Are Test Scores the Right Focus for choosing lottery entries?

[Anonymous]

Folks seem very focused on test scores on this site. I understand the urge, to look at the data that is measured, but is it really the right measure for me to be looking at in determining where my kid goes to school? If I have a PK or K student and I'm looking at a choice between a neighborhood school with lower CAS scores or an OOB school with higher scores, should the scores be enough to drive my decision?

Don't the scores reflect an economic and parental education demographic (and perhaps ELL population) more than quality of teaching, principals etc. For example, wouldn't you expect Francis Stevens to have higher scores than Tubman just based on income levels and number of ELL students -- I'm using these as an example because they are both schools with almost zero white students, so we don't have to get mired in some kind of flame war about race/scores etc. But, does that mean my kid (who for arguments sake we'll say comes from a middle income family with two highly educated parents of mixed race) will do better individually at Francis-Stevens over Tubman? Shouldn't I expect her to do equally well in both places on an educational achievement basis? Thus, shouldn't my choice be based on a bunch of other factors -- do I like the PK teachers? How much time will we spend on the commute everyday? Does the school have some other extra that I like (immersion at Bancroft, Chinese language at Thomson, an amazing art teacher, a school garden, whatever).

Why would I expect my individual child (who is the person I'm making this choice for) to do better or worse based on the average test scores of students five years older than her.

Obviously, I understand why the measure is critical for overall determining the success of a given school in doing in its duty to its students and in assessing the overall system, but on individual basis, I'm not sure it tells me a whole lot.

[Anonymous]

My children are in testing grades 4 and 8 so scores reflect a teachers ability to prepare my kids for the next level. In the early years I only cared about the social component of schools, but as they age these things also matter. We have found out that they (scores) are the gateway to the elite high schools in the area for my 8th grader because schools say that teacher grades are so subjective and don't match actual ability levels. Their importance increases each year until they take the SAT. To me it just depends on how far down the road you are looking and what grade your kids are in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My children are in testing grades 4 and 8 so scores reflect a teachers ability to prepare my kids for the next level. In the early years I only cared about the social component of schools, but as they age these things also matter. We have found out that they (scores) are the gateway to the elite high schools in the area for my 8th grader because schools say that teacher grades are so subjective and don't match actual ability levels. Their importance increases each year until they take the SAT. To me it just depends on how far down the road you are looking and what grade your kids are in.

I guess my question is does the average score of the school tell you anything about how your child will do on the test? I have a PK kid, so I really don't know. I'm asking, not arguing. But, looking at data, it seems like you could correlate test scores at most schools with the number of economically disadvantaged students and the number of ELL kids. Once you control for that, its hard to say one school is performing better than another -- its just that the students within that school are performing better. Would the kids at Cooke do better if you moved them to Ross? Or, would switching those student bodies flip the scores for those schools even if all the teachers, classrooms, principals etc remained the same.

[Anonymous]

I think for preK/ K what matters most is the individual teacher in the classroom. The only way to know that is to visit the school, observe the classrooms. The next most important thing is the principal and the tone she/he sets for the school. How long has the principal been in place? Supported by parents? Supported by teachers? Likely to stay? Next thing I'd look at is outdoor play space. For a lottery due soon, too late to do this level of research. . . .
The amount of emphasis on the scores tells you something about your preK experience in the school. For the 18 days of DC-BAS/CAS testing, my preK had no specials (art, library, PE) because all teachers were proctoring, and no recess because no noise was tolerated. Locked down in classroom.

[Anonymous]

it seems like you could correlate test scores at most schools with the number of economically disadvantaged students and the number of ELL kids. Once you control for that, its hard to say one school is performing better than another -- its just that the students within that school are performing better. Would the kids at Cooke do better if you moved them to Ross? Or, would switching those student bodies flip the scores for those schools even if all the teachers, classrooms, principals etc remained the same.

This is a good point. I think the latter is more likely. The student population and parental involvement are important.
Even if you move the Cooke or Tubman population to a JKLM, test scores would not increase significantly.

[Anonymous]

I agree, I think test scores as a whole are more reflective of the socio-economic status and background of the student population. And I also agree, at younger than K, maybe younger than 1st grade, it doesn't matter. And I also agree that your individual child's scores mean the most to you.

But, here's what I think happens. (And my child is 4, so I don't know this - I am just surmising it from what I've read and seen.) I think most teachers teach to the middle, and help the bottom up and give some level of accelerated teaching to the kids at the top. Remember DCPS has no gifted program. So where is your middle? If you're at a school where the parents are highly educated achievers, as a whole, your middle is probably higher than if you are at a school with more economically disadvantaged kids.

