Why are HRCS so popular? Test scores stink.

[Anonymous]

(full disclosure, we left a dcps for a charter.)

[Anonymous]

These are all public schools. They all agree to teach kids the Common Core standards. Charters have great flexibility in how they try to achieve that goal but that is the primary goal and the way they are measured. Not by how innovative or revolutionary they are. They are not private schools and have to show results.

By that measure a few promising schools clearly have some to do as their models are not working as well as they expected. That shouldn't distract from the fact that charters as a whole are outperforming DCPS schools and have closed the achievement gap a little. That's a big deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These are all public schools. They all agree to teach kids the Common Core standards. Charters have great flexibility in how they try to achieve that goal but that is the primary goal and the way they are measured. Not by how innovative or revolutionary they are. They are not private schools and have to show results.

By that measure a few promising schools clearly have some to do as their models are not working as well as they expected. That shouldn't distract from the fact that charters as a whole are outperforming DCPS schools and have closed the achievement gap a little. That's a big deal.

Agree. It is a huge deal, and the dc charters deserve a lot of credit for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I for one didn't expect the MV numbers to be above those of CMI and ITS.

MV only shows scores 3rd-5th, ITS includes 3-7th. Compare grade for grade.

You can't - all that's available on OSSE is 3rd and 4th for ITS. Must not be enough students in 5th-7th to report publicly.

CMI's scores are 10% higher if you don't include the special education students, fwiw.

Those students were the point of its original programming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These are all public schools. They all agree to teach kids the Common Core standards. Charters have great flexibility in how they try to achieve that goal but that is the primary goal and the way they are measured. Not by how innovative or revolutionary they are. They are not private schools and have to show results.

By that measure a few promising schools clearly have some to do as their models are not working as well as they expected. That shouldn't distract from the fact that charters as a whole are outperforming DCPS schools and have closed the achievement gap a little. That's a big deal.

Only by selecting for their students (and counseling out the hardest cases back to DCPS). The power of charters is they make the public-side more accountable.

The general consensus among the charter intelligentsia is that charters should sit at 40% of students in DC - and no more - or else they themselves would have to be more accountable (in terms of accounting or the $'s, neighborhood preference, etc.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For Yu Ying:

All students: 51% ELA/59% Math

3rd Grade: 31/46
4th Grade: 69/68
5th Grade: 69/73

What is going on with 3rd grade which is the current 4th?!?

By race grades 3-5:

White: 59/74
AA: 34/39
Two or more races: 71/78

It's always been the "don't care about Chinese, as much as we are just happy to be here" class. They've always been the laziest, least generous and least productive group. It's the bubble class. Everyone hates them, but they did help pay for the facility.

[Anonymous]

My guess is that it's harder for charters with their notoriously high teacher turnover to retain good teachers in upper elementary. Much easier to get by on your "pedagogy" in ECE - 2nd grade. But then it really starts to hurt not to have that highly experienced teacher when the teaching gets more demanding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My guess is that it's harder for charters with their notoriously high teacher turnover to retain good teachers in upper elementary. Much easier to get by on your "pedagogy" in ECE - 2nd grade. But then it really starts to hurt not to have that highly experienced teacher when the teaching gets more demanding.

That is highly dependent upon the individual school. Definitely look it up on a case by case basis if you want the real story.

[Anonymous]

What are these Title 1 schools that are doing better? Are there waitlists?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because hrcs parents like to say they're not into test scores, man!

And then sneer and wring their hands at Powell/Bancroft/Tubman/Barnard et al. Because, I mean, have you seen the test scores? We're not into them, but pedagogy. Man. If you only educated yourself like I have, and learned how important these things are, you'd be doing Montessori unicorn immersion elvish with Larlito too.

Preach it sister. This is it. Test scores don't matter when your kids attend a hippy dippy charter school. Somehow it's an appropriate metric to gauge quality of neighborhood schools. Guess what, DCPS offers arts integration, montessori, dual language, you name it. These charter people who claim it's not the test scores, it's the programming options kill me. I don't see any of these same people enrolling their kids into Savoy or Langdon. Programming my ass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are these Title 1 schools that are doing better? Are there waitlists?

