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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.)[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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

Ludlow Taylor 2021-2022 PARCC results by grade:

[b]Grade 3[/b]
[i]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%
[/i]
[b]Grade 4[/b]
[i]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[/i]

[b]Grade 5[/b]
[i]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%[/I]

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.[/quote]

I think you missed the PP's point in that they were guesstimating stats for the whole school -- explicitly not just 3-5. When you're considering the peers your kid will have, you don't just care about 3-5, especially when there's a very good chance you'll leave after 4th. I don't think the Grade 5 results are unacceptable, I just don't tell anything close to 1/3rd of the story of your kid's experience over 7-8 years, which if you just look at the PARCC average, is what you're doing.[/quote]

Why would you think PK3-2nd would be substantially different peers than 3rd? These are the same kids.

The PP said "in the average non-5th grade class, about 75-80% of kids are at or above grade level for reading and 50% for math." That's not true. Don't get me wrong, L-T's scores are GREAT. Not a knock on L-T at all.

The point, though, is that guesstimates of grade level based on your "sense" of your kid's class aren't great. The OP is asking about the impact of having a lot of kids below grade level in a classroom, assuming your child is at or above grade level. If this is something that matters to you, don't go by the broad perceptions of parents with kids at the school. Look at the numbers. L-T has a lot more kids at or above grade level than many other elementaries in Ward 6. It has fewer kids testing well above grade level than in some other DCPS elementaries and in some suburban districts. That's the data point. If grade level of the peer set is really important to you, make your decision based on actual data, not vague estimates, which as we see here, tend to be inaccurate. I would not have expected these to be the testing numbers based on the PPs' comments about L-T -- I would have expected to see a lot more 4s and 5s, especially in Grade 4.[/quote]

Sorry, you don’t understand that gentrifying schools especially have different average populations in PK v 4th? I can’t take anything you say seriously any more. FWIW my guesstimates are pretty accurate to the extent that internal school data is meaningful, because this is all publicly shared at LT during LSAT meetings.[/quote]

If the internal data shared at LSAT meeting is public, why not share it here? And what internal data? Is L-T doing testing of K or 1st graders on their own? That would be fascinating.[/quote]

[b]Are you the same poster who though PK and 4th grade classes were demographically then same anywhere EOTP?[/b] Because of course schools do their own testing of K and 1st graders. You seem very confident on a lot of points while seemingly having never stepped foot in any EOTP DCPS much less L-T.[/quote]

I don't think anyone made any such statement. The conversation has been explicitly about L-T and I actually haven't seen anyone discuss any other EOTP schools on here at all. I get schools gentrify but if that's what's behind lower than expected scores in higher grades, then it would seem that the real answer to OP's question is not "yes, having more peers at grade level is important" but instead "having higher SES peers is important." Related answers, but not exactly the same.

I know schools do iReady and other testing in classrooms to asses student progress in early elementary grades but I was not aware that schools aggregated that data and reported it out -- I thought it was intended just as a tool for teaching the specific student and tracking their progress, or making sure they are placed in the right groups for reading and math. I've never seen aggregated data on this from my school, just my individual student's test results. That's why I asked.

My kid is at an "EOTP" elementary, for what it is worth.[/quote]

You’ve seen your own kids scores but are surprised the schools administer the tests? Nothing in your original post had anything to do with sharing the data in an aggregated fashion; you questioned the idea that schools did the testing. [/quote]

Sigh. I feel like you are intentionally misreading my posts and being antagonizing for no reason. I view iReady and other classroom assessments differently than PARCC and other school assessments. The goal of iReady is to see where a specific kid is at so that they can be properly placed at the right level, and also so that a teacher (and parents) can track progress across the year or from year to year. It's child-specific. PARCC testing is not intended to be child-specific (though some people use it that way, it's not the reason these tests are administered) -- it's a school-wide assessment that is INTENDED to be aggregated in order to evaluate school performance.

I have never heard of schools using iReady scoring as an internal schoolwide assessment tool and I've never heard of a school reporting out in an LSAT meeting "here are the iReady scores aggregated for this year's K class." That doesn't happen at my school. So when someone (I guess you) asserted that L-T reported out "internal testing" for K-2nd grade, I was interested and wanted to know more, and it didn't occur to me that you were talking about iReady scoring because that's not been my experience or interaction with the iReady testing for my kid.

Instead you have repeatedly insulted me and taken a snide tone, and I don't know why. Sounds like L-T is a good school with some great test scores and a lot of feedback for parents on how kids are doing in the classroom. Why are you so angry? Not everyone has that at their school so maybe you could be a bit less defensive (no idea why you'd be defensive when people seem to universally agree L-T is doing a good job) and actually answer questions instead of acting like it's rude to ask.[/quote]

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