So, if you're highly educated and expect that your child will be as well, the child will probably do fine at a school with lower test scores. But will they be pushed as far as they could have been if they were at a school with others more with their same background? As they get older, and peer interactions become more important, will they push beyond what their friends can do? Will they be challenged?

I don't think those differentiations happen at 3, 4, 5, maybe even 6 years old. I think they might start at 7 or 8. Merely conjecture on my part. So I think nearly any school, as long as the teacher is good, will work at the younger ages. There's some point though, where I think it might stop working, and that might be before testing starts.

[Anonymous]

I think test scores reflect several backstories.

For example, one of the backstories they tell is what level the teachers have to aim for during the majority of instruction. In other words, if only about 1/3 of the students (Cooke) are performing AT GRADE LEVEL, then the majority of instruction - even in the early years - is going to be heavily focused just on remedial instruction to move that lever up the dial. That's why you see homework in Pre-School (3 y.o.) at Cooke. If the average is around 50% (Tubman, Francis-Stevens) then teachers (in the whole school - because this is Rhee's priority) will be aiming straight at the middle of the pack to get the marginal students over the line, but again there's a ripple effect down to the early elementary classes. At a 3rd tier school where about 75% are passing (Ross, Shepherd) the teachers can finally start to aim above grade level, but still about a quarter of the class is going to need extra attention on all the things that matter. (And by "all the things that matter" we mean "to their evaluation by Rhee".) At a 2nd tier school (Hearts, Hyde, Stoddert) you can expect quality instruction at the testing levels and creative, enriching play at the early elementary levels because the % of students underperforming on the standardardized tests has finally dropped below 20%. And the expectations are another step up at a tier 1 school.

So, level of testing scores at the DC-CAS stages is going to ripple down the line in terms of the quality of instruction and the creative, inspirational activities. Of course, it's also going to make a difference in the level of autonomy the school is allowed from downtown. 92% advanced or proficient? Rhee isn't going to breathe down the principal's neck. 50%?? Expect the school to focused on scores scores scores... And the sad fact is that with performance numbers like those, in order to raise scores at 4th grade you have to start drilling and killing down into Kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

The early year "homework" at Cooke and other Title 1 schools is for the parents rather than for the children -- it's things like, spend 20 minutes reading to your child this evening -- and it's a federal mandate (to get the Title 1 $$) that has nothing to do with Rhee.

[Anonymous]

It's also silly to pretend that the socioeconomic demographics (and thus, largely, school readiness and test scores) of last year's 3rd-5th grades at Cooke look anything like those of this year's (or next's) early childhood classes there.

[Anonymous]

PP, interesting. What are the socioeconomic differences? How do you know?

Anonymous wrote:It's also silly to pretend that the socioeconomic demographics (and thus, largely, school readiness and test scores) of last year's 3rd-5th grades at Cooke look anything like those of this year's (or next's) early childhood classes there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's also silly to pretend that the socioeconomic demographics (and thus, largely, school readiness and test scores) of last year's 3rd-5th grades at Cooke look anything like those of this year's (or next's) early childhood classes there.

Is it silly to suppose that even if Cooke has marginal success in attracting inbounds middle-class families that it is unlikely to differ from, say Ross or West in the family escape plan? It's one thing to say "let's try it out" with pre-school, it's something else to say "let's keep it up" in 1st grade. (Much less 3rd or 4th!) Children who aren't good readers by 3rd grade are very unlikely to EVER be good readers. It's a sobering and well-established fact, and it's the reason that in DC the older children get, the more anxious parents become to escape low-performing schools. I know you want to boost Cooke and insist that low-performance is just some sort of vestigal appendage that will disappear within another K class or two. But honestly, by the time you hit 1st? People will be pealing off for charters and privates and Hearst and Hyde. And by 3rd or 4th?? When you can actually get into JKLM via OOB because so many have moved on to privates?! Be honest. Anyone would jump at the chance. It's going to be a shrinking pool, every year, making it harder and harder to try to up those 3rd-5th grade scores. Sure, it could happen. Just like the Wizards could go to the NBA finals. But let's not bet real money on it, nor mislead the innocent out-of-towners and pretend until it's done deal. If it were that easy, Shepherd would have pulled it off years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's also silly to pretend that the socioeconomic demographics (and thus, largely, school readiness and test scores) of last year's 3rd-5th grades at Cooke look anything like those of this year's (or next's) early childhood classes there.

