Assessing proficiency in private schools

[Anonymous]

I stand accused...in good company.

[Anonymous]

It's not a personal agenda -- it's a different view of what education should be. I've found a school that shares that view but, unfortunately, it has really high test scores. If word of them leaked out, I'd probably have to deal with the likes of you on a regular basis.

Now, now I do not want to be party to any leaks of your school's really high test scores. Please destroy these tapes.

[Anonymous]

A third person here for making the test results public. I don't understand the following:

1) The schools are testing anyway, so how exactly are you escaping this?
2). It's great you're pleased with your school. (Are you one of the majority cathedral-Sidwell parents revealed on Sam2's survey?) but of us who are stillbin the application stage - how do you get off saying we don't need this info?
3) The hubris, the hubris. "I'm doing great so I don't care about you." And putting words into our mouths ... where did anybody (besides you) say that the privates might go bankrupt, oh, this has been proven wrong?

[Anonymous]

I'm so confused. I don't understand the following:
1. Private schools are testing already, so how exactly have you escaped it?
2. If private schools *were* held publicly accountable for their scores, which you say you don't want, would this be a bad thing? As you say, there are other dimensions to the decision anyway.
3. The hubris, the hubris. It's great you like your school. (My guess - you're one of the majority Sidwell/Cathedral families on Sam2's survey about DCUM participation.). But where do you get off saying the rest of us, still in the application stage, aren't entitled to info about top and not-so-top schools?

[Anonymous]

I think everyone would agree if you're choosing a surgeon, an important criterion would be how many of this type of surgery he or she does per year and the success and complication rate. There might be other important criteria but that one would be up there. So with surgery, everyone agrees what "success" looks like. I doubt you'd find a surgeon out there who would disagree that this is a valid measure of "success"--although you probably would find some disagreeing with the specific criteria used for classifying things, for example as "complications."

For education, not everyone does agree that "success" means "high standardized test scores." Public schools are measured that way, so they make it their mission to raise scores. But you will find private schools that do not include "high standardized test scores" in their misson. They may administer standardized tests, but it is not their mission to maximize the scores. So for that reason, and probably for others, this type of school would not want to be judged on standardized test scores.

[Anonymous]

This doesn't make sense either. Why are private schools administering tests, if not to identify areas of weakness and improve them? Are you saying they throw the results out? Sure they want high scores.

To reiterate what others here are saying: we are never going to judge a school only by it's scores, which seems to be your fear. Of course there are other factors like class size, feel, fit, arts.. You seem to think that releasing scores will bring Woodward and Bernstein down on the school, and that's just not the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A third person here for making the test results public. I don't understand the following:

1) The schools are testing anyway, so how exactly are you escaping this?
2). It's great you're pleased with your school. (Are you one of the majority cathedral-Sidwell parents revealed on Sam2's survey?) but of us who are stillbin the application stage - how do you get off saying we don't need this info?
3) The hubris, the hubris. "I'm doing great so I don't care about you." And putting words into our mouths ... where did anybody (besides you) say that the privates might go bankrupt, oh, this has been proven wrong?

1 -- no teaching to the test, internal use only, kids don't stress (nor do they think it gives them bragging rights), minimum standard rather than goal or measure of excellence
2 -- I didn't say *you* didn't need it -- you seem to think you do; I said you had no right to it. And that I was fine with my DC's school suffering whatever consequences would be associated with not catering to parents who conceptualize their needs as you do. No equity issue here -- your needs are easily met in a variety of other schools. But I don't see why you should get to the call the tune and force everyone else to dance to it.
3 -- 22:13 is the one that raised the spectre of bankruptcy. She's on your side.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Are you suggesting private school folk reading DCUM do not have the intelligence to weigh discussion and dialogue, data and anecdotes, whim and caprice, and then draw their own conclusions (like yourself)?

Yes, I am. The boosters, bitter rejects and trolls on this board can all make themselves seem pretty credible when they want to. Hard data, please.

Think of it like the FDA coming in and requiring Trix to tell you exactly what's in their cereal. They wouldn't do it otherwise. I'm asking for voluntary disclosure.

