New opposition petition to the Maury-Miner boundary proposal from DME

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

Very good point. The boundary committee is focused on the kind of changes that impact seats and capacity but not necessarily strategies for improvement. Reducing out of bound seats, limiting charters, pushing wealthier families from west to east, combining poorer and wealthier populations, etc. are all ideas being advanced. Can't say whether these are good or bad ideas as there is a stunning lack of data and analysis.

How are they pushing wealthier families west to east? They're clearly trying to do the converse with at-risk set-asides and move at-risk families east to west.

It was an idea floated. I don't think the boundary committee is actually doing anything but reviewing and proposing ideas. Some will be adopted and some won't be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

According to DME, the Miner IB population demographics mirror the attending demographics. Maybe that data can be parsed more closely, but they've said increasing IB population wouldn't change the at-risk numbers. Increasing IB MC/UMC attendance would also potentially displace the Miner OOB kids who are coming from worse school environments. The cluster would potentially do this as well, if it were successful. I believe that's a big reason DME is punting here. They've heard from a lot of affluent parents from both school communities. They have not heard from Miner at-risk families.

I struggle with that because there are definitely some higher income families that buy in Kingman Park in general. I wish we could see hard numbers rather than just accept this at face value. Rosedale rowhomes and the streets (i.e. surrounding the Rosedale rec center) tend to be very small/narrow though so not as appealing to higher SES families.

Based on the data put out by DME, there are a minimum of 200 non-at-risk in bounds for Miner who don’t go there. Get them to attend, and Miner’s a totally different school.

Good luck. That's true anywhere, but you generally won't get those parents to send their kids. How many Maury parents are going to send their kid to Eliot Hine for MS? Hey if they all just attend, it's a different school.

An increasing number of Maury kids are attending EH each year, and Payne for that matter. It is on the upswing with increasing buy-in, a great principal, good programming, and a nice campus. It doesn't happen overnight. Miner, unfortunately, has a number of issues both demographic and administrative negatively impacting it.

Reading through this thread -- few thoughts/corrections. First, if you listened to the DME meeting streamed last week, the committee gave pushback to several of the proposed timelines in the draft (not just related to Maury/Miner), and that the dates seemed arbitrary or not appropriate. So I would not be surprised if the timeline gets modified. Also, the idea would be that a new principal at Miner would be part of the process (that is the whole point of the working group) - so if/when any changes happen, they would not lose their job, they would be a part of the process they helped formulate. I do think that DCPS is acutely aware of the need for strong leadership at Miner, so hopefully that is prioritized regardless of this boundary process outcome.

Lastly, I agree with the PP - the earlier poster commenting 'how many maury parents send their kids to EH for MS?' shows a lack of awareness about schools in the neighborhood. Not to say everybody has to understand all of the enrollment trends of all of the schools, but if you are going to come on here and comment, it does help to be aware/at least somewhat informed. Yes, some Maury families leave to go to Latin, Basis, etc - but 25-30 5th grade kids have been going to EH in the past several years from Maury, 15-20 from Miner, and recently 25+/year from Payne. So much so that the current 6th grade was 30 kids over projection this year and they needed to hire a new teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

According to DME, the Miner IB population demographics mirror the attending demographics. Maybe that data can be parsed more closely, but they've said increasing IB population wouldn't change the at-risk numbers. Increasing IB MC/UMC attendance would also potentially displace the Miner OOB kids who are coming from worse school environments. The cluster would potentially do this as well, if it were successful. I believe that's a big reason DME is punting here. They've heard from a lot of affluent parents from both school communities. They have not heard from Miner at-risk families.

I struggle with that because there are definitely some higher income families that buy in Kingman Park in general. I wish we could see hard numbers rather than just accept this at face value. Rosedale rowhomes and the streets (i.e. surrounding the Rosedale rec center) tend to be very small/narrow though so not as appealing to higher SES families.

Based on the data put out by DME, there are a minimum of 200 non-at-risk in bounds for Miner who don’t go there. Get them to attend, and Miner’s a totally different school.

