Importance of classmates being at grade levels for reading/math

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in DC (Capitol Hill area) and are the parents of a 15 month old. We won't be able to enter the PK3 lottery until 2025, so this is still some time off for us, but the big question that I have been wondering about as we look at DC public schools and decide whether we should stay or move to the suburbs is this--

How much does it really matter what percentage of a school's students are at grade level for reading/math?

I ask because I noticed that even the better schools in DC have large percentages of students not at grade level. We are in-bound to Ludlow-Taylor which has maybe 40-60% at grade level. Nearby Maury seems to be at about 75% I might be off somewhat with the precise percentages but the point is that these are not the 90-95%+ figures at a number of schools in the suburbs.

I've taught, though only at the college level, and even then it was pretty difficult for me to manage dealing with a class that not had obviously bright students but also students who obviously lacked the foundation to be in college (and mixing them together wasn't good for anyone). I know primary/secondary education is not college. I know that tracking is bad for students who are then stuck in the lower tracks (and in my own experience attending a racially mixed school district in suburban NJ, the higher tracks were almost all white while the lower tracks were almost all minorities, which was also not good).

I've also seen various articles/studies saying that it doesn't really matter where one goes to college. Taking my home state of NJ, there was once a study showing that controlling for SAT scores, etc., folks who went to Rutgers earned just as much as those who went to Princeton. I wonder if the same is true for elementary schools through high schools generally (controlling for all factors that schools can't control such as socioeconomic factors, the parents' degree of education, etc., etc.).

Putting my question again--how much is it going to matter if my child goes to a school in DC where say 50% are at grade level vs. a school in the suburbs where 95% are at grade level?

I know socioeconomic factors is the big elephant in the room, and I should also mention that in addition to having our child having solid academics, we also want him to learn from a wide diversity of folks from all sorts of backgrounds (he is himself a mixed kid, and his mother is an immigrant).

Thanks for any thoughts/comments you can share!

Oh honey. You can accept it now or sacrifice years of your child’s early education years to try to “be the change.” Either way you will end up like almost everyone I know: moving to a better school district or going private.

We're on the Hill with older (HS/MS) kids and yes, we know plenty of people who have gone private or moved to the suburbs, but a majority of our kids' classmates (with educated parents) from early elementary did neither: They either went to charters for MS/HS (that includes us) or went to Stuart Hobson and then application high schools.

I'm on the Hill, and the upside of so many people leaving for MS/HS is that the cohort that stays is often made up of very like-minded people. Just the way the ones who leave end up in places that think very similarly to themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. My children are at L-T. They are well above grade level. Only the older one has had to do standardized testing, but they have never tested below 90% nationwide when such data were indicated, and are typically around 96-98%. They have many peers in the school and are not academically bored. Perhaps most importantly they have strong, stimulating friendships.

For Pre-K I wouldn't even give the matter a second thought, assuming you can get in. For elementary, in the earlier grades I've sometimes had questions whether they were going fast enough for them not to be bored. But just seeing the level that my kids are at right now, despite Covid, removed those questions for me entirely.

There might be a critical mass below which some opportunities are missing, but if so the current L-T student-group is not close to it. (Indeed, I would be more worried about L-T if your kid had learning needs, per the discussion in a different thread.)

Dial it down. You have bright kids testing above grade level, sounds like everything is fine but maybe just dial it down a little bit. Your kids would probably be considered middle of the pack at most high SES suburban schools, and a lot of your perception that they are "way" above grade level stems from being in a school where only 40-60% of kids are at or above grade level. Yes, that's excellent for DCPS and especially for a school that still has a sizable FARMS population. L-T has every reason to be proud. But please understand your kids aren't like super outlier geniuses. It's just that the bar in DCPS is crazy low. Your frame of reference is skewed by the generally low academic standards overall in the district.

WTF. She literally said her kids weren’t outliers at the school. Also, they absolutely would not be middle of the pack at a suburban school; that’s absurd. In an AAP program? Perhaps. But OP has a 15 month old who has absolutely no idea whether her kids will be AAP types or not.

This can’t be true though. You can have kids that are “well above grade level” at a school like L-T and then say that they don’t stand out at all and that they have many peers doing as well. Statistically, this doesn’t work. About half of L-T students test below grade level. About half are at or above grade level. If the PP’s kids are WELL above grade level, they are doing better than the vast majority of their classmates. Based on PARCC scores.

So either the PP is overestimating her kid’s abilities (which is ok, lots of people view their children through rose-colored glasses) or she is overestimating the percentage of the rest of the class who is at the same level. Either way, it’s not that useful if a data point.

