Why is Washington Latin MS now a Tier 2 school?
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Anonymous
I agree with you, but let's not ignore that there is somewhat of a zero-sum game going on here. The competition for prepared fourth/fifth graders amongst Hardy/Latin/Basis/Stuart Hobson (and others) is real, and it has significant implications. Even the Chancellor said she needs prepared students to improve her schools, and that DC charters have shown a knack for attracting them. Over time the number of prepared students should increase, and that will allow more middle schools to use this tool for improvement (there are other tools as well), but for the time being there is competition amongst schools for these kids, and the Latin bashing and Hardy boosting seen in this thread is what you get in that environment. |
Anonymous
What was really interesting is that [b]all[b] of the tier I schools I looked at, including Deal, had this huge spike in scores in 2010. Then the question became who kept hold of it, who moved forward, and who sank back down. I started this thread and I am not sending a kid to Hardy. I hope very much to get one kid into Latin. But I am concerned. I only looked at the Tier I schools so I am not sure if the spike was universal, but if you compare it to say Washington Latin High School, where when our oldest was considering Latin back in the dark ages we were warned that so many peeled off to privates in 9th it would not solve our financial problems, if you look at their graph, they are slow and steady improvement. Deal has that spike in 2010 and then stays in the stratosphere. But no Tier I school falls back down. And I found the focus info on another thread. As the announcement said, x # of schools have been Tier I since they opened (Washington Latin MS until now included, the high school since it opened maintaining its status and getting better every year as more people stay), and once these schools make it they don't tend to fall back down. There was some mention of EL Haynes on another thread having once been Tier I and now being Tier 2 but I can't find that info. I think I have seen some of the nastiest snobbiest posts from Latin parents here in my entire time on DCUM and I find that very discouraging as well. Laughing at a parent who has sent children to both schools - are you kidding me? |
Anonymous
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NP here. To answer an earlier question--what is the MS to HS retention rate at Latin--I was told that for next year only 5 new ninth-graders were admitted. There will probably be more, because my guess is that some parents still register for Latin even though they might later change their mind and got to Wilson or private, so once they announce, more new ninth-graders will be admitted. Still, to me that is a very positive sign that so few are leaving after 8th grade.
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Anonymous
| Actually, I was surprised at how few Tier 1 schools there are, at least among the DCUM favorites. Two Rivers, Capital City, YY, LAMB, and BASIS are the only ones, I think. E.L. Haynes, Stokes, Latin and Inspired Teaching are all Tier 2. (I know MV, CMI, Bridges and Lee are yet to be ranked.) |
Anonymous
Agree. FWIW Cap City elementary and middle were both Tier 2 in 2014. HS was Tier 1. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
Last year the 9th grade waiting list was over 200 |
Anonymous
Interesting "dark ages" comment. Not sure what the PP is referring too. However, around 2010 quite a few high SES AA parents stopped sending the sons to Latin and began not considering applying due to the stereotyping that was occurring at the school (including comments made by Board members). This community started looking at Deal for which we are inbound and other schools both private and charter. It has developed the reputation in this community as only being a school that you can send your child if you can be present in the school on a daily or almost constant basis. |
Anonymous
dark ages = 2010, when everyone who applied could still get in to Latin but in talking to high SES parents they said that most of the kids in our group were still going private in 9th grade. We were looking for a solution for 4 kids all the way through, so that was not it. What is so interesting to me is how the popularity has skyrocketed and the kids staying for high school increased at the same time that Latin started absolutely failing its advanced kids - so they took a bunch of highly scoring kids, and moved them DOWN from advanced to proficient. And [b]these are the kids moving on to high school now, where retaining them is such a feather in their cap. Not AA, but I have heard the same thing about Washington Latin for AA kids much more recently than 2010 - no shade, just the unvarnished truth. That assumptions are being made and kids are being treated differently, and they certainly do not seem to be doing any better by their AA advanced kids - although I think the numbers kind of show you are correct perhaps, that high performing AA kids started going elsewhere. The AA population has decreased. Latin allows you to helicopter parent your kid to the nth degree but you cannot change their color. We do not have that problem (we are white), but had I sent my kid to Latin and watched their score go from advanced to proficient on the DC CAS I would have been pissed. So we are back to the fundamental question, and all of us who are looking at Latin (some for the second time), want to know what has happened at Washington Latin MS - why was momentum lost, and why are they moving in the wrong direction - from advanced to proficient as opposed to the other way around. Especially those of us who have kids who have always scored advanced on the DC CAS since 3rd grade. Washington Latin MS and HS were Tier I from the day they opened their doors (and that was a gradual process). They started in 2006 or 2007. I cannot begin to explain how atypical a progression this is for a charter school that everyone wants to get into NOW, including those charter schools that Latin would definitely consider "laughable" schools by comparison - like KIPP and DC PREP. All these Tier I schools - those that have been there from day I, and those that have just attained the status, show improvement - Latin MS is the only