Good luck. That's true anywhere, but you generally won't get those parents to send their kids. How many Maury parents are going to send their kid to Eliot Hine for MS? Hey if they all just attend, it's a different school.

An increasing number of Maury kids are attending EH each year, and Payne for that matter. It is on the upswing with increasing buy-in, a great principal, good programming, and a nice campus. It doesn't happen overnight. Miner, unfortunately, has a number of issues both demographic and administrative negatively impacting it.

Reading through this thread -- few thoughts/corrections. First, if you listened to the DME meeting streamed last week, the committee gave pushback to several of the proposed timelines in the draft (not just related to Maury/Miner), and that the dates seemed arbitrary or not appropriate. So I would not be surprised if the timeline gets modified. Also, the idea would be that a new principal at Miner would be part of the process (that is the whole point of the working group) - so if/when any changes happen, they would not lose their job, they would be a part of the process they helped formulate. I do think that DCPS is acutely aware of the need for strong leadership at Miner, so hopefully that is prioritized regardless of this boundary process outcome.

Lastly, I agree with the PP - the earlier poster commenting 'how many maury parents send their kids to EH for MS?' shows a lack of awareness about schools in the neighborhood. Not to say everybody has to understand all of the enrollment trends of all of the schools, but if you are going to come on here and comment, it does help to be aware/at least somewhat informed. Yes, some Maury families leave to go to Latin, Basis, etc - but 25-30 5th grade kids have been going to EH in the past several years from Maury, 15-20 from Miner, and recently 25+/year from Payne. So much so that the current 6th grade was 30 kids over projection this year and they needed to hire a new teacher.

Then why are EH's PARCC scores still so abysmal?

[Anonymous]

so what on earth does this study mean?
There may be a cluster the next time boundaries are looked at?
There may be a cluster after this "study" is complete?

Seems like some sense of a path would be helpful for all

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The working group to evaluate whether there even should be a merger will begin no earlier than 2027.

Why on earth shouldn't the working group start now? Not even bother to IMPLEMENT a working group for 3 years? Awful. Sorry, I know this board is full of Maury parents, but I think that Miner parents continue to get absolutely screwed with this decision. In bounds for a school that isn't working and DCPS will do nothing in the meantime.

Maybe the Miner constituents should advocate for measure that will actually help Miner instead of enormously divisive and untested plans like the cluster.

Nothing will help Miner without some form of boundary re-draw or demographic change. It has too many at risk kids in the school for even an effective administration to address.

This is simply not true. There are tons of schools with similar or even higher at-risk numbers than Miner that do significantly better on PARCC — and I don’t want to overstate the importance of standardized test scores, but I’m not aware of what other objective standards there are to look to.

DC needs to be able to have effective schools with high at-risk populations, since DCPS is 50% at-risk. It can’t be that we just throw up our hands and say it’s impossible at 64%. We know that it is not impossible from the data for other schools that do better.

right but/and - test scores aren't indicative of whether schools are doing better at teaching kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The working group to evaluate whether there even should be a merger will begin no earlier than 2027.

Why on earth shouldn't the working group start now? Not even bother to IMPLEMENT a working group for 3 years? Awful. Sorry, I know this board is full of Maury parents, but I think that Miner parents continue to get absolutely screwed with this decision. In bounds for a school that isn't working and DCPS will do nothing in the meantime.

Maybe the Miner constituents should advocate for measure that will actually help Miner instead of enormously divisive and untested plans like the cluster.

Nothing will help Miner without some form of boundary re-draw or demographic change. It has too many at risk kids in the school for even an effective administration to address.

This is simply not true. There are tons of schools with similar or even higher at-risk numbers than Miner that do significantly better on PARCC — and I don’t want to overstate the importance of standardized test scores, but I’m not aware of what other objective standards there are to look to.

DC needs to be able to have effective schools with high at-risk populations, since DCPS is 50% at-risk. It can’t be that we just throw up our hands and say it’s impossible at 64%. We know that it is not impossible from the data for other schools that do better.

right but/and - test scores aren't indicative of whether schools are doing better at teaching kids.

