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[quote=Anonymous]I actually think this ranking is very useful and insightful. I think this methodology shows what many MC parents in DC don't want to think about. That the best schools are the WOTP "schools on a hill" that benefit from more resources and easier populations, and the KIPP style schools, which have a well established, proven methodology for their target population. That's maybe the top 20 schools. Then you get to the next step down, which are the schools that are doing better than expected for the hand they're dealt, but don't perform as well as the top set of schools for various reasons. That's about the next 20 schools. It's mostly the KIPP style schools that don't perform as well as they could (but still better relatively speaking), the "hidden gem" DCPS that people fight over on DCUM and have happy parents in the neighborhood, and a few charters that are doing better but don't have a "hook" that makes them uber popular in the lottery (IT, Sela, ELH). Then you have the next 20 schools that have decent scores, but either have easy to teach populations "propping up" the scores (charters mostly), or harder populations and are not quite as good as the "hidden gem" DCPS schools.

I think the real take away is that for the vast majority of kids hovering around grade level, there are MANY schools in the roughly 20-75 range that can educate your child well, and most of these schools are more similar than different when you get down to brass tacks. If you want a "hook" or prioritize the middle school pathway, then cool have at it, but a few years or more in a school without a 200+ kid waitlist doesn't mean that your child won't get a comparable education to those kids in the hyped up school down the street. [/quote]

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