Reply to DC CAPE SCORES

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think the point is just that the data is complex.  At risk students do not as an overall general demographic score very well on CAPE and that leads to complicated discussions re whether or not schools with a large number of lower scoring at risk students are doing a good job.  But this is not true of all at risk students.  If you isolate some of the highest performing and most motivated students within any demographic, you are going to get higher scores.  If you just want to know how strong the student cohort is, then I guess it does not matter.[/quote]

The families on this board are not at risk.  So it doesn’t matter and is not relevant if schools are doing a good job of at risk.

Families on this board, majority will most likely have kids at or above grade level, so what matters is how strong the student cohort is overall.[/quote]
The way that this "at risk" conversation started is that someone wrote that it was really impressive that Latin was doing so well given how many economically disadvantaged / at risk kids they have.

My point was simply to say, "Nope."  Latin has fewer, not more at risk students than the other high schools on the list.

In general though, if you look at analyses of scores, like the one at Empower DC listed above, "at risk" is cross-referenced with scores to provide context.  This is because if you look at a school that has lots of students who would generally get a 25 on a test and they are getting 45s, then you know that school is doing a really good job.  Whereas if you just look at the 45s and say "what a bad score" you're missing the point that usually, on average, that student is expected to get a 25.  The point is that what is a good score for one student isn't what is a good score for another person.

So, if you are considering your neighborhood school and they have xyz test scores, and you want to know if they are a good school, you need to take into account what the context is of xyz score.

It's true, if the only thing you care about, as a parent, is that there is a large enough high performing cohort for your kid, it's simpler.  But if you're a policy maker, or even just a parent with an interest in statistics and DC schools writ large, then you might be interested in which schools are actually better as opposed to just which schools have the largest high performing cohort.

One reason you might be interested in this is because even if your family is wealthy or educated, your kid might have severe dyslexia and a reading delay and then, magically, they actually need good instruction oriented towards kids who are having a hard time in school.  Then you might be glad you've done the analysis to find the best school for your kids as opposed to just the school with the most kids who look like them.[/quote]

PP here. Your reasoning is flawed for families on this board.  Your definition of good is improvement in at risk scores which is not at all relevant to us.

What is relevant to kids at or above grade level is that they get the teaching content they need to challenge them and meet their full potential which is not happening, especially in schools with overwhelmingly poor performing at risk kids.  This is because OSSE does not allow tracking in schools - no G & T program at the elementary level, no tracking of subjects in middle/high schools except math

What happens is the teachers cannot effectively teach kids who are 3, 4 grade levels apart.  So they teach to the majority lowest common denominator.   This may not be apparent in ECE, K but it gets very apparent as the achievement gap widens starting in 1st/2nd.  If your kid is not at risk but below grade level then they are where many at risk kids are and will be fine because the content is geared towards them.  But not grade level kids and for sure not high performing kids.

Lastly, it’s not either/or when it comes to reading.  Just because a school is not at risk does not mean that they do not have a phonics reading curriculum.  In fact at schools where majority are at or above grade level, the school can identify these kids and pull out for more individual attention.  In addition, families also have the resources to further augment the support outside of school.

Once kids are reading, it is tiresome and boring to continue so much focus on phonics ad nauseam in elementary. They can move on to higher reading, analysis, etc….

I would argue that the issue is not that CAPE scores are not broken down by at risk but why the scores are so damn low for lots of kids in this town when we throw so much money for each kid.  Some of that is because these kids don’t have enough support starting early in elementary, social promotion, no tracking, etc..  in addition to inappropriate allocation and use of funds, etc…

Lastly, not all at risk kids are below grade level.  Some of these kids have a lot of potential if you give them the support early on with tracking.  That is not happening in DC.  So these kids lose out the most.  These families don’t have options to move to better school.  I say this as someone who was a FARMS kid who was placed in G & T by a teacher starting in 3rd which changed the trajectory of my life.  No such out for poor kids in DC.  By high school with schools like Banneker, it is too late and there is only so much catching up you can do.[/quote]

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