I mean, they for sure aren't the whole story, and maybe your point is that looking at whether a student's test scores improve over time is a better indicator of whether the school is "teaching" than just looking at static test scores -- but surely test scores are indicative of something. And I'm not sure what other metrics people are looking at when they're saying Miner isn't doing a good job academically (or that a cluster would be better). What should we be looking at to make these determinations?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The working group to evaluate whether there even should be a merger will begin no earlier than 2027.

Why on earth shouldn't the working group start now? Not even bother to IMPLEMENT a working group for 3 years? Awful. Sorry, I know this board is full of Maury parents, but I think that Miner parents continue to get absolutely screwed with this decision. In bounds for a school that isn't working and DCPS will do nothing in the meantime.

Maybe the Miner constituents should advocate for measure that will actually help Miner instead of enormously divisive and untested plans like the cluster.

Nothing will help Miner without some form of boundary re-draw or demographic change. It has too many at risk kids in the school for even an effective administration to address.

This is simply not true. There are tons of schools with similar or even higher at-risk numbers than Miner that do significantly better on PARCC — and I don’t want to overstate the importance of standardized test scores, but I’m not aware of what other objective standards there are to look to.

DC needs to be able to have effective schools with high at-risk populations, since DCPS is 50% at-risk. It can’t be that we just throw up our hands and say it’s impossible at 64%. We know that it is not impossible from the data for other schools that do better.

right but/and - test scores aren't indicative of whether schools are doing better at teaching kids.

What? Of course test scores are *indicative* of whether schools are doing better at teaching kids. Conclusive? No. The only thing that matters? No. An apples to apples comparison across schools with different demographics? No. But indicative? Obviously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

According to DME, the Miner IB population demographics mirror the attending demographics. Maybe that data can be parsed more closely, but they've said increasing IB population wouldn't change the at-risk numbers. Increasing IB MC/UMC attendance would also potentially displace the Miner OOB kids who are coming from worse school environments. The cluster would potentially do this as well, if it were successful. I believe that's a big reason DME is punting here. They've heard from a lot of affluent parents from both school communities. They have not heard from Miner at-risk families.

I struggle with that because there are definitely some higher income families that buy in Kingman Park in general. I wish we could see hard numbers rather than just accept this at face value. Rosedale rowhomes and the streets (i.e. surrounding the Rosedale rec center) tend to be very small/narrow though so not as appealing to higher SES families.

Based on the data put out by DME, there are a minimum of 200 non-at-risk in bounds for Miner who don’t go there. Get them to attend, and Miner’s a totally different school.

Good luck. That's true anywhere, but you generally won't get those parents to send their kids. How many Maury parents are going to send their kid to Eliot Hine for MS? Hey if they all just attend, it's a different school.

An increasing number of Maury kids are attending EH each year, and Payne for that matter. It is on the upswing with increasing buy-in, a great principal, good programming, and a nice campus. It doesn't happen overnight. Miner, unfortunately, has a number of issues both demographic and administrative negatively impacting it.

Reading through this thread -- few thoughts/corrections. First, if you listened to the DME meeting streamed last week, the committee gave pushback to several of the proposed timelines in the draft (not just related to Maury/Miner), and that the dates seemed arbitrary or not appropriate. So I would not be surprised if the timeline gets modified. Also, the idea would be that a new principal at Miner would be part of the process (that is the whole point of the working group) - so if/when any changes happen, they would not lose their job, they would be a part of the process they helped formulate. I do think that DCPS is acutely aware of the need for strong leadership at Miner, so hopefully that is prioritized regardless of this boundary process outcome.

Lastly, I agree with the PP - the earlier poster commenting 'how many maury parents send their kids to EH for MS?' shows a lack of awareness about schools in the neighborhood. Not to say everybody has to understand all of the enrollment trends of all of the schools, but if you are going to come on here and comment, it does help to be aware/at least somewhat informed. Yes, some Maury families leave to go to Latin, Basis, etc - but 25-30 5th grade kids have been going to EH in the past several years from Maury, 15-20 from Miner, and recently 25+/year from Payne. So much so that the current 6th grade was 30 kids over projection this year and they needed to hire a new teacher.

