Reply to Why is Washington Latin MS now a Tier 2 school?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]But so what, parents need to encourage more middle schools to be of decent quality, not harping on whether one or the other is Tier 1 or Tier 2.  We need more Tier 2's!![/quote]
Yeah!! Achieving the tier 2 level is now our goal!  Congratulations. [/quote]

The PP you are mocking is correct. Since MGP controls for starting test scores, you could have an entire city of kids who start smart and learn a ton -- [b]as long as there's a scintilla of variation among the kids, some of the schools will be "tier 2." Given the ranking system, the fact that a good school moved down to tier two actually means that the availability of quality of schools in the city is increasing.[/b] Which is indeed the goal. [/quote]

If you look at the Charter Board, that is just not the way the system usually works.
I challenge you to find one other Middle School that serves a mixed population that has moved from Tier I to Tier 2, or one that has flipped back and forth.  Or actually any other middle school, because although someone mentioned EL Haynes, I could not find it.

Here is the statement from the Charter Board
Charter Board Releases 2014 Performance Management Framework (PMF) Results

"This year, 16 elementary/middle schools and six high schools earned Tier 1 status based on their performance during the 2013-14 academic year. Seven schools received this high-performing designation for the first time, while 10 charter schools have been Tier 1 for all four years that the PMF has been in existence. (See chart below for more detail.)

The results this year also show that there are quality charter programs across the city serving a range of students:

The top 10 Tier 1 schools come from almost every part of the district - Wards 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 – and five of them are middle schools."

those are in order of rank
Achievement Prep (has always been Tier I)
Basis PCS (first year, Tier 1)
DC Prep - Edgewood Middle (has always been Tier I)
Friendship PCS - Chamberlain Middle - moved up
Friendship PCS - Woodridge Middle - moved up

"Eight of the top 10 schools serve between 75% and 100% low-income student populations (measured by free and reduced lunch status).
Seven of the top 10 schools serve more than 90% African American student populations.
Just five schools, or fewer than 10% of all rated schools, were rated Tier 3. Most schools rated Tier 3 in previous years have either improved or closed."

Given the population that Latin serves, Latin has always been an anomaly, but this is a big deal, not based on a [b]"scintilla of variation among the kids." [/b] Many schools start out Tier I and remain Tier I, and most schools that become Tier I stay Tier I. Latin MS went from 79% out of 100 in 2011 to 59% in 2014 and lost the Tier I status it had always had (you have to have 65%).  The high school, which has also always had Tier I status, kept it.  The Latin website is quick to point out that the MS is a reward school, but I think there are very few schools on this list of Tier I middle schools that most parents at Latin would send their kids to, and the question remains:

why didn't this cohort of kids learn enough between 2011 and 2014 in Latin MS to improve their DC CAS scores sufficiently to keep their Tier I status?  All the top scorers - Deal Basis and Latin had plenty of room for improvement.  It was not like everyone scored advanced.... I understand that kids are now staying for high school and not peeling off for private schools, and that is great, so there is no brain drain, but even as the school gets whiter and has fewer Farms kids and higher DC CAS scores less education is going on?  I don't think any of these three schools teach to the DC CAS - they just usually provide enough of a good education that the scores take care of themselves, and Basis managed it......

So falling from Tier I to Tier 2 is not typical of [b]any charter school[/b] and it is a big deal.
It means that for some reason Washington Latin did not educate these kids enough for their DC CAS scores to improve sufficiently to keep their Title I status.  There was definitely room for improvement, improvement was possible, and it did not happen.  These are the kids who are now entering the high school.

I don't know whether DCPS measures growth the same way, but we can look at how the kids in 2012 scored in 2014 even though it is much less scientific and they only had two years............

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