GreatSchools rating of 3 - off the table?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why some posters are saying to disregard things like test scores. Are low scores not indicative of the student performance and the level at which a teacher can teach?

Isn't there an argument that test scores don't speak for how well truly kids are prepared?

I am just so shocked that people don't know this already. It's not argument - it is incontrovertible, much-proved fact. Test scores have NOTHING to do with teaching. They are most influenced by the student's home environment. When I taught at low SES school we used to compare scores each year. What percentages passed, which ones didn't, and so on. We gave a test in the second week of school to see where we were starting, and would compare that to the test at the end of the year. Whatever we started with was what we finished with. We found that a kid who got 60% in week 2 would likely pass at the end of the year, but below that was iffy, and anyone in the 25% range rarely passed at the end of the year. It was consistent every time. There were exceptions, of course, and god knows we put 110% of our effort and resources into the ones in the low range[i][u], but nothing helped.

Even worse, whoever got the special ed group or the esol group that year would always have a low pass rate, no matter what they did. And whoever was lucky enough to get an average class always had a good pass rate, and would be the first to admit they did nothing special and just got lucky with a good class. And from year to year one teacher could get low scores (with a low starting class) and then the next have the highest score (with a class that was high from the beginning).

We were incredibly well-trained and well-educated, and we worked 60-70 hour weeks. You could not find better teachers, but the school had a 3 and always will.

It's so sad to see that only teachers really understand the futility of this ranking system, and parents are so gullible and ill-informed.

I don't think the concerns raised here have anything to do with gullible and ill-informed parents. And the attitude is a little off-putting from a teacher. I thikn the vast majority of parents realize that SES and background knowledge play a huge role in test scores.
BUT, if you are putting in 110% of your effort and resources into the ones in the low range, that means there's not a lot of effort or resources left for the passing or excelling kids. And I don't know of any parent who wants their kid to be in a classroom where they are basically being ignored and left to fend for themselves most of the time - no matter how capable and fantastic the teacher may be for other kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why some posters are saying to disregard things like test scores. Are low scores not indicative of the student performance and the level at which a teacher can teach?

Isn't there an argument that test scores don't speak for how well truly kids are prepared?

I am just so shocked that people don't know this already. It's not argument - it is incontrovertible, much-proved fact. Test scores have NOTHING to do with teaching. They are most influenced by the student's home environment. When I taught at low SES school we used to compare scores each year. What percentages passed, which ones didn't, and so on. We gave a test in the second week of school to see where we were starting, and would compare that to the test at the end of the year. Whatever we started with was what we finished with. We found that a kid who got 60% in week 2 would likely pass at the end of the year, but below that was iffy, and anyone in the 25% range rarely passed at the end of the year. It was consistent every time. There were exceptions, of course, and god knows we put 110% of our effort and resources into the ones in the low range[i][u], but nothing helped.

Even worse, whoever got the special ed group or the esol group that year would always have a low pass rate, no matter what they did. And whoever was lucky enough to get an average class always had a good pass rate, and would be the first to admit they did nothing special and just got lucky with a good class. And from year to year one teacher could get low scores (with a low starting class) and then the next have the highest score (with a class that was high from the beginning).

We were incredibly well-trained and well-educated, and we worked 60-70 hour weeks. You could not find better teachers, but the school had a 3 and always will.

It's so sad to see that only teachers really understand the futility of this ranking system, and parents are so gullible and ill-informed.

I don't think the concerns raised here have anything to do with gullible and ill-informed parents. And the attitude is a little off-putting from a teacher. I thikn the vast majority of parents realize that SES and background knowledge play a huge role in test scores.
BUT, if you are putting in 110% of your effort and resources into the ones in the low range, that means there's not a lot of effort or resources left for the passing or excelling kids. And I don't know of any parent who wants their kid to be in a classroom where they are basically being ignored and left to fend for themselves most of the time - no matter how capable and fantastic the teacher may be for other kids.

Not the PP, but the discussion above was "does low GS score = bad teachers" and I read her comment as more directed at that. You cannot tell anything about the quality of the teaching from a low GS score, which is just based on average standardized test scores. But to your point, your assumption is a slightly different one that, even if the teachers are good "low GS score = kids not in the low range are ignored". It is absolutely possible that there are classrooms and schools where that happens. But it is not necessarily true. Indeed, at our lower GS score school I have not found that to be the case. Quite the opposite, actually. But that is just our school. The OP asked if a low GS score should mean a school is automatically off the table. I don't think it should, primarily because I don't think a GS score gives you any information about what is actually going on in the school. A low GS score might lead you to ask the question - do kids who are not struggling just get ignored? - but it doesn't actually answer the question. To know that, you would have to know -- how are classes grouped? How are pull-outs/push ins handled? What do current and former parents say? What do administrators and teachers say about their efforts to address the differentiation needed? It may be that you look at a particular school and the answer is -- yes, it looks like structurally there is so much directed at the struggling kids that other kids don't get served as they should. Or, it could be that the school has done a lot of work to make sure that all kids are served and challenged at the appropriate level. A low GS score really doesn't tell you any of that.

[Anonymous]

I would just consider that if test scores are low it could be because of high ESOL or Spec Ed population. Then consider that it is common to group all ESOL in one grade and all Spec Ed in one grade into a classroom. So all ESOL in one classroom, all Spec Ed in another. How would your child do with a majority of ESOL or Spec Ed in her classroom? Is this ok with you? In my child's grade, almost all the Spec Ed are kids with ADHD, and my kid has ADHD too. I definitely noticed all the ADHD kids are grouped into one class. This works fine because they are usually pulled out to the resource room for math and language arts.

[Anonymous]

I don't think it sounds like a good idea to group all the ESOL in one class and all the ADHD kids in another class. It seems like it would negatively effect the levels of reading groups in the first class, and a bunch of ADHD kids bouncing off each other all day would cause a lot of interruptions in the second class.