'Appalling' standardized test scores in wake of covid school closures

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, sorry there was a pandemic. It sucked for everyone. Esp. the dead.

With a death rate well under .1 percent for those under 70. Good reason crush children.

[Anonymous]

How do PARCC scores map to NAEP scores? Are these different tests altogether? There seem to be a larger share of 4th graders that are at grade level according to PARCC ELA and Math (30% and 23%) as opposed to NAEP (24 and 16%).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm old enough to remember when those of us advocating for opening schools early on were selfish jerks!

When I usually say "I hate to say I told you so" I don't usually mean it. I love to be proven right retroactively.

Not this time. I predicted just how bad shutting schools down for an extended period would be for kids, especially for lower-income and at-risk kids. I do genuinely wish I was wrong on this point, though.

I wonder if the people responsible for extended school shutdowns in DC and other blue states and cities will ever admit they were wrong?

If you're one of the people who was opposed to reopening schools in the fall on 2020, this is on you. And people like me are going to rub your nose in it for the rest of your days.

I'm a teacher and would never say I was wrong for being unwilling to go into school prior to being vaccinated. You can rub my nose or your nose in it as much as you want. I'm focused on trying to support students where they are now.

I'm willing to concede that those saying DC definitely should have reopened in September 2020 are engaging in some Monday morning quarterbacking. While that may have been the right decision in hindsight, there was some understandable hesitation. Everything about the pandemic was fully politicized thanks to Trump, there was no reopening recommendation from the CDC, Delta was surging, nobody was vaccinated, etc.

HOWEVER, with proper prioritization of teachers, all teachers who wanted to be vaccinated would have been fully vaccinated by roughly the end of January 2021. That's the latest date when all schools should have returned to mostly normal operations. Many schools in DC remained closed or heavily impacted for another 7+ months, which is inexcusable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm old enough to remember when those of us advocating for opening schools early on were selfish jerks!

When I usually say "I hate to say I told you so" I don't usually mean it. I love to be proven right retroactively.

Not this time. I predicted just how bad shutting schools down for an extended period would be for kids, especially for lower-income and at-risk kids. I do genuinely wish I was wrong on this point, though.

I wonder if the people responsible for extended school shutdowns in DC and other blue states and cities will ever admit they were wrong?

If you're one of the people who was opposed to reopening schools in the fall on 2020, this is on you. And people like me are going to rub your nose in it for the rest of your days.

I'm a teacher and would never say I was wrong for being unwilling to go into school prior to being vaccinated. You can rub my nose or your nose in it as much as you want. I'm focused on trying to support students where they are now.

I'm willing to concede that those saying DC definitely should have reopened in September 2020 are engaging in some Monday morning quarterbacking. While that may have been the right decision in hindsight, there was some understandable hesitation. Everything about the pandemic was fully politicized thanks to Trump, there was no reopening recommendation from the CDC, Delta was surging, nobody was vaccinated, etc.

HOWEVER, with proper prioritization of teachers, all teachers who wanted to be vaccinated would have been fully vaccinated by roughly the end of January 2021. That's the latest date when all schools should have returned to mostly normal operations. Many schools in DC remained closed or heavily impacted for another 7+ months, which is inexcusable.

It’s not Monday morning quarterbacking if you were saying it at the time- it’s being proven right

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm old enough to remember when those of us advocating for opening schools early on were selfish jerks!

When I usually say "I hate to say I told you so" I don't usually mean it. I love to be proven right retroactively.

Not this time. I predicted just how bad shutting schools down for an extended period would be for kids, especially for lower-income and at-risk kids. I do genuinely wish I was wrong on this point, though.

I wonder if the people responsible for extended school shutdowns in DC and other blue states and cities will ever admit they were wrong?

If you're one of the people who was opposed to reopening schools in the fall on 2020, this is on you. And people like me are going to rub your nose in it for the rest of your days.

I'm a teacher and would never say I was wrong for being unwilling to go into school prior to being vaccinated. You can rub my nose or your nose in it as much as you want. I'm focused on trying to support students where they are now.

I'm willing to concede that those saying DC definitely should have reopened in September 2020 are engaging in some Monday morning quarterbacking. While that may have been the right decision in hindsight, there was some understandable hesitation. Everything about the pandemic was fully politicized thanks to Trump, there was no reopening recommendation from the CDC, Delta was surging, nobody was vaccinated, etc.

HOWEVER, with proper prioritization of teachers, all teachers who wanted to be vaccinated would have been fully vaccinated by roughly the end of January 2021. That's the latest date when all schools should have returned to mostly normal operations. Many schools in DC remained closed or heavily impacted for another 7+ months, which is inexcusable.

All I can do is share my experience, which was going back in as soon as I was vaccinated

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do PARCC scores map to NAEP scores? Are these different tests altogether? There seem to be a larger share of 4th graders that are at grade level according to PARCC ELA and Math (30% and 23%) as opposed to NAEP (24 and 16%).