Is it silly to suppose that even if Cooke has marginal success in attracting inbounds middle-class families that it is unlikely to differ from, say Ross or West in the family escape plan? It's one thing to say "let's try it out" with pre-school, it's something else to say "let's keep it up" in 1st grade. (Much less 3rd or 4th!) Children who aren't good readers by 3rd grade are very unlikely to EVER be good readers. It's a sobering and well-established fact, and it's the reason that in DC the older children get, the more anxious parents become to escape low-performing schools. I know you want to boost Cooke and insist that low-performance is just some sort of vestigal appendage that will disappear within another K class or two. But honestly, by the time you hit 1st? People will be pealing off for charters and privates and Hearst and Hyde. And by 3rd or 4th?? When you can actually get into JKLM via OOB because so many have moved on to privates?! Be honest. Anyone would jump at the chance. It's going to be a shrinking pool, every year, making it harder and harder to try to up those 3rd-5th grade scores. Sure, it could happen. Just like the Wizards could go to the NBA finals. But let's not bet real money on it, nor mislead the innocent out-of-towners and pretend until it's done deal. If it were that easy, Shepherd would have pulled it off years ago.

Let's correct a few misconceptions here: first, Tubman has done an excellent job on raising test scores WITHOUT the demographics changes that have happened at Cooke and Ross. Francis, too, particularly if you only look at 3rd grade scores and not the average scores school chooser offers (which are based on 3-8th grade). Second, you are assuming that people will jump ship at places like Cooke, whereas in reality, it looks like very few parents are planning on making the shift next year. The FACT is, DC is experiencing an upper class baby boom. Neighborhood schools won't succeed without us, (I'm not being all entitled, but you need a mix to make a school work), and it's time for us to make this happen. Things are changing, and, like most things in DC, they're changing faster than YOU, dear quoted poster, can keep up with.

[Anonymous]

And, with scores increasing every year, Shepherd IS pulling it off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's also silly to pretend that the socioeconomic demographics (and thus, largely, school readiness and test scores) of last year's 3rd-5th grades at Cooke look anything like those of this year's (or next's) early childhood classes there.

Is it silly to suppose that even if Cooke has marginal success in attracting inbounds middle-class families that it is unlikely to differ from, say Ross or West in the family escape plan? It's one thing to say "let's try it out" with pre-school, it's something else to say "let's keep it up" in 1st grade. (Much less 3rd or 4th!) Children who aren't good readers by 3rd grade are very unlikely to EVER be good readers. It's a sobering and well-established fact, and it's the reason that in DC the older children get, the more anxious parents become to escape low-performing schools. I know you want to boost Cooke and insist that low-performance is just some sort of vestigal appendage that will disappear within another K class or two. But honestly, by the time you hit 1st? People will be pealing off for charters and privates and Hearst and Hyde. And by 3rd or 4th?? When you can actually get into JKLM via OOB because so many have moved on to privates?! Be honest. Anyone would jump at the chance. It's going to be a shrinking pool, every year, making it harder and harder to try to up those 3rd-5th grade scores. Sure, it could happen. Just like the Wizards could go to the NBA finals. But let's not bet real money on it, nor mislead the innocent out-of-towners and pretend until it's done deal. If it were that easy, Shepherd would have pulled it off years ago.

Let's correct a few misconceptions here: first, Tubman has done an excellent job on raising test scores WITHOUT the demographics changes that have happened at Cooke and Ross. Francis, too, particularly if you only look at 3rd grade scores and not the average scores school chooser offers (which are based on 3-8th grade). Second, you are assuming that people will jump ship at places like Cooke, whereas in reality, it looks like very few parents are planning on making the shift next year. The FACT is, DC is experiencing an upper class baby boom. Neighborhood schools won't succeed without us, (I'm not being all entitled, but you need a mix to make a school work), and it's time for us to make this happen. Things are changing, and, like most things in DC, they're changing faster than YOU, dear quoted poster, can keep up with.

Oh my!

I would love to see your data regarding DC's upper class baby boom. I would especially love to see anything statistically valid to support your wild suggestion that these booming upper class families of DC(?!) intend to abandon their traditional favourites (Beauvoir, GDS, Maret, Sidwell, WIS, etc.) for HD Cooke. ROFL!

[Anonymous]

where are these "second tier" and first tier lists of schools coming from? Hyde and Eaton are second tier? I beg to differ. What is this based on?