Blair pyramid or Kennedy pyramid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Not at all. I found their analysis compelling since it provides an honest measure of how similar groups perform at different schools instead of an average muddied by varying socioeconomic differences.

Except it doesn't at all. The Blair scores are for only 110 kids out of 2800 and the scores include the magnet kids.

It wouldn't make me angry if an admin from the Blair principal's office was posting on this board sharing internal memos but it would make me concerned about the professionalism of the staff.

Why are you saying 2890? Presumably not every grade takes SAT, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One way to better understand the quality of education of one school or another is to perform more granular apples to apple analysis. Simple averages for standardized state test that GS uses for its ratings only serves to identify which high-schools draw a higher percentage of affluent kids. A better approach is to look at the granular data. When you isolate for race which is proxy a for socioeconomic status there is not much of a disparity between the performance of kids of the same backgrounds across these schools. For example, when you compare average SAT scores for MCPS schools for a larger demographic common to all these schools the GS narrative falls apart and it becomes clear they're not all that different.

Blair 1326
Walter Johnson 1275
Wooton 1262
Churchill 1257
Wheaton 1173
Einstein 1148
Kennedy 1088

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

When most of the few white kids at Blair are in the magnet and from OOB, does that misleading statistic about there scores really speak to the experience of the other 3000 kids who score closer to the bottom of the county and live among pockets of concentrated poverty. That is the real blair, some math wiz stem kid from Chevy Chase was going to do great no matter where he took the test.

Me personally I’ll take a school full of that peer group compared to driving across town to a sketchy area with only a couple class rooms that most of the local kids don’t have access to. You don’t seem to be proclaiming that peer group’s SAT average??? Let me give you a hint, it’s really low but that is the true Blair peer group experience.

[Anonymous]

Shows the real impression of Blair, the OP is comparing it to Kennedy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

While there are several posters who love Silver Spring on this board, Silver Spring is generally not a desirable place to live .Its cheap and that is basically the only draw. Another poster used the saying "People want the Silver Spring price without the price of Silver Spring". Montgomery County does not offer many professional jobs so many commute to DC an/or VA. Its just not practical to commute from SS to VA. Silver Spring used to attract two income families that have commutes into DC and Baltimore or Columbia but now those families are choosing Howard County schools as they've surpassed MCPS. Families with one spouse commuting to VA are choosing VA or the western side of the county where the schools are good.

Most of eastern Montgomery County is Silver Spring. Lots of people live there. Maybe they're all sitting around every evening thinking, "Boy, I sure do wish that I could live in Bethesda," but I doubt it.

LMAO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

While there are several posters who love Silver Spring on this board, Silver Spring is generally not a desirable place to live .Its cheap and that is basically the only draw. Another poster used the saying "People want the Silver Spring price without the price of Silver Spring". Montgomery County does not offer many professional jobs so many commute to DC an/or VA. Its just not practical to commute from SS to VA. Silver Spring used to attract two income families that have commutes into DC and Baltimore or Columbia but now those families are choosing Howard County schools as they've surpassed MCPS. Families with one spouse commuting to VA are choosing VA or the western side of the county where the schools are good.

Most of eastern Montgomery County is Silver Spring. Lots of people live there. Maybe they're all sitting around every evening thinking, "Boy, I sure do wish that I could live in Bethesda," but I doubt it.

Not every evening, but at least a couple evenings a week. I don't know about you, but think living in a teardown in the Whitman catchment would be pretty nice.

I live in Woodside Park and it has never once occurred to me to wish I lived in Bethesda.

We could move there if we wanted to, but nah.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One way to better understand the quality of education of one school or another is to perform more granular apples to apple analysis. Simple averages for standardized state test that GS uses for its ratings only serves to identify which high-schools draw a higher percentage of affluent kids. A better approach is to look at the granular data. When you isolate for race which is proxy a for socioeconomic status there is not much of a disparity between the performance of kids of the same backgrounds across these schools. For example, when you compare average SAT scores for MCPS schools for a larger demographic common to all these schools the GS narrative falls apart and it becomes clear they're not all that different.

Blair 1326
Walter Johnson 1275
Wooton 1262
Churchill 1257
Wheaton 1173
Einstein 1148
Kennedy 1088

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

This is really helpful. Thanks!

But the number are not helpful unless you are realiziing that standardized test score only correlate with parent income and eduation..one should not assume that Blair has better teachers or classes..only more advantaged students. Your individual child will not get a better education just because the school has higher scores.

i hear this argument a lot, but if the majority of your kids' classmates are behind for parent income/education reasons, and your kid is not, then your kid is either going to be bored or behind too-one teacher cannot customize each kid's lesson-unless you are talking about a school where advanced kids are taught separately? and even then what's the point of keeping them all in the same building-you still have the same inequality problem?

i think we need to be honest about outcomes if we are going to address educational disparities otherwise people will just flee once its clear that SES integration is not working well for their kid (and not really solving major social problems either.) Lets face the research that shows that once the FARMS rate exceeds 20-30% you are looking at lower school performance affecting ALL students.