Then why are EH's PARCC scores still so abysmal?

Looking at last year's data, it looks like EH's PARCC scores for its non-at-risk students are on par with or better than Stuart Hobson's in 6th and 7th. EH's non-at-risk population takes a dive in 8th, and the scores drop too -- presumably many of the better students are self-selecting out to a different school. This doesn't happen at SH as much, so the issues leading to this drop are vital for EH to address.

Both SH and EH's non-at-risk scores trail Deal's significantly. Some of this is because non-at-risk includes some kids on the bubble of at-risk, and SH and EH presumably have more of that group than Deal does, but it's something for the Capitol Hill middles to look at and try to deal with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The working group to evaluate whether there even should be a merger will begin no earlier than 2027.

Why on earth shouldn't the working group start now? Not even bother to IMPLEMENT a working group for 3 years? Awful. Sorry, I know this board is full of Maury parents, but I think that Miner parents continue to get absolutely screwed with this decision. In bounds for a school that isn't working and DCPS will do nothing in the meantime.

Maybe the Miner constituents should advocate for measure that will actually help Miner instead of enormously divisive and untested plans like the cluster.

Nothing will help Miner without some form of boundary re-draw or demographic change. It has too many at risk kids in the school for even an effective administration to address.

This is simply not true. There are tons of schools with similar or even higher at-risk numbers than Miner that do significantly better on PARCC — and I don’t want to overstate the importance of standardized test scores, but I’m not aware of what other objective standards there are to look to.

DC needs to be able to have effective schools with high at-risk populations, since DCPS is 50% at-risk. It can’t be that we just throw up our hands and say it’s impossible at 64%. We know that it is not impossible from the data for other schools that do better.

Yep. Failing schools should be taken over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The working group to evaluate whether there even should be a merger will begin no earlier than 2027.

Why on earth shouldn't the working group start now? Not even bother to IMPLEMENT a working group for 3 years? Awful. Sorry, I know this board is full of Maury parents, but I think that Miner parents continue to get absolutely screwed with this decision. In bounds for a school that isn't working and DCPS will do nothing in the meantime.

Maybe the Miner constituents should advocate for measure that will actually help Miner instead of enormously divisive and untested plans like the cluster.

Nothing will help Miner without some form of boundary re-draw or demographic change. It has too many at risk kids in the school for even an effective administration to address.

This is simply not true. There are tons of schools with similar or even higher at-risk numbers than Miner that do significantly better on PARCC — and I don’t want to overstate the importance of standardized test scores, but I’m not aware of what other objective standards there are to look to.

DC needs to be able to have effective schools with high at-risk populations, since DCPS is 50% at-risk. It can’t be that we just throw up our hands and say it’s impossible at 64%. We know that it is not impossible from the data for other schools that do better.

right but/and - test scores aren't indicative of whether schools are doing better at teaching kids.

What? Of course test scores are *indicative* of whether schools are doing better at teaching kids. Conclusive? No. The only thing that matters? No. An apples to apples comparison across schools with different demographics? No. But indicative? Obviously.

No, no they're not. Study after study shows test scores are indicative of the SES status of the parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

According to DME, the Miner IB population demographics mirror the attending demographics. Maybe that data can be parsed more closely, but they've said increasing IB population wouldn't change the at-risk numbers. Increasing IB MC/UMC attendance would also potentially displace the Miner OOB kids who are coming from worse school environments. The cluster would potentially do this as well, if it were successful. I believe that's a big reason DME is punting here. They've heard from a lot of affluent parents from both school communities. They have not heard from Miner at-risk families.

I struggle with that because there are definitely some higher income families that buy in Kingman Park in general. I wish we could see hard numbers rather than just accept this at face value. Rosedale rowhomes and the streets (i.e. surrounding the Rosedale rec center) tend to be very small/narrow though so not as appealing to higher SES families.

