APS high schools in Great Schools

[Anonymous]

The new methodology really nailed APS.

Yorktown: 5
W&L: 4
Wakefield: 3

I think GS is bunk, but it's shocking how many people take it as gospel.

[Anonymous]

Some people never liked GS, but with the constant changes in methodology and ratings over the past three years they've lost any remaining credibility.

[Anonymous]

Hmm, I guess people should move elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some people never liked GS, but with the constant changes in methodology and ratings over the past three years they've lost any remaining credibility.

If Greatschools's goal is to encourage people to look deeper than just one single-digit number, into test scores for different demographics as well as overall test scores, they may finally be succeeding. More likely, they're making their rating irrelevant. Which is probably a good thing.

[Anonymous]

I like the concept of trying to highlight where schools are under-serving minority students, but from a review of a few local schools I'm concerned that there is an unintended (I hope) effect of punishing schools with greater racial and economic diversity more harshly for the same degree of discrepancy in performance as their less-diverse peer schools. I'm on my phone with no pen and paper around to crunch numbers, though, so I can't be sure my impression is correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like the concept of trying to highlight where schools are under-serving minority students, but from a review of a few local schools I'm concerned that there is an unintended (I hope) effect of punishing schools with greater racial and economic diversity more harshly for the same degree of discrepancy in performance as their less-diverse peer schools. I'm on my phone with no pen and paper around to crunch numbers, though, so I can't be sure my impression is correct.

One example, they don't appear to factor in statistics for demographic groups that make up less than 5% of the student body. Langley does great on GS for how it serves low-income students, but since low-income students are less than 5% of Langley students, how those students perform isn't actually being factored into the calculus, which means Langley could be under-serving them horribly, but GS won't reflect that. Same for Langley and black students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like the concept of trying to highlight where schools are under-serving minority students, but from a review of a few local schools I'm concerned that there is an unintended (I hope) effect of punishing schools with greater racial and economic diversity more harshly for the same degree of discrepancy in performance as their less-diverse peer schools. I'm on my phone with no pen and paper around to crunch numbers, though, so I can't be sure my impression is correct.

Translation: GS used to be an excellent talking point to demonstrate my families superior choices. Now that our number sucks, it’s no longer credible.

[Anonymous]

Their methodologies also don't make sense on their face. One school had minority groups, students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students outperforming state averages for those groups in nearly every category, but they ended up with a 2 for equity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like the concept of trying to highlight where schools are under-serving minority students, but from a review of a few local schools I'm concerned that there is an unintended (I hope) effect of punishing schools with greater racial and economic diversity more harshly for the same degree of discrepancy in performance as their less-diverse peer schools. I'm on my phone with no pen and paper around to crunch numbers, though, so I can't be sure my impression is correct.

Translation: GS used to be an excellent talking point to demonstrate my families superior choices. Now that our number sucks, it’s no longer credible.

I actually don't know what these schools scores used to be because I've never looked at GS before. Do you disagree with the specific issues I raised in my other two posts?

[Anonymous]

No way to spin it. These numbers are awful for Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No way to spin it. These numbers are awful for Arlington.

As an Arlington parent who is happy with our schools, I think this is a great thing if it discourages people from moving here and crowding up the schools even more (and then complaining about the overcrowding that they contributed to).

[Anonymous]

I think this is going to make things worse. People will just look at their own group and conclude that things are just fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is going to make things worse. People will just look at their own group and conclude that things are just fine.

You think most people care about kids outside of their own group now? They don't. Otherwise we wouldn't stand for de facto segregation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No way to spin it. These numbers are awful for Arlington.

As an Arlington parent who is happy with our schools, I think this is a great thing if it discourages people from moving here and crowding up the schools even more (and then complaining about the overcrowding that they contributed to).

OK.

[Anonymous]

Arlington schools have been heading off the rails for awhile. Credit to GS for recognizing this.