Well, I can tell you that my PK4 got an OOB lottery spot at JO Wilson, and we had no number lower than 50 for any of the HRCS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because hrcs parents like to say they're not into test scores, man!

And then sneer and wring their hands at Powell/Bancroft/Tubman/Barnard et al. Because, I mean, have you seen the test scores? We're not into them, but pedagogy. Man. If you only educated yourself like I have, and learned how important these things are, you'd be doing Montessori unicorn immersion elvish with Larlito too.

Preach it sister. This is it. Test scores don't matter when your kids attend a hippy dippy charter school. Somehow it's an appropriate metric to gauge quality of neighborhood schools. Guess what, DCPS offers arts integration, montessori, dual language, you name it. These charter people who claim it's not the test scores, it's the programming options kill me. I don't see any of these same people enrolling their kids into Savoy or Langdon. Programming my ass.

Your ass is the baby bust. A few hundred of us got into good charters several years ago. We had pre-schoolers, enrolling them in new schools when you were imagining about becoming pregnant. You saw us and watched us and got excited and thought you could get lucky like we did: you and a thousand other couples in U Street or Bloomingdale or Brookland or "Hill North" or NOMA or some other neighborhood with cachet. Now you're stuck with DCPS. Jumped on the bandwagon too late.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For Yu Ying:

All students: 51% ELA/59% Math

3rd Grade: 31/46
4th Grade: 69/68
5th Grade: 69/73

What is going on with 3rd grade which is the current 4th?!?

Two things:
1. Re ELA, the current 4th are the first cohort to receive 100% Chinese instruction in PK4. Previous years used the day of Chinese/day of English model. One year less of English instruction = lessened English proficiency.
2. This is the bubble class--6 (now 5) classes in the grade rather than 4 (as for all other grades K & above). This means that at least two classes each year are getting teachers who didn't teach that grade the previous year. Again, it's easy to imagine that these kids with less-experienced teachers learned less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because hrcs parents like to say they're not into test scores, man!

And then sneer and wring their hands at Powell/Bancroft/Tubman/Barnard et al. Because, I mean, have you seen the test scores? We're not into them, but pedagogy. Man. If you only educated yourself like I have, and learned how important these things are, you'd be doing Montessori unicorn immersion elvish with Larlito too.

Preach it sister. This is it. Test scores don't matter when your kids attend a hippy dippy charter school. Somehow it's an appropriate metric to gauge quality of neighborhood schools. Guess what, DCPS offers arts integration, montessori, dual language, you name it. These charter people who claim it's not the test scores, it's the programming options kill me. I don't see any of these same people enrolling their kids into Savoy or Langdon. Programming my ass.

Your ass is the baby bust. A few hundred of us got into good charters several years ago. We had pre-schoolers, enrolling them in new schools when you were imagining about becoming pregnant. You saw us and watched us and got excited and thought you could get lucky like we did: you and a thousand other couples in U Street or Bloomingdale or Brookland or "Hill North" or NOMA or some other neighborhood with cachet. Now you're stuck with DCPS. Jumped on the bandwagon too late.

Why do you need to feel that other people envy you? Because it's not that way at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are all public schools. They all agree to teach kids the Common Core standards. Charters have great flexibility in how they try to achieve that goal but that is the primary goal and the way they are measured. Not by how innovative or revolutionary they are. They are not private schools and have to show results.

By that measure a few promising schools clearly have some to do as their models are not working as well as they expected. That shouldn't distract from the fact that charters as a whole are outperforming DCPS schools and have closed the achievement gap a little. That's a big deal.

Only by selecting for their students (and counseling out the hardest cases back to DCPS). The power of charters is they make the public-side more accountable.

The general consensus among the charter intelligentsia is that charters should sit at 40% of students in DC - and no more - or else they themselves would have to be more accountable (in terms of accounting or the $'s, neighborhood preference, etc.)

The canard about selectivity and counseling out is not reflected in the data. in fact proportionally DC PCSs have more high needs students.

See the Cross sector task force materials - it is just most recent to show this.