are they that other schools with similarly low FARMs rates. What were they over the past few years? Is this low score a 1 year aberration or a trend?

You can get the data from the state website - if you want to look for it. Or you might think that it's up to OP to provide the scores that are the topic of OP's thread. I'm leaning that way myself.

[Anonymous]

I'm not seeing the issue here. Westbrook's PARCC scores are comparable to Wood Acres, which also has <5% FARMS. Yes, it's lower than Bradley Hills ES and Carderock ES but those are the best schools in MoCo. It doesn't mean that Westbrook is "bad."

County School Test % passing 2016 % passing 2017
Montgomery Westbrook Elementary ELA03 61.2 63.8
Montgomery Westbrook Elementary ELA04 52.8 66.7
Montgomery Westbrook Elementary ELA05 66.2 65.7
Montgomery Westbrook Elementary MAT03 71.8 84.7
Montgomery Westbrook Elementary MAT04 58.3 69.1
Montgomery Westbrook Elementary MAT05 63.5 65.7

Montgomery Wood Acres Elementary ELA03 57.3 63.3
Montgomery Wood Acres Elementary ELA04 71.3 67.5
Montgomery Wood Acres Elementary ELA05 71.1 67.0
Montgomery Wood Acres Elementary MAT03 75.6 77.3
Montgomery Wood Acres Elementary MAT04 64.8 59.1
Montgomery Wood Acres Elementary MAT05 62.3 63.7

Montgomery Bradley Hills Elementary ELA03 70.2 72.4
Montgomery Bradley Hills Elementary ELA04 72.2 84.4
Montgomery Bradley Hills Elementary ELA05 71.0 66.3
Montgomery Bradley Hills Elementary MAT03 83.9 84.2
Montgomery Bradley Hills Elementary MAT04 75.3 80.3
Montgomery Bradley Hills Elementary MAT05 73.8 63.8

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.)

still doesn't really explain why only Westbrook ES has such low PARCC compared to comparable ESs in that area.

Simple, the school didn’t prep teach the test as well as others. As to the Whitman distractors, it has the highest SAT in the county and state, you know the test that really matters. Not sure how you get to point the finger and call it a low test score school.

Like it even matters, just about every parent in Whitman lives in a million dollar house. If they wanted their kids to go to any of the other high school, they would send them there. They have access to every other cluster in the whole region, it is the other parents that have sour grape.

[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.

top half of the inner and out beltway sux from 7-10am and from 3:30-6:30pm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

we didn't send our kids to them because of social reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the school a special education hub, causing a bimodal distribution of scores? Dufief Elementary in North Potomac has that peculiarity. I know nothing about Westbrook, to be clear.

yes, it is a special education hub for lower Montgomery County (maybe just the BCC cluster?), although I'm not sure the exact boundaries or the extent to which it impacts scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the school a special education hub, causing a bimodal distribution of scores? Dufief Elementary in North Potomac has that peculiarity. I know nothing about Westbrook, to be clear.

yes, it is a special education hub for lower Montgomery County (maybe just the BCC cluster?), although I'm not sure the exact boundaries or the extent to which it impacts scores.

This. All the chatter above is silly. Westbrook is a great school.

[Anonymous]

How does it matter? Won't it be better to concentrate what the PARCC, MAP, SAT, AP/IB scores of your own kid is? Worthless to be in a wonderfully high ranked school if your kid is in the bottom. Correct?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the school a special education hub, causing a bimodal distribution of scores? Dufief Elementary in North Potomac has that peculiarity. I know nothing about Westbrook, to be clear.

yes, it is a special education hub for lower Montgomery County (maybe just the BCC cluster?), although I'm not sure the exact boundaries or the extent to which it impacts scores.

This. All the chatter above is silly. Westbrook is a great school.

+1. My kids are at a neighboring BcC school. Westbrook is a fine school. pARCC test scores can fluctuate a lot by grade as you see above.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, I can't imagine a more idyllic elementary school than Westbrook. It's a neighborhood school - most families know each other. The PTA and school foundation are super engaged. The campus is nice, the teachers are great.

What else could you ask hope for?