Based on the data put out by DME, there are a minimum of 200 non-at-risk in bounds for Miner who don’t go there. Get them to attend, and Miner’s a totally different school.

Good luck. That's true anywhere, but you generally won't get those parents to send their kids. How many Maury parents are going to send their kid to Eliot Hine for MS? Hey if they all just attend, it's a different school.

An increasing number of Maury kids are attending EH each year, and Payne for that matter. It is on the upswing with increasing buy-in, a great principal, good programming, and a nice campus. It doesn't happen overnight. Miner, unfortunately, has a number of issues both demographic and administrative negatively impacting it.

Reading through this thread -- few thoughts/corrections. First, if you listened to the DME meeting streamed last week, the committee gave pushback to several of the proposed timelines in the draft (not just related to Maury/Miner), and that the dates seemed arbitrary or not appropriate. So I would not be surprised if the timeline gets modified. Also, the idea would be that a new principal at Miner would be part of the process (that is the whole point of the working group) - so if/when any changes happen, they would not lose their job, they would be a part of the process they helped formulate. I do think that DCPS is acutely aware of the need for strong leadership at Miner, so hopefully that is prioritized regardless of this boundary process outcome.

Lastly, I agree with the PP - the earlier poster commenting 'how many maury parents send their kids to EH for MS?' shows a lack of awareness about schools in the neighborhood. Not to say everybody has to understand all of the enrollment trends of all of the schools, but if you are going to come on here and comment, it does help to be aware/at least somewhat informed. Yes, some Maury families leave to go to Latin, Basis, etc - but 25-30 5th grade kids have been going to EH in the past several years from Maury, 15-20 from Miner, and recently 25+/year from Payne. So much so that the current 6th grade was 30 kids over projection this year and they needed to hire a new teacher.

Then why are EH's PARCC scores still so abysmal?

white kids at EH have some of the highest PARCC scores in DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

According to DME, the Miner IB population demographics mirror the attending demographics. Maybe that data can be parsed more closely, but they've said increasing IB population wouldn't change the at-risk numbers. Increasing IB MC/UMC attendance would also potentially displace the Miner OOB kids who are coming from worse school environments. The cluster would potentially do this as well, if it were successful. I believe that's a big reason DME is punting here. They've heard from a lot of affluent parents from both school communities. They have not heard from Miner at-risk families.

I struggle with that because there are definitely some higher income families that buy in Kingman Park in general. I wish we could see hard numbers rather than just accept this at face value. Rosedale rowhomes and the streets (i.e. surrounding the Rosedale rec center) tend to be very small/narrow though so not as appealing to higher SES families.

Based on the data put out by DME, there are a minimum of 200 non-at-risk in bounds for Miner who don’t go there. Get them to attend, and Miner’s a totally different school.

Good luck. That's true anywhere, but you generally won't get those parents to send their kids. How many Maury parents are going to send their kid to Eliot Hine for MS? Hey if they all just attend, it's a different school.

An increasing number of Maury kids are attending EH each year, and Payne for that matter. It is on the upswing with increasing buy-in, a great principal, good programming, and a nice campus. It doesn't happen overnight. Miner, unfortunately, has a number of issues both demographic and administrative negatively impacting it.

Reading through this thread -- few thoughts/corrections. First, if you listened to the DME meeting streamed last week, the committee gave pushback to several of the proposed timelines in the draft (not just related to Maury/Miner), and that the dates seemed arbitrary or not appropriate. So I would not be surprised if the timeline gets modified. Also, the idea would be that a new principal at Miner would be part of the process (that is the whole point of the working group) - so if/when any changes happen, they would not lose their job, they would be a part of the process they helped formulate. I do think that DCPS is acutely aware of the need for strong leadership at Miner, so hopefully that is prioritized regardless of this boundary process outcome.

Lastly, I agree with the PP - the earlier poster commenting 'how many maury parents send their kids to EH for MS?' shows a lack of awareness about schools in the neighborhood. Not to say everybody has to understand all of the enrollment trends of all of the schools, but if you are going to come on here and comment, it does help to be aware/at least somewhat informed. Yes, some Maury families leave to go to Latin, Basis, etc - but 25-30 5th grade kids have been going to EH in the past several years from Maury, 15-20 from Miner, and recently 25+/year from Payne. So much so that the current 6th grade was 30 kids over projection this year and they needed to hire a new teacher.