I would say that in the average non-5th grade class, about 75-80% of kids are at or above grade level for reading and 50% for math. The kids who peel off are non-randomly distributed UMC-wise and same with new kids who come each year, so 3-5 results only tell part of the story & 5th in particular is not really reflective of the school as a whole.

We don't have to guesstimate, we have the data.

Ludlow Taylor 2021-2022 PARCC results by grade:

Grade 3
Level 1 ELA: 7.55%
Level 2 ELA: 5.66%
Level 3 ELA: 9.43%
Level 4 ELA: 62.26%
Level 5 ELA: 15.09%

Level 1 Math: 13.21%
Level 2 Math: 7.55%
Level 3 Math: 28.30%
Level 4 Math: 32.08%
Level 5 Math: 18.87%

Grade 4
Level 1 ELA: 13.33%
Level 2 ELA: 13.33%
Level 3 ELA: 13.33%
Level 4 ELA: 24.44%
Level 5 ELA: 35.56%

Level 1 Math: DS
Level 2 Math: 20%
Level 3 Math: 22.22%
Level 4 Math: DS
Level 5 Math: DS

Grade 5
Level 1 ELA: DS
Level 2 ELA: DS
Level 3 ELA: 20%
Level 4 ELA: 53.33%
Level 5 ELA: 15.56%

Level 1 Math: 6.67%
Level 2 Math: 22.22%
Level 3 Math: 35.56%
Level 4 Math: 28.89%
Level 5 Math: 6.67%

And no, I don't know what DS stands for, sorry. I know it screws up the Grade 4 numbers but I guess you can kind of fill in the blanks. My takeaway from this is that Ludlow is doing a terrific job of getting kids at or slightly above grade level. The lack of Level 5 scores across the board does not compare favorably with some of the suburban schools I've looked at, or even with elementaries in upper NW, where you expect to see a lot more Level 5 scores. I'd say Ludlow is doing an awesome job with a diverse student body, but also that scores likely tend to mostly reflect the SES of the families in question.

Which, to relate back to OP's question, indicates that if you stay on the Hill at a school like L-T (and you'd be lucky to be at L-T compared to many other schools in Ward 6!), your child will have a good number of peers at or above grade level, but probably fewer peers well above grade level as you might see in other schools where both the school and the family base is extremely well-resourced. Now, I personally think there are huge benefits to being in a school where not everyone has wealthy parents who watch their child's national percentages like a hawk, so I'd actually argue that L-T is offering the best of both worlds, meeting the needs of high performers, doing a good job moving low performers up to grade level, and also giving children an experience that isn't in some little bubble of privilege. This is one of many reasons I prefer public schools to private.

However, I think the claims in the last few pages that a significant number of L-T students are testing "well above" grade level are hyperbole and reflect maybe some of the hopes and dreams of the posters for their kids, and not facts. I'd also argue that you can't just drop the Grade 5 results as though they don't matter, because there is no guarantee that your child would get into a charter for Grade 5, or a private, or that you'd move. So if you are considering public schools on the Hill, you need to factor in that Grade 5 experience as though you will be part of it, and also factor in Middle Schools. If you find the Grade 5 results unacceptable, or if you find the Stuart Hobson unacceptable, I'd argue that L-T is probably not the best place for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were on the Hill with a toddler and moved to the burbs because we didn't want to have to play a lottery to get into reasonable schools. It was just too much uncertainty with kids draining out of neighborhood schools as early as 4th grade.

We're now in Arlington and our kids walk to elementary school with 98% of their classmates, a situation very similar to what they had on the Hill. But the difference is that we already know that they can also walk to middle and high school. No treks across the city. No uncertainty. No disruption of friend groups, though still student mixing as elementary and middle schools combine.

I won't say it's perfect, but we just couldn't bring ourselves to commit to a neighborhood where the schools wouldn't commit to us. (See DC lottery losers who have to move quickly to another house outside the Hill in time for middle school.)

My DS is happily situated in HS at Latin...but I sort of wish this is the path we had taken. I feel like we wasted so much time worrying about the uncertainty, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were on the Hill with a toddler and moved to the burbs because we didn't want to have to play a lottery to get into reasonable schools. It was just too much uncertainty with kids draining out of neighborhood schools as early as 4th grade.

We're now in Arlington and our kids walk to elementary school with 98% of their classmates, a situation very similar to what they had on the Hill. But the difference is that we already know that they can also walk to middle and high school. No treks across the city. No uncertainty. No disruption of friend groups, though still student mixing as elementary and middle schools combine.