So what can we do to fix this? Is it better to try to distribute low income students to wealthier schools to maintain a FARMS rate below 30%-but the downside is maybe the FARMS kids might end up getting left behind anyway. Alternatively is it better to have schools that specialize in enriched services such as for low income/ESOL kids (early start/free breakfast, etc)? Some of the urban charters in the cities have worked well on this latter model and have managed to attract higher SES families. i don't think there are any easy answers but to say 'your kid will be fine in any school' is just disengenuous. I also don't think rewarding/accepting poor performing schools by sending your kids there out of a sense of social duty does anyone a service, least of all the struggling kids in those schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does the SAT scores for whites only poster work in the Blair principal's office? The link provided is an internal memo to high school principals. Very odd.

The report is available for the public to view on the mcps website. It is published annually by the office of shared accountability

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One way to better understand the quality of education of one school or another is to perform more granular apples to apple analysis. Simple averages for standardized state test that GS uses for its ratings only serves to identify which high-schools draw a higher percentage of affluent kids. A better approach is to look at the granular data. When you isolate for race which is proxy a for socioeconomic status there is not much of a disparity between the performance of kids of the same backgrounds across these schools. For example, when you compare average SAT scores for MCPS schools for a larger demographic common to all these schools the GS narrative falls apart and it becomes clear they're not all that different.

Blair 1326
Walter Johnson 1275
Wooton 1262
Churchill 1257
Wheaton 1173
Einstein 1148
Kennedy 1088

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

When most of the few white kids at Blair are in the magnet and from OOB, does that misleading statistic about there scores really speak to the experience of the other 3000 kids who score closer to the bottom of the county and live among pockets of concentrated poverty. That is the real blair, some math wiz stem kid from Chevy Chase was going to do great no matter where he took the test.

Me personally I’ll take a school full of that peer group compared to driving across town to a sketchy area with only a couple class rooms that most of the local kids don’t have access to. You don’t seem to be proclaiming that peer group’s SAT average??? Let me give you a hint, it’s really low but that is the true Blair peer group experience.

There was a post here a few weeks back that crunched the actual numbers for this. The impact of the magnet on this cohorts average wasn’t significant. At Blair, there are 100 juniors in the magnet of which fewer than 80 are from out of boundary largely because of the 25 person set aside at TPMS which gives the in-boundary kids a leg up. Anyway, about 40% of those 75-80 students belong to this cohort group. This boosted the SAT average from 1296 to 1326. Point being even without the magnet in a head to head comparison Blair outperforms any W by a statistically significant margin. It's hard to argue with facts, but I'm guessing you'll try.

Here’s a ballpark attempt to eliminate the out of boundary magnet scores from Blair’s SAT average for the largest common cohort.

1526 Blair Magnet SAT average public knowledge
1326 Blair SAT average score for common cohort from report
250 total number of kids from the cohort that took SAT according to report
32 number of OOB magnet kids from the cohort that took the SAT (40% of OOB 80 = 32)
where “x” is Blair’s in boundary SAT average for largest common cohort

(250 - 32) / 250 = 87% non-magnet cohort total
13% magnet % of cohort total

0.85x + 0.13 * 1526 = 1326
0.87x + 198 = 1326
0.9x = 1326 – 198
x = (1326 – 198) / 0.87 = 1296 SAT average without

[Anonymous]

There are some typos in that person's maths; nevertheless, the result is correct. Nice work!

0.87x + 0.13 * 1526 = 1326
0.87x + 198 = 1326
0.87x = 1326 – 198
x = (1326 – 198) / 0.87 = 1296 SAT average without magnet

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One way to better understand the quality of education of one school or another is to perform more granular apples to apple analysis. Simple averages for standardized state test that GS uses for its ratings only serves to identify which high-schools draw a higher percentage of affluent kids. A better approach is to look at the granular data. When you isolate for race which is proxy a for socioeconomic status there is not much of a disparity between the performance of kids of the same backgrounds across these schools. For example, when you compare average SAT scores for MCPS schools for a larger demographic common to all these schools the GS narrative falls apart and it becomes clear they're not all that different.

Blair 1326
Walter Johnson 1275
Wooton 1262
Churchill 1257
Wheaton 1173
Einstein 1148
Kennedy 1088

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

When most of the few white kids at Blair are in the magnet and from OOB, does that misleading statistic about there scores really speak to the experience of the other 3000 kids who score closer to the bottom of the county and live among pockets of concentrated poverty. That is the real blair, some math wiz stem kid from Chevy Chase was going to do great no matter where he took the test.

Me personally I’ll take a school full of that peer group compared to driving across town to a sketchy area with only a couple class rooms that most of the local kids don’t have access to. You don’t seem to be proclaiming that peer group’s SAT average??? Let me give you a hint, it’s really low but that is the true Blair peer group experience.

Have you even been to Blair? Or Silver Spring, for that matter? How could you possibly comment on the true Blair peer group experience? My white, in-boundary magnet kid doesn't live in a "pocket of concentrated poverty", nor do any of his local friends, of any color.