Then why are EH's PARCC scores still so abysmal?

Looking at last year's data, it looks like EH's PARCC scores for its non-at-risk students are on par with or better than Stuart Hobson's in 6th and 7th. EH's non-at-risk population takes a dive in 8th, and the scores drop too -- presumably many of the better students are self-selecting out to a different school. This doesn't happen at SH as much, so the issues leading to this drop are vital for EH to address.

Both SH and EH's non-at-risk scores trail Deal's significantly. Some of this is because non-at-risk includes some kids on the bubble of at-risk, and SH and EH presumably have more of that group than Deal does, but it's something for the Capitol Hill middles to look at and try to deal with.

Why do kids leave EH in 8th? Is that a common year to go private? The main middle school charters for Cap Hill families (Basis and Latin) don't take a lot or any kids in that year.

EH is adding more higher level math as it has an increasing number of students that are able to complete the coursework. I believe it's adding Geometry in 8th next year, because they have some kids that have completed 7th grade Algebra. Maybe this will prevent some of the 8th grade attrition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The working group to evaluate whether there even should be a merger will begin no earlier than 2027.

Why on earth shouldn't the working group start now? Not even bother to IMPLEMENT a working group for 3 years? Awful. Sorry, I know this board is full of Maury parents, but I think that Miner parents continue to get absolutely screwed with this decision. In bounds for a school that isn't working and DCPS will do nothing in the meantime.

Maybe the Miner constituents should advocate for measure that will actually help Miner instead of enormously divisive and untested plans like the cluster.

Nothing will help Miner without some form of boundary re-draw or demographic change. It has too many at risk kids in the school for even an effective administration to address.

This is simply not true. There are tons of schools with similar or even higher at-risk numbers than Miner that do significantly better on PARCC — and I don’t want to overstate the importance of standardized test scores, but I’m not aware of what other objective standards there are to look to.

DC needs to be able to have effective schools with high at-risk populations, since DCPS is 50% at-risk. It can’t be that we just throw up our hands and say it’s impossible at 64%. We know that it is not impossible from the data for other schools that do better.

right but/and - test scores aren't indicative of whether schools are doing better at teaching kids.

What? Of course test scores are *indicative* of whether schools are doing better at teaching kids. Conclusive? No. The only thing that matters? No. An apples to apples comparison across schools with different demographics? No. But indicative? Obviously.

No, no they're not. Study after study shows test scores are indicative of the SES status of the parents.

All other things being equal. But if you've got similarly at-risk schools performing quite a bit differently on tests, isn't that indicative of something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

According to DME, the Miner IB population demographics mirror the attending demographics. Maybe that data can be parsed more closely, but they've said increasing IB population wouldn't change the at-risk numbers. Increasing IB MC/UMC attendance would also potentially displace the Miner OOB kids who are coming from worse school environments. The cluster would potentially do this as well, if it were successful. I believe that's a big reason DME is punting here. They've heard from a lot of affluent parents from both school communities. They have not heard from Miner at-risk families.

I struggle with that because there are definitely some higher income families that buy in Kingman Park in general. I wish we could see hard numbers rather than just accept this at face value. Rosedale rowhomes and the streets (i.e. surrounding the Rosedale rec center) tend to be very small/narrow though so not as appealing to higher SES families.

Based on the data put out by DME, there are a minimum of 200 non-at-risk in bounds for Miner who don’t go there. Get them to attend, and Miner’s a totally different school.

Good luck. That's true anywhere, but you generally won't get those parents to send their kids. How many Maury parents are going to send their kid to Eliot Hine for MS? Hey if they all just attend, it's a different school.

An increasing number of Maury kids are attending EH each year, and Payne for that matter. It is on the upswing with increasing buy-in, a great principal, good programming, and a nice campus. It doesn't happen overnight. Miner, unfortunately, has a number of issues both demographic and administrative negatively impacting it.

