Reply to OOB for Wilson feeders: What is your neighborhood school missing?

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Reply to "OOB for Wilson feeders: What is your neighborhood school missing?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]no one gives a shit about the extracurriclars if the academics are a mess. But go on DCPS, Im sure adding in art classes and archery will totally get all those high SES parents of Brents 4th grade class to stick around for Jefferson.   [/quote]

OP here.  I tend to agree.  I'm sure we all have long wish lists of what our neighborhood schools are missing, and suggestions for how they could be improved.  But what I'm really looking for, and I think what DCPS needs to hear, is about the key "dealbreaker" elements that caused us to reject our neighborhood schools.

Lots of people are saying test scores, and that makes sense to me.  Yes, there may be situations where parents tempted to look OOB will stomach low test scores, for example if you know your local school is really good despite the test scores or if you don't have another good option.  And on the flip side, I can imagine situations where parents might reject a high test score school, for example if it's in an inconvenient location.  The break point where each parent decides probably depends on a lot of small personal factors that are specific to each family.  It really seems like a school with low test scores just doesn't get the benefit of the doubt, so parents will look for ways to avoid those low test scores.

What do people think about that description of the problem?  Generally true for most people (although obviously not every single person), or way off base?

As a for instance test case, [b]if your local neighborhood schools (ES/MS/HS) started consistently hitting 35% proficient (level 4+5) in the PARCC scores, would you choose to attend them rather than going OOB?  What if they reach 50% proficiency? [/b] Here are the 2016 PARCC scores by school for reference - https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/publication/attachments/2016%20PARCC%20FINAL%20Results%20Press%20Deck%20FINAL.pdf  If you look at page 11, you can see the PARCC scores for each school.  The "% L4 + L5" column shows the total percentage of students testing proficient at each school.
[/quote]

Yes, I think you are getting at something with the benefit of the doubt idea.  But it is more complicater than that. 
[b]
35% 4s and 5s is actually more than I need.  20% would be fine, as long as most of the others are 3s.[/b]  Too many 1s is a red flag that the school is failing to adequately serve a large high-needs population.  I am fine with low income kids being the majority of students, but only if DCPS gives them what they need to succeed (or at least get 2s and 3s).

Still, ultimately without a good middle school feeder, people will leave when they can.  To me, these are the necessary conditions:

1) Good test scores, or middling scores and great faculty, adequate number of peers at my child's level academically.
2) Lack of serious behavior problems in my child's age group
3) Good middle school feeder.  High school not a necessity as we can hope for McKinley, Walls, etc.
4) Programming I want, high quality not pretend, academically and after school.

Must have all 4 of those things or people will leave when they can.

[/quote]

But do the numbers have to be higher than 20% proficiency for you for [b]middle school[/b], which is really the key indicator? Hardy Middle School, for example, is at 31% and 40% proficiency in math/ELA (vs 51% and 62% at Deal and 54% and 60% at Oyster-Adams). Yet most in-boundary families still won't give it a shot. I think the assumption (rightly or wrongly), with proficiency numbers <50%, is that classes will be taught at too low a level, behavioral issues will be too disruptive in the classroom, and students who are way ahead might end up losing motivation, while students on the edge of proficiency might get caught in the prevailing winds and fall to lower achievement levels.

Middle school and adolescence are scary to parents, and they will do anything they can to try to keep kids on track. Lacking better ways to evaluate, they'll use test scores as a proxy to evaluate the peer group for motivation and behavior, and numbers below 50% will scare them off. 
[/quote]

Numbers like Hardy's would be ok with me, assuming the absolute number of adequately performing kids is also enough for DD to have a good peer group.  What really matters is the percentage of 1s and how the kids behave.  A kid who is sweet and responsible, gets a 3 in ELA but really struggles with math, is one thing.  The kids who assault people on the metro are not ok no matter what their scores are.[/quote]

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