Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've looked at a handful of schools, and the science scores are across the board lower than ELA or math. I know it's a new test--and I know I've only looked at a few schools, but it does also say that on math and ELA, a 4 is "meets grade-level expectations," but for science, it's a 3.

I wonder if the science test needs to be redesigned to better reflect the curricula schools are teaching.

I think science only goes up to 4, there's no 5. Which is weird and makes comparison across subjects more difficult.

FWIW my kid got 4s on math and ELA, despite having gotten 5s on PARCC all prior years. Yet somehow she got a perfect score on the science CAPE. It's a mystery.

There are so many things that go into these numbers, and some of it can be traced back to No Child Left Behind which IMO started this obsession with ELA and Math test scores - taking time/focus/funding away from other subject instructions. A few years ago I know DCPS got in trouble bc across the board they were not providing as much science instruction as they were supposed to, in order to focus on math and ELA. Not to mention, many schools have two teachers in the room when they are teaching math/ELA, and/or have intervention groups, push-in/pull-out support, etc. In many elementary schools until recently science was considered a 'special' so not even taught every day.
So while big picture, yes - you can blame DCPS or whoever you want for poor science instruction/test scores, but as somebody who has worked in schools in DC, the teachers get mixed signals about what content and schedules to prioritize. All that to say I can see the flip side. As is discussed on here all the time, math and ELA skills are essential for being successful in all of the subjects, so I see why they spend a lot of time on those two.

Anonymous wrote:I've looked at a handful of schools, and the science scores are across the board lower than ELA or math. I know it's a new test--and I know I've only looked at a few schools, but it does also say that on math and ELA, a 4 is "meets grade-level expectations," but for science, it's a 3.

I wonder if the science test needs to be redesigned to better reflect the curricula schools are teaching.

I think science only goes up to 4, there's no 5. Which is weird and makes comparison across subjects more difficult.

FWIW my kid got 4s on math and ELA, despite having gotten 5s on PARCC all prior years. Yet somehow she got a perfect score on the science CAPE. It's a mystery.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've looked at a handful of schools, and the science scores are across the board lower than ELA or math. I know it's a new test--and I know I've only looked at a few schools, but it does also say that on math and ELA, a 4 is "meets grade-level expectations," but for science, it's a 3.

I wonder if the science test needs to be redesigned to better reflect the curricula schools are teaching.

Here are some of the science results for middle schools:

percent proficient:

BASIS: 64%
Latin, Anna Cooper: 54%
Latin, original: 38%
Deal: 35%
ITDS: 24%
Hardy: 21%
Francis: 10 %
SH: 6%
EH:7%

The problem isn't the test. It's DCPS.

(plus DCI, which is 11%)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've looked at a handful of schools, and the science scores are across the board lower than ELA or math. I know it's a new test--and I know I've only looked at a few schools, but it does also say that on math and ELA, a 4 is "meets grade-level expectations," but for science, it's a 3.

I wonder if the science test needs to be redesigned to better reflect the curricula schools are teaching.

Here are some of the science results for middle schools:

percent proficient:

BASIS: 64%
Latin, Anna Cooper: 54%
Latin, original: 38%
Deal: 35%
ITDS: 24%
Hardy: 21%
Francis: 10 %
SH: 6%
EH:7%

The problem isn't the test. It's DCPS.

You've missed my point, which was about the test. Even BASIS did much worse on science than on math or ELA.

That's not true, BASIS math profiency is 68%, so very comparable.

Now for high schools. I actually think science profiency might be a really good shorthand when evaluating schools.

Walls: 48.1%
Banneker: 15.1%
McKinley Tech: 5.3%
BASIS: 64.9% (this is one number, so harder to tell middle vs high school.)
Latin: 31.5%
Jackson Reed: 23.2%
Eastern: less than 1%

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've looked at a handful of schools, and the science scores are across the board lower than ELA or math. I know it's a new test--and I know I've only looked at a few schools, but it does also say that on math and ELA, a 4 is "meets grade-level expectations," but for science, it's a 3.

I wonder if the science test needs to be redesigned to better reflect the curricula schools are teaching.

Overall, the CAPE is a terrible test and we're the only ones who use it, so why it's not fine tuned to our curricula is beyond me. We really need to just start using what either VA or MD use so apples to apples comparisons are possible.

Completely agree.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've looked at a handful of schools, and the science scores are across the board lower than ELA or math. I know it's a new test--and I know I've only looked at a few schools, but it does also say that on math and ELA, a 4 is "meets grade-level expectations," but for science, it's a 3.

I wonder if the science test needs to be redesigned to better reflect the curricula schools are teaching.

Here are some of the science results for middle schools:

percent proficient:

BASIS: 64%
Latin, Anna Cooper: 54%
Latin, original: 38%
Deal: 35%
ITDS: 24%
Hardy: 21%
Francis: 10 %
SH: 6%
EH:7%