Naep is actually nationwide. Parcc is just used here.

[Anonymous]

The people who are like, DC is a state thus comparisons are invalid!, are correct. But they might also note that MD and VA seriously underperformed on the test, probably as a result of prolonged school closures. Also, the DC scores are really bad in their own right, and the people yelling about equity in September 2020 have been proven wrong in every way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or from axios, if you can't access the NYT:

https://www.axios.com/local/washington-dc/2022/10/24/report-dc-public-schools-math-scores-slump?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioslocal_dc&stream=top

"What’s next: D.C.’s state superintendent has an effort to reverse the trend, using $1 billion in federal stimulus funds.

Thirty-nine million will go towards a tutoring program expected to be offered to 4,000 students this school year."

So a negligible percentage will go towards helping a negligible number of students? Sounds like they're really on the ball with that solution

DCPS couldn’t even roll out a summer tutoring program because there were no takers and you think they will be successful with a school year one???

I can see many different reasons why a school year tutoring program would be easier to roll out and find 'takers'.

[Anonymous]

This doesn’t prove that this was a result of school closures. It was a result of the pandemic. My life is worse after the pandemic. Your life is worse. Our kids live on this planet. Their lives are worse too. There’s no getting around that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This doesn’t prove that this was a result of school closures. It was a result of the pandemic. My life is worse after the pandemic. Your life is worse. Our kids live on this planet. Their lives are worse too. There’s no getting around that.

It’s unbelievable that you people are still denying that school closures were harmful to children and learning. I am actually shocked people are still saying these things. I thought this thread would be nothing but people saying, “well obviously, now how can we fix it”. Unbelievable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The people who are like, DC is a state thus comparisons are invalid!, are correct. But they might also note that MD and VA seriously underperformed on the test, probably as a result of prolonged school closures. Also, the DC scores are really bad in their own right, and the people yelling about equity in September 2020 have been proven wrong in every way.

Also there's data posted above from the same study comparing DC to other cities, and DC also looks bad there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm old enough to remember when those of us advocating for opening schools early on were selfish jerks!

When I usually say "I hate to say I told you so" I don't usually mean it. I love to be proven right retroactively.

Not this time. I predicted just how bad shutting schools down for an extended period would be for kids, especially for lower-income and at-risk kids. I do genuinely wish I was wrong on this point, though.

I wonder if the people responsible for extended school shutdowns in DC and other blue states and cities will ever admit they were wrong?

If you're one of the people who was opposed to reopening schools in the fall on 2020, this is on you. And people like me are going to rub your nose in it for the rest of your days.

I'm a teacher and would never say I was wrong for being unwilling to go into school prior to being vaccinated. You can rub my nose or your nose in it as much as you want. I'm focused on trying to support students where they are now.

I'm willing to concede that those saying DC definitely should have reopened in September 2020 are engaging in some Monday morning quarterbacking. While that may have been the right decision in hindsight, there was some understandable hesitation. Everything about the pandemic was fully politicized thanks to Trump, there was no reopening recommendation from the CDC, Delta was surging, nobody was vaccinated, etc.

HOWEVER, with proper prioritization of teachers, all teachers who wanted to be vaccinated would have been fully vaccinated by roughly the end of January 2021. That's the latest date when all schools should have returned to mostly normal operations. Many schools in DC remained closed or heavily impacted for another 7+ months, which is inexcusable.

False. The American Academy of Pediatrics was PRO reopening in JULY 2020 … and flipped their position when Trump spoke in favor of reopening. They were using schools as a political pawn all along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Catholic K-8 in our DC neighborhood went back right after Labor Day in 9/2020. It is crazy that our DCPS kids stayed home almost the entire 2020-21 school year.

somehow they want us to pretend we didn’t see catholic schools reopen in the *same neighborhoods* public schools closed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or from axios, if you can't access the NYT:

https://www.axios.com/local/washington-dc/2022/10/24/report-dc-public-schools-math-scores-slump?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioslocal_dc&stream=top

"What’s next: D.C.’s state superintendent has an effort to reverse the trend, using $1 billion in federal stimulus funds.

Thirty-nine million will go towards a tutoring program expected to be offered to 4,000 students this school year."

So a negligible percentage will go towards helping a negligible number of students? Sounds like they're really on the ball with that solution

DCPS couldn’t even roll out a summer tutoring program because there were no takers and you think they will be successful with a school year one???

I can see many different reasons why a school year tutoring program would be easier to roll out and find 'takers'.

Are you for real? You really think teachers want to spend another 2 hours after school after a full day of teaching? DCPS is bleeding teachers and many have left or are leaving - new and veterans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This doesn’t prove that this was a result of school closures. It was a result of the pandemic. My life is worse after the pandemic. Your life is worse. Our kids live on this planet. Their lives are worse too. There’s no getting around that.

Yet, kids in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida are excelling in school and have been throughout the pandemic. Many of these kids live in families earning $30,000 or $40,000 per year.