one going in the other direction: hence the well deserved drop from Tier I to Tier II. I challenge Washington Latin MS parents to find another school with a similar drop where it is "not a big deal" whether it is just the pure descent on the FOCUS graphs or a Tier I to Tier II. It is a big deal, and it makes a big difference to me. Unlike all these trendy Charter schools that have only existed for a few years, Washington Latin has a long history. And a lot of explaining to do if it wants to continue to recruit the right type of MS parents (academic, not racial) WL MS parents - do your school a favor, raise a little bit of hell, even if you do it very very quietly. Your kids deserve it Thanks for all the info - I learned that the charter board evaluation system is actually fair, but that if you really want all the info from the day a school started, you don't go to the Charter Board, Learn DC, or OSSE - you go to Focus. I am sorry if I sound old school - you can be loosey goosey in elementary school, because the kids who come from high SES backgrounds learn most of what they need to at home. Middle School is when the teachers are supposed to take over, find what sparks our kids intellectually and encourage them to run with it, and Latin on paper (meaning course descriptions, glossy fliers) still appears to be an intellectual paradise. But the emperor has no clothes. Kudos to the Charter Board for calling them on it. I'm sure they got a lot of blow back. But the DC CAS scores over time tell us in no uncertain terms that they have been doing a disservice to their kids, especially the high performing ones. We have no more DC CAS. But this is something I would like to see the administration of the MS address and explain because it does look bad. If they, like the Latin parents on this thread, consider themselves "above it" because of their waiting lists, I think they will be making a HUGE mistake short term as well as long term..... These are objective statistics. Laugh all you want, but get to the bottom of it........ |
Anonymous
| Basis opened in 2012 and attracted many high performing kids who would have otherwise gone to Latin. Could this account for some of the decline observed at Latin? |
Anonymous
I have been wondering if it is not the Latin curriculum itself, time spent learning Latin (which I figured would help my kid's SATs) taking away from working towards advanced status in math and reading? I'm concerned because I have 2 kids I wish could go there, but while one is a star student the other is not. I need a school that can handle both types |
Anonymous
The amount of time spent learning Latin at WL is not enough to keep the students from learning math. As a point of comparison, the BASIS students also take Latin in 5th and 6th grade and they score better in Certament competitions and the NLEs. WL should have better reading skills because the English instruction at BASIS is piss-poor in the middle school. Not to make this a BASIS v. Latin thread. I know very many smart students and involved parents at Latin and these scores don't seem to reflect what WL is as a school. If it can happen there, I worry about ALL the Tier I charters. |
Anonymous
No, Hardy. |
Anonymous
To be honest, I don't think so - a) because the timing doesn't line up in terms of Latin's starting to fail its advanced kids in 2011, although there were about 10 who switched from Latin to Basis when it started - the first year Latin fell was 2010 t0 2011 our first and second (and only) DC CAS scores were 2013 and 2014 - so Latin started to decline 3? years earlier? b) because for parents who were informed Basis attracted a completely different type of kid meaning kids who wanted a math acceleration possibility and a heavy science emphasis and c) many at Basis ended up their initially because they could not get in anywhere else and Basis took everyone who applied that first year, which was why our attrition rate was so high - we took 5th-8th, and our first two years we were close to Title I (2014 officially Title I - over 40% FARMS - and with that population we scored 2nd on the DC CAS) pretty far from the Washington Latin population, who scored 3rd that year (Deal, as always, took 1st) now their has been a huge shift - we are only 27% Farms and almost 30% white this year but I will say as the parent of kids of color, I love the fact that my kids are in with a mix of kids from everywhere who work hard and do well - positive role models I don't really think Latin and Basis would be in competition at all were there more decent middle schools - IMO, no matter what it says on the tag, they are designed for completely different kinds of kids. We have kids who would go bonkers at Latin because of the paucity of science in the early years and the inability to accelerate in math, I believe there are kids from Latin who would go equally bonkers at Basis. While parents have claimed you can enjoy Basis without loving math and science, and I believe that, I don't think you could be at Basis if you hated math and science - like I did as a kid......... And I don't think you could be at Latin if you wanted to go fast in math. Most kids don't, many can't, there is no pressure at Basis, but for the kids who can and want to it is a wonder. |
Anonymous
| I'm the PP who mentioned above that only five new ninth-graders have been accepted through the lottery. I find some of the previous comments bizarrely hostile, particularly the very long one above. If you don't think WL is a good enough school, then it's very simple: don't apply there. We have close friends who have sent two kids to Latin--one is in MS now and one is in HS but started in the middle school. We have been following these students' work for a long time, as we think about various schools (DD is in third grade now so we'll enter the lottery next year). I can't explain test scores, but the actual academic work they are doing at Latin is top-notch; I've been impressed with what I've seen. So all you who "challenge" WL to explain why you should deign to apply there, please don't apply! That way people who really want to go there will have a better chance. I think there's a reason it has the waiting lists it does, and it isn't from resting on laurels. Fortunately, people who don't think Latin is good enough have other options, and isn't that the whole point? |