Reading through this thread -- few thoughts/corrections. First, if you listened to the DME meeting streamed last week, the committee gave pushback to several of the proposed timelines in the draft (not just related to Maury/Miner), and that the dates seemed arbitrary or not appropriate. So I would not be surprised if the timeline gets modified. Also, the idea would be that a new principal at Miner would be part of the process (that is the whole point of the working group) - so if/when any changes happen, they would not lose their job, they would be a part of the process they helped formulate. I do think that DCPS is acutely aware of the need for strong leadership at Miner, so hopefully that is prioritized regardless of this boundary process outcome.

Lastly, I agree with the PP - the earlier poster commenting 'how many maury parents send their kids to EH for MS?' shows a lack of awareness about schools in the neighborhood. Not to say everybody has to understand all of the enrollment trends of all of the schools, but if you are going to come on here and comment, it does help to be aware/at least somewhat informed. Yes, some Maury families leave to go to Latin, Basis, etc - but 25-30 5th grade kids have been going to EH in the past several years from Maury, 15-20 from Miner, and recently 25+/year from Payne. So much so that the current 6th grade was 30 kids over projection this year and they needed to hire a new teacher.

Then why are EH's PARCC scores still so abysmal?

Looking at last year's data, it looks like EH's PARCC scores for its non-at-risk students are on par with or better than Stuart Hobson's in 6th and 7th. EH's non-at-risk population takes a dive in 8th, and the scores drop too -- presumably many of the better students are self-selecting out to a different school. This doesn't happen at SH as much, so the issues leading to this drop are vital for EH to address.

Both SH and EH's non-at-risk scores trail Deal's significantly. Some of this is because non-at-risk includes some kids on the bubble of at-risk, and SH and EH presumably have more of that group than Deal does, but it's something for the Capitol Hill middles to look at and try to deal with.

Why do kids leave EH in 8th? Is that a common year to go private? The main middle school charters for Cap Hill families (Basis and Latin) don't take a lot or any kids in that year.

EH is adding more higher level math as it has an increasing number of students that are able to complete the coursework. I believe it's adding Geometry in 8th next year, because they have some kids that have completed 7th grade Algebra. Maybe this will prevent some of the 8th grade attrition.

I don't know what the answer is, but would be eager to learn -- my kids are in the EH pipeline.

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Anonymous wrote:The working group to evaluate whether there even should be a merger will begin no earlier than 2027.

Why on earth shouldn't the working group start now? Not even bother to IMPLEMENT a working group for 3 years? Awful. Sorry, I know this board is full of Maury parents, but I think that Miner parents continue to get absolutely screwed with this decision. In bounds for a school that isn't working and DCPS will do nothing in the meantime.

Maybe the Miner constituents should advocate for measure that will actually help Miner instead of enormously divisive and untested plans like the cluster.

Nothing will help Miner without some form of boundary re-draw or demographic change. It has too many at risk kids in the school for even an effective administration to address.

This is simply not true. There are tons of schools with similar or even higher at-risk numbers than Miner that do significantly better on PARCC — and I don’t want to overstate the importance of standardized test scores, but I’m not aware of what other objective standards there are to look to.

DC needs to be able to have effective schools with high at-risk populations, since DCPS is 50% at-risk. It can’t be that we just throw up our hands and say it’s impossible at 64%. We know that it is not impossible from the data for other schools that do better.

right but/and - test scores aren't indicative of whether schools are doing better at teaching kids.

What? Of course test scores are *indicative* of whether schools are doing better at teaching kids. Conclusive? No. The only thing that matters? No. An apples to apples comparison across schools with different demographics? No. But indicative? Obviously.

No, no they're not. Study after study shows test scores are indicative of the SES status of the parents.

All other things being equal. But if you've got similarly at-risk schools performing quite a bit differently on tests, isn't that indicative of something?

And if we can't use test scores, what data should we be looking at? How do we know if Miner is doing well at teaching its students? How do we know if Maury is?