What's up with Piney Branch?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| My son is in 4th grade at PBES - bright but didn't make it into CES. Here's what he said to me this morning: "Mom, I'm frustrated - there are so many kids in my class that don't take school seriously and they are getting all of us in trouble. It's like all the good kids are in CES now." Just about broke my heart. I'm all about expanding opportunities but I'm personally worried about kids like my son falling through the cracks at PBES - even more of a concern now that so many of the "strongest students" are removed from the general population. |
Anonymous
This is the danger with putting so many kids in the local center, right? If my math is right, that's about 20% of PBES 4th graders in the local center. I'm sorry your son is struggling, PP. These are hard problems - expanding the programs is probably the right call district-wide, but the kids right on the cusp who may have just experienced a bad test day are going to have a harder time with most of their peers pulled out. |
Anonymous
PP here. Yes, exactly. Like I said - I'm glad so many kids have this opportunity but I'm not sure how to support my child who is on the cusp and totally capable of doing the work the CES kids are doing. He's in compacted math and he says that class is so much better because "I have a lot of CES kids in my math class." I'm not a squeaky wheel type parent but is there anything I can say to the teacher or principal that will help my son? |
Anonymous
To me, and I am not highly trained in statistics, it looks like ESS is doing something "right" - I don't know if you can compare the demographics of PB and Flora Singer as particularly equivalent. That's part of why I wonder if it's the small school size that makes a difference at ESS. Flora Singer had 19 African American 3rd graders tested. PB had 80. That's pretty different demographics. |
Anonymous
Maybe the smaller class sizes at ESS are helping? |
Anonymous
I also wonder if the small size of the school overall helps. It's a lot easier to see each kid as an individual/follow a kid's progress from year to year, etc. if there are fewer total kids in the school. At a small school a kid might be more likely to be known as an individual whereas stereotypes or racism may flourish at a big school where there are so many kids who are getting mixed together in different combinations each year. I don't know, I'm just hypothesizing. |
Anonymous
If you're highly trained in statistics, you're aware there are a couple of problems with these statistics. They are allegedly based on a test that's been discredited and specifically for results for 5th-grade math only. The OP picked them specifically to make their case. This is often referred to as cherry-picking and is now way representative of anything. |
Anonymous
That's heartbreaking. |
Anonymous
I'm sorry that this is happening to your son. You could press the principal to get your son into the CES. Everyone is doing this but sometimes the squeaky wheel does get the grease. If so many kids are coming off the waiting list, its much more likely that for some their parents simply pitched a fit rather than their scores being the highest on the waitlist. If your son did really badly on the test and does do well on other tests like PARCC etc then its unlikely the principal will let him in even if he's brilliant. It would reflect badly on her if too many kids in her local CES program were scoring poorly. This is likely to continue through ES and MS. Schools intentionally do whatever they can to balance the classes and sprinkle the remaining high achievers (or low achievers depending on which is more numerous/rare at the school) throughout different classes. Its unfair to teachers who are evaluated on scores for one teacher to get all the high performers and another to get all the low performers. Could you afford private school? The Catholic schools are much, much less expensive than the "big three" type schools and would still have students that take school seriously. Your other option , I hate to say it, is to move to a school with more highly capable and serious students. WJ cluster is the closest to you and usually less expensive than the BCC area. |
Anonymous
Just...for the sake of clarity: PP posted the scores above for 3rd grade English specifically because someone (maybe you) said the 5th grade math scores were cherry-picking. |
Anonymous
Not sure that's great advice. This problem exists throughout the county especially on this particular statistic, 5th-grade math on PARCC. Here are a few scores off GS for schools that otherwise do well. This problem isn't limited to your school just more pronounced because it's more diverse. Rock Creek Forest Black 11% Chevy Chase Elementary Black 20% Garret Park Elementary Black 21% |
Anonymous
I was responding to the poster who was already at Piney Branch and may or may not be black not the OP. Black students tend to perform higher at Churchill and Wootton but I don't know if that is too far or too expensive for the OP. Catholic or a more modest private school should be equally supportive of all races. |
Anonymous
|
Here's the data actual data from GS that is easily verified. Not sure what to make of it.
PARCC 3rd Grade English Piney Branch Black - 32% Hispanic - 17% Rolling Terrace Black - 11% Hispanic - 19% East Silver Spring Black - 29% Hispanic - 33% Chevy Chase Black 24% Hispanic 36% Rock Creek Forest Black 40% Hispanic 35% |
Anonymous
Race is only useful as it is a proxy for SES. Standardized test averages mainly tell us about an area's affluence. School's like Wooton or Churchill have very low FARMs rates. There's no reason to believe that low-income students would do better there than any other school. |
Anonymous
Actually low income students do do better at schools like Churchill and Wootton. There are fewer students who struggle to reach grade level and more resources to help them. Many of the FARMS students do reach grade level on their own. I used to work at a school that had only 9% FARMS students but the # of kids performing below grade level was under 6%. Within the 6% below grade level, they were not all FARMS kids but a combination of FARMS and kids with learning disabilities that needed extra help which they all received. From a race standpoint while the number of black students was not high at the school, many were as wealthy or wealthier as the white students and performed just as well. For a black student, there was no expectation that they would not do as well because the majority of the other students who looked like them didn't do well. Because the school was very international, the black students mixed with whites and other races. In school that have a large population of black students who are also poor it can create stereotypes that pull everyone down. |