I won't say it's perfect, but we just couldn't bring ourselves to commit to a neighborhood where the schools wouldn't commit to us. (See DC lottery losers who have to move quickly to another house outside the Hill in time for middle school.)

Where are you in Arlington where you can walk to elementary, middle and high school?

Look at overlapping walk zones for Hamm and W-L that are near an elementary school. There are a few neighborhoods that work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in DC (Capitol Hill area) and are the parents of a 15 month old. We won't be able to enter the PK3 lottery until 2025, so this is still some time off for us, but the big question that I have been wondering about as we look at DC public schools and decide whether we should stay or move to the suburbs is this--

How much does it really matter what percentage of a school's students are at grade level for reading/math?

I ask because I noticed that even the better schools in DC have large percentages of students not at grade level. We are in-bound to Ludlow-Taylor which has maybe 40-60% at grade level. Nearby Maury seems to be at about 75% I might be off somewhat with the precise percentages but the point is that these are not the 90-95%+ figures at a number of schools in the suburbs.

I've taught, though only at the college level, and even then it was pretty difficult for me to manage dealing with a class that not had obviously bright students but also students who obviously lacked the foundation to be in college (and mixing them together wasn't good for anyone). I know primary/secondary education is not college. I know that tracking is bad for students who are then stuck in the lower tracks (and in my own experience attending a racially mixed school district in suburban NJ, the higher tracks were almost all white while the lower tracks were almost all minorities, which was also not good).

I've also seen various articles/studies saying that it doesn't really matter where one goes to college. Taking my home state of NJ, there was once a study showing that controlling for SAT scores, etc., folks who went to Rutgers earned just as much as those who went to Princeton. I wonder if the same is true for elementary schools through high schools generally (controlling for all factors that schools can't control such as socioeconomic factors, the parents' degree of education, etc., etc.).

Putting my question again--how much is it going to matter if my child goes to a school in DC where say 50% are at grade level vs. a school in the suburbs where 95% are at grade level?

I know socioeconomic factors is the big elephant in the room, and I should also mention that in addition to having our child having solid academics, we also want him to learn from a wide diversity of folks from all sorts of backgrounds (he is himself a mixed kid, and his mother is an immigrant).

Thanks for any thoughts/comments you can share!

Oh honey. You can accept it now or sacrifice years of your child’s early education years to try to “be the change.” Either way you will end up like almost everyone I know: moving to a better school district or going private.

This factually isn't true.

What IS true is that many UMC families who place a high premium on education and academics opt out of their DC inbound for middle or high school unless they are in a JR feeder school. Not all, but many.

I would say most people I know do one of the following by middle school:
1) Move west of the park (if they can afford it) to get into Deal or Hardy
2) Get into a strong-ish application-based or charter school that is a good fit for their kids and family
3) Go private
4) Move to the suburbs

The above choices are all equally common among the families that I personally know and there are equal amounts of happiness and regret among all four categories. There are people who love JR and people who feel like their kids would have been better in the suburbs. There are families who love their suburban middle school and others who really feel it is too intense and homogenous. There are families who love their privates and others who feel like it is not worth it for the money. You get it.

And more immediately: For elementary school, there are lots of good (even outstanding) options including inbound DCPS programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your kid is 15 months old — how do you know your kid won’t be the one who is below grade level? I suggest enjoying your 1 year and worrying about this later.

Almost every parent in our school went on and on how great their kids were, and the kids are awesome indeed. Not all are great at schoolwork though in early grades. The kids are smart, sharp, inquisitive, but they have other interests such as computers, sport, science. Few kids want to sit around reading and writing in K-3. Not taking to schoolwork puts them below grade level. They are great kids with supportive parents and the kids will turn out great.
The good news is that they seem to catch up by grade 4 (maturing maybe or the curriculum becomes easier).
Some parents blame the school for their kid not doing as well as the others are and are looking into privates. Some blame the classroom teacher.
OP, your child maybe the one who will be below grade level. You don't know it yet. It will come as a wake-up call to you. You should encourage your child playing longer if this is your child (more play in privates). K in DCPS is brutal for most kids. I left before the year was over. It was that painful.
It is extremely hard to push reading and writing on a child who wants to play instead and should be playing.

[Anonymous]

Private school. Select one with 100% at grade level and problem solved.