[Anonymous]

Always enjoy reading about the DCC

Wonder when Northwood is going to reverse its trend of becoming poorer. If everything has some very nice neighborhoods in boundary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One way to better understand the quality of education of one school or another is to perform more granular apples to apple analysis. Simple averages for standardized state test that GS uses for its ratings only serves to identify which high-schools draw a higher percentage of affluent kids. A better approach is to look at the granular data. When you isolate for race which is proxy a for socioeconomic status there is not much of a disparity between the performance of kids of the same backgrounds across these schools. For example, when you compare average SAT scores for MCPS schools for a larger demographic common to all these schools the GS narrative falls apart and it becomes clear they're not all that different.

Blair 1326
Walter Johnson 1275
Wooton 1262
Churchill 1257
Wheaton 1173
Einstein 1148
Kennedy 1088

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

This is really helpful. Thanks!

But the number are not helpful unless you are realiziing that standardized test score only correlate with parent income and eduation..one should not assume that Blair has better teachers or classes..only more advantaged students. Your individual child will not get a better education just because the school has higher scores.

We've had this debate before, but Kennedy does abysmally on AP scores, which presumably do reflect teaching (only Watkins Mill HS had fewer passing scores in 2017).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One way to better understand the quality of education of one school or another is to perform more granular apples to apple analysis. Simple averages for standardized state test that GS uses for its ratings only serves to identify which high-schools draw a higher percentage of affluent kids. A better approach is to look at the granular data. When you isolate for race which is proxy a for socioeconomic status there is not much of a disparity between the performance of kids of the same backgrounds across these schools. For example, when you compare average SAT scores for MCPS schools for a larger demographic common to all these schools the GS narrative falls apart and it becomes clear they're not all that different.

Blair 1326
Walter Johnson 1275
Wooton 1262
Churchill 1257
Wheaton 1173
Einstein 1148
Kennedy 1088

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

This is really helpful. Thanks!

But the number are not helpful unless you are realiziing that standardized test score only correlate with parent income and eduation..one should not assume that Blair has better teachers or classes..only more advantaged students. Your individual child will not get a better education just because the school has higher scores.

We've had this debate before, but Kennedy does abysmally on AP scores, which presumably do reflect teaching (only Watkins Mill HS had fewer passing scores in 2017).

No..like all the other test scores, it represents the level the kids were at when they entered the class which is mostly determined by family income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One way to better understand the quality of education of one school or another is to perform more granular apples to apple analysis. Simple averages for standardized state test that GS uses for its ratings only serves to identify which high-schools draw a higher percentage of affluent kids. A better approach is to look at the granular data. When you isolate for race which is proxy a for socioeconomic status there is not much of a disparity between the performance of kids of the same backgrounds across these schools. For example, when you compare average SAT scores for MCPS schools for a larger demographic common to all these schools the GS narrative falls apart and it becomes clear they're not all that different.

Blair 1326
Walter Johnson 1275
Wooton 1262
Churchill 1257
Wheaton 1173
Einstein 1148
Kennedy 1088

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

It might help to know how good or bad these mean SAT scores are so you can judge whether the differences in performance are big or small. These scores correspond to the following percentiles for the 2016 SAT exam (which is the one most students in the class of 2017 took per the report cited by the PP).

Blair 1326 (88th percentile)
Walter Johnson 1275 (82nd percentile)
Wooton 1262 (81st percentile)
Churchill 1257 (80th percentile)
Wheaton 1173 (67th percentile)
Einstein 1148 (62nd percentile)
Kennedy 1088 (50th percentile)

Regarding The PP who did the analysis of Blair SAT scores minus the magnet students. Very interesting analysis and as you point out makes Blair comparable to the W schools and far ahead of the other DCC schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

While there are several posters who love Silver Spring on this board, Silver Spring is generally not a desirable place to live .Its cheap and that is basically the only draw. Another poster used the saying "People want the Silver Spring price without the price of Silver Spring". Montgomery County does not offer many professional jobs so many commute to DC an/or VA. Its just not practical to commute from SS to VA. Silver Spring used to attract two income families that have commutes into DC and Baltimore or Columbia but now those families are choosing Howard County schools as they've surpassed MCPS. Families with one spouse commuting to VA are choosing VA or the western side of the county where the schools are good.

Most of eastern Montgomery County is Silver Spring. Lots of people live there. Maybe they're all sitting around every evening thinking, "Boy, I sure do wish that I could live in Bethesda," but I doubt it.

Not every evening, but at least a couple evenings a week. I don't know about you, but think living in a teardown in the Whitman catchment would be pretty nice.

LOL! We are very well off and wouldn’t dream of living in the Whitman area.

A nice benefit of Silver Spring is that racists are less likely to live here than in other parts of Montgomery County.

Play nice. Just because Silver Spring schools aren't very good doesn't give you license to be loose with your language.

It may not be nice but it’s true.