What's up with Piney Branch?

[Anonymous]

The test scores for students of color at Piney Branch, particularly the black students, are pretty awful: https://www.greatschools.org/maryland/takoma-park/938-Piney-Branch-Elementary-School/#Race_ethnicity*Test_scores*Math

Even if you have a non-English speaking Ethiopian population of black students, I don't understand why math scores would be so low by 5th grade. At Rolling Terrace, for example, math pass rates for Hispanic and Black students at the 5th grade level are 28% and 30% respectively, but for Piney Branch it's only 14% (not that any of those rates are great, but Piney Branch is just abysmal)!

Is there something going on in the classrooms or the school in general that needs to be fixed? I'm very nervous about my son going there in another year. I don't want him to fall behind because some unknown element at the school is holding children of color back. I guess I could start reaching out to the principal or teachers there, I just wonder if anyone has any insight that might be helpful (or suggestions about what to do!).

TIA

[Anonymous]

You might want to look at MCPS's own data dashboard:
https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/data/LAR-charts/Evidence-of-Learning-Grade5.html#EOLGrade5DD

Also, Piney Branch just got a new principal.

[Anonymous]

The Great Schools scores are not yet updated for last year's PARCC but the Maryland Report Card should be updated.

http://reportcard.msde.maryland.gov/ParccTrends.aspx?PV=71:3:15:0749:3:N:0:13:1:2:5:1:1:2:3

Looks like 5th grade math last year broke out as follows for met or exceeded for kids of color:

Black - 15%

Hispanic - 25%


For Rolling Terrace, those numbers were:

Black - 11%

Hispanic - 16%


For East Silver Spring (the other ES that has some Takoma Park kids), the numbers were:

Black - 39%

Hispanic - 27%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You might want to look at MCPS's own data dashboard:
https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/data/LAR-charts/Evidence-of-Learning-Grade5.html#EOLGrade5DD

Also, Piney Branch just got a new principal.

PBES's principal was widely regarded as one of the best in the county, and was tapped to open a new school. I don't think she is the issue.

If I had to guess based on my child's experience at PBES - white middle class parents are VERY vocal about demanding differentiation and de facto segregation (hence PBES getting two CES local classrooms before most schools got one). The obvious downside is that kids of color and poor/working class kids are not served as well as they could be if the parent body wanted to see every kid succeed.

[Anonymous]

This will only be addressed when the county invests more $$$ into closing the achievement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Great Schools scores are not yet updated for last year's PARCC but the Maryland Report Card should be updated.

http://reportcard.msde.maryland.gov/ParccTrends.aspx?PV=71:3:15:0749:3:N:0:13:1:2:5:1:1:2:3

Looks like 5th grade math last year broke out as follows for met or exceeded for kids of color:

Black - 15%

Hispanic - 25%


For Rolling Terrace, those numbers were:

Black - 11%

Hispanic - 16%


For East Silver Spring (the other ES that has some Takoma Park kids), the numbers were:

Black - 39%

Hispanic - 27%

Curious that Hispanic kids at both those schools do the same but Black kids do worse at one.

[Anonymous]

Race is only interesting with these comparisons when it's a proxy for SES. Would look at these statistics with regard to FARMs rate if possible to gain greater insight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Race is only interesting with these comparisons when it's a proxy for SES. Would look at these statistics with regard to FARMs rate if possible to gain greater insight.

If we use the same metric (5th grade Math PARCC in 2018), the meet or exceed numbers for kids receiving FARMS are:

Piney Branch - 11%

Rolling Terrace - 12%

East Silver Spring - 37%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Race is only interesting with these comparisons when it's a proxy for SES. Would look at these statistics with regard to FARMs rate if possible to gain greater insight.

The FARM stats look comparable. Seems more a function of SES than anything specific to these schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Race is only interesting with these comparisons when it's a proxy for SES. Would look at these statistics with regard to FARMs rate if possible to gain greater insight.

If we use the same metric (5th grade Math PARCC in 2018), the meet or exceed numbers for kids receiving FARMS are:

Piney Branch - 11%

Rolling Terrace - 12%

East Silver Spring - 37%

I think the PP is right in assuming this is a function of SES, but the question to ask is what is ESS doing to help these kids and can it be done elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Race is only interesting with these comparisons when it's a proxy for SES. Would look at these statistics with regard to FARMs rate if possible to gain greater insight.

If we use the same metric (5th grade Math PARCC in 2018), the meet or exceed numbers for kids receiving FARMS are:

Piney Branch - 11%

Rolling Terrace - 12%

East Silver Spring - 37%

I think the PP is right in assuming this is a function of SES, but the question to ask is what is ESS doing to help these kids and can it be done elsewhere.

I'd ask what ESS is doing right overall. If we look at the exact same test, white kids did better at ESS than at Piney Branch as well.

For 5th grade math, 73% of white kids at PBES met or exceeded the metric, while 91% of white kids at ESS met or exceeded.

I've had kids at both schools and think they both have strengths and weaknesses. I think Piney Branch's scores for white and non-FARMS kids will only go up as the school holds onto all of its CES kids, while ESS does not yet have a local center. But I think ESS gets a bum rap on DCUM and I think OP is right to keep an eye on scores for marginalized kids at Piney Branch because those are not trending in the right direction.

[Anonymous]

“PBES's principal was widely regarded as one of the best in the county, and was tapped to open a new school. I don't think she is the issue.”

This depends on who you want all to. As a white, UMC woman, my impression was that the former principal was not excellent at pleasing the PTA and other highly involved parents. But perhaps not so hot at addressing the needs of all students (I’m being delicate here). I have high hopes that the new principal will be a substantial improvement in this regard.

[Anonymous]

PP here. Sorry for typos!! I meant “depends on who you talk to” and “the former principal was most excellent at...”

[Anonymous]

This is not a new situation. There have been threads in the past showing that minority kids are not doing as well at PBES as they do at ESS. It would be interesting to try to tease out what happens when the kids are combined at TPMS, but those scores include the TPMS magnet student scores, and you can't tell from parcc data which kids went to which elementary schools, which minority students are magnet and from outside the cluster, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is not a new situation. There have been threads in the past showing that minority kids are not doing as well at PBES as they do at ESS. It would be interesting to try to tease out what happens when the kids are combined at TPMS, but those scores include the TPMS magnet student scores, and you can't tell from parcc data which kids went to which elementary schools, which minority students are magnet and from outside the cluster, etc.

For OP's purposes, this is definitely bigger than PBES vs. ESS. The truth is that kids of color do worse at Piney Branch than one would expect, even compared to schools with similar demographics and populations. Some PPs have hinted at why that might be (a parent community that could euphemistically be called involved) but the only folks who can answer these questions are PBES administrators, who must have talked about this at some point and who hopefully have a plan to serve Black and Hispanic kids in the school.