[Anonymous]

This thread kind of makes me jealous of the vast majority of American parents who just enroll their kids in their suburban boundary school because that’s what’s available to them. Though I realize it’s a double edge sword, if those schools don’t work for their kid, most parents do not have another option. Moving or private school aren’t realistic to most of our country, where in the DC UMC it seems almost like a given if things aren’t working out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread kind of makes me jealous of the vast majority of American parents who just enroll their kids in their suburban boundary school because that’s what’s available to them. Though I realize it’s a double edge sword, if those schools don’t work for their kid, most parents do not have another option. Moving or private school aren’t realistic to most of our country, where in the DC UMC it seems almost like a given if things aren’t working out.

it is extremely coming throughout the rest of the country for parents to choose where they live specifically for the school their home is zoned for. Yes, they just send their kid to the local school, but they didn’t randomly end up where they did.

DC seems to be full of more oblivious parents who wake up one day and realize the house they bought with the great walk to all the bars and coffee shops is zoned for a terrible school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread kind of makes me jealous of the vast majority of American parents who just enroll their kids in their suburban boundary school because that’s what’s available to them. Though I realize it’s a double edge sword, if those schools don’t work for their kid, most parents do not have another option. Moving or private school aren’t realistic to most of our country, where in the DC UMC it seems almost like a given if things aren’t working out.

it is extremely coming throughout the rest of the country for parents to choose where they live specifically for the school their home is zoned for. Yes, they just send their kid to the local school, but they didn’t randomly end up where they did.

DC seems to be full of more oblivious parents who wake up one day and realize the house they bought with the great walk to all the bars and coffee shops is zoned for a terrible school.

I see this opinion on here often and I don't get it. In some cases good schools are "a great walk to all the bars and coffee shops." In other instances, people bought homes before they had kids or even knew if they wanted to have kids, so didn't prioritize schools (and didn't great metrics for evaluating them even if they did). Sometimes people buy homes believing the IB school to be good, only to attend for ECE and discover it's not at all right for their kid. Some people rent, and/or can't afford to live in-bound for better schools. Some people bought knowing the schools were bad but believed they would be able to move before it was an issue, only to run into issues (a job loss, Covid, home not appreciating well while homes in more desired school boundaries shooting up in price, etc.).

I know you think you are really owning all the families in DC who have poor IB schools that happen to be near a coffee shop or bar they enjoy going too, but you just wind up coming off incredibly ignorant. You seem to think there are large numbers of people who can buy wherever they want but choose homes in "hip" neighborhoods with bad schools just because they are stupid and oblivious. It's not happening. In fact, one of the things that happens is that a bunch of people buy homes in "hip" neighborhoods and then the schools get a lot better -- see the aforementioned Ludlow Taylor, and Maury, among others.

I'm sorry your upper NW neighborhood or suburb has so few good businesses to walk to, but at least your schools are good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread kind of makes me jealous of the vast majority of American parents who just enroll their kids in their suburban boundary school because that’s what’s available to them. Though I realize it’s a double edge sword, if those schools don’t work for their kid, most parents do not have another option. Moving or private school aren’t realistic to most of our country, where in the DC UMC it seems almost like a given if things aren’t working out.

it is extremely coming throughout the rest of the country for parents to choose where they live specifically for the school their home is zoned for. Yes, they just send their kid to the local school, but they didn’t randomly end up where they did.

DC seems to be full of more oblivious parents who wake up one day and realize the house they bought with the great walk to all the bars and coffee shops is zoned for a terrible school.

Lol yes, I never understand the people who post on here who say "My kid got screwed in the lottery, what are we going to do, we can't afford private and moving is not an option."

OF COURSE moving is an option, people move for schools across the US literally ALL THE TIME. Rockville and Arlington both have far cheaper housing than DC, better schools, and are metro accessible to downtown DC.

I'm not saying that moving isn't a huge pain, or that the locations are desirable, or that the commute would be good. But it is an option. I honestly can't think of a single scenario in which moving is truly entirely off the table unless you are locked into like a year long lease or something and even then you could wait that out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread kind of makes me jealous of the vast majority of American parents who just enroll their kids in their suburban boundary school because that’s what’s available to them. Though I realize it’s a double edge sword, if those schools don’t work for their kid, most parents do not have another option. Moving or private school aren’t realistic to most of our country, where in the DC UMC it seems almost like a given if things aren’t working out.

it is extremely coming throughout the rest of the country for parents to choose where they live specifically for the school their home is zoned for. Yes, they just send their kid to the local school, but they didn’t randomly end up where they did.

DC seems to be full of more oblivious parents who wake up one day and realize the house they bought with the great walk to all the bars and coffee shops is zoned for a terrible school.