[Anonymous]

I think everyone would agree if you're choosing a surgeon, an important criterion would be how many of this type of surgery he or she does per year and the success and complication rate. There might be other important criteria but that one would be up there. So with surgery, everyone agrees what "success" looks like. I doubt you'd find a surgeon out there who would disagree that this is a valid measure of "success"--although you probably would find some disagreeing with the specific criteria used for classifying things, for example as "complications."

For education, not everyone does agree that "success" means "high standardized test scores." Public schools are measured that way, so they make it their mission to raise scores. But you will find private schools that do not include "high standardized test scores" in their misson. They may administer standardized tests, but it is not their mission to maximize the scores. So for that reason, and probably for others, this type of school would not want to be judged on standardized test scores.

Can you then explain to us why millions of people on earth scramble to prepare and get high test scores for any opportuinty to enter institutions of higher learning in this country to drink from the cup of the American dream?
Institutions from Pre-K, K, middle school, high school, college, medical, law, engineering, graduate and business schools in the US use test scores as a measure of knowledge, expertise and competence. Even after "school" continuing education relies on periodic test score bench marks until retirement in this country. No one here, certainly not I, is arguing that "success" means "high standardized test scores". The rule in America, not the exception, is that standardised test scores are a measure of competence (like surgical complication rates and mortality rates). And schools of lower and higher learning use these test scores as one of their entry criteria. This practise may explain the public preoccupation with the need for transparency and accountabilty on part of schools.

[Anonymous]

1 -- no teaching to the test, internal use only, kids don't stress (nor do they think it gives them bragging rights), minimum standard rather than goal or measure of excellence
2 -- I didn't say *you* didn't need it -- you seem to think you do; I said you had no right to it. And that I was fine with my DC's school suffering whatever consequences would be associated with not catering to parents who conceptualize their needs as you do. No equity issue here -- your needs are easily met in a variety of other schools. But I don't see why you should get to the call the tune and force everyone else to dance to it.
3 -- 22:13 is the one that raised the spectre of bankruptcy. She's on your side.

You better believe it. I don't know who 22:13 is but simply witness what has happened to Lehman Brothers. The independent private school business in the D.C. area is not immune from market forces. There is folding up, downsizing and merging going on in this educational space or "bubble". It will continue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

1 -- no teaching to the test, internal use only, kids don't stress (nor do they think it gives them bragging rights), minimum standard rather than goal or measure of excellence.

Actually at our school the kids did share results. And a kid with really bad results left at the end of the year, although the process in his departure was a mystery but parents did know his ERBs.

Honestly you make it seem like the schools throw the results out. Yes, they do care. As you said, if only because current parents will know the scores. So there probably is teaching to the test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

1 -- no teaching to the test, internal use only, kids don't stress (nor do they think it gives them bragging rights), minimum standard rather than goal or measure of excellence.

This all sounds perfectly lovely. (Although I don't believe it.)

However, if the scores are high anyway, as you continue to insist, where's the problem in making them public? If anything, the high scores you insist are there would attract more qualified applicants to the school. The opposite of the Deep Throat scenario you seem to fear.

[Anonymous]

Actually at our school the kids did share results. And a kid with really bad results left at the end of the year, although the process in his departure was a mystery but parents did know his ERBs.

Honestly you make it seem like the schools throw the results out. Yes, they do care. As you said, if only because current parents will know the scores. So there probably is teaching to the test.

One wonders whether this information (ERB results) is used by private schools to arm twist or counsel families to get out of their schools before these children hit the 9th grade.

That would make for a great under cover investigative report. Area independent private schools abhor standardized testing but privately
use results of these tests to counsel families to seek other educational options?

[Anonymous]

....For education, not everyone does agree that "success" means "high standardized test scores." Public schools are measured that way, so they make it their mission to raise scores. But you will find private schools that do not include "high standardized test scores" in their misson. They may administer standardized tests, but it is not their mission to maximize the scores. So for that reason, and probably for others, this type of school would not want to be judged on standardized test scores.

No one is talking about "success" rather "admission" and "entry". Have you checked out the low standardized test scores to Sidwell and St Albans, Exeter and Andover, Harvard and Yale, Stanford Business School and Yale Law School (WPPSI, SSAT, SAT, MCAT, LSAT)

[Anonymous]

Bernstein, is that you? It's me, Woodward. I think you've nailed the subject for our next piece to turn DC upside-down! I see a long-running newspaper series, a book deal and maybe even a movie!