I see this opinion on here often and I don't get it. In some cases good schools are "a great walk to all the bars and coffee shops." In other instances, people bought homes before they had kids or even knew if they wanted to have kids, so didn't prioritize schools (and didn't great metrics for evaluating them even if they did). Sometimes people buy homes believing the IB school to be good, only to attend for ECE and discover it's not at all right for their kid. Some people rent, and/or can't afford to live in-bound for better schools. Some people bought knowing the schools were bad but believed they would be able to move before it was an issue, only to run into issues (a job loss, Covid, home not appreciating well while homes in more desired school boundaries shooting up in price, etc.).



I know you think you are really owning all the families in DC who have poor IB schools that happen to be near a coffee shop or bar they enjoy going too, but you just wind up coming off incredibly ignorant. You seem to think there are large numbers of people who can buy wherever they want but choose homes in "hip" neighborhoods with bad schools just because they are stupid and oblivious. It's not happening. In fact, one of the things that happens is that a bunch of people buy homes in "hip" neighborhoods and then the schools get a lot better -- see the aforementioned Ludlow Taylor, and Maury, among others.

I'm sorry your upper NW neighborhood or suburb has so few good businesses to walk to, but at least your schools are good.

Actually I think the comment is spot on and I don't get it either. That said, I think it applies only to a slice of UMC DC that lives EOTP. These are the same people who say "outcomes track demographics. As long as your kid is from an UMC family they will be fine. Statistics show that. Don't worry about the schools." But what they don't realize is that in 95% of the country UMC people who want to use the public schools intentionally locate near good ones. There are very very few UMC families in the US that are going to failing schools, because they can afford not to. So what the "statistics" say about demographics really represents more than just straight demographics.

To the other poster's point about their young kid being in the "top XX%" nationwide.... I'm going to go out an a limb and assume this percentile is from i-ready scores, where the nationwide percentile is provided. But a cautionary point there, that I just realized myself. My current 6th grader has consistently scored in the 97-99 percentile on i-ready, including this year. But their middle-of-year 6th grade i-ready scores said that they were scoring as an end-of-year 6th grader. That seemed odd to me-- how could a kid in the 99 percentile be performing only slightly above grade level? I asked the teacher at conferences who said it was confusing to him too, but his best guess is that i-ready isn't used broadly across the US, and is mostly used by urban schools, so the "nationwide" sample set doesn't really represent the country. I started looking at scores differently after that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread kind of makes me jealous of the vast majority of American parents who just enroll their kids in their suburban boundary school because that’s what’s available to them. Though I realize it’s a double edge sword, if those schools don’t work for their kid, most parents do not have another option. Moving or private school aren’t realistic to most of our country, where in the DC UMC it seems almost like a given if things aren’t working out.

it is extremely coming throughout the rest of the country for parents to choose where they live specifically for the school their home is zoned for. Yes, they just send their kid to the local school, but they didn’t randomly end up where they did.

DC seems to be full of more oblivious parents who wake up one day and realize the house they bought with the great walk to all the bars and coffee shops is zoned for a terrible school.

I see the oblivion in the context of crime too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread kind of makes me jealous of the vast majority of American parents who just enroll their kids in their suburban boundary school because that’s what’s available to them. Though I realize it’s a double edge sword, if those schools don’t work for their kid, most parents do not have another option. Moving or private school aren’t realistic to most of our country, where in the DC UMC it seems almost like a given if things aren’t working out.

it is extremely coming throughout the rest of the country for parents to choose where they live specifically for the school their home is zoned for. Yes, they just send their kid to the local school, but they didn’t randomly end up where they did.

DC seems to be full of more oblivious parents who wake up one day and realize the house they bought with the great walk to all the bars and coffee shops is zoned for a terrible school.

I see the oblivion in the context of crime too.

This is nonsense. People know, they just think it won't affect them. And 99% of the time it doesn't. The other 1% come to DCUM to complain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread kind of makes me jealous of the vast majority of American parents who just enroll their kids in their suburban boundary school because that’s what’s available to them. Though I realize it’s a double edge sword, if those schools don’t work for their kid, most parents do not have another option. Moving or private school aren’t realistic to most of our country, where in the DC UMC it seems almost like a given if things aren’t working out.

it is extremely coming throughout the rest of the country for parents to choose where they live specifically for the school their home is zoned for. Yes, they just send their kid to the local school, but they didn’t randomly end up where they did.

DC seems to be full of more oblivious parents who wake up one day and realize the house they bought with the great walk to all the bars and coffee shops is zoned for a terrible school.

Other cities - not all of them, but a lot - have test-in programs and schools for kids with academic needs that won't be met otherwise. People outside have of DC have expressed surprise when I explain that, no, that's not a thing here. Obviously at some point as a parent you figure that out, but maybe not before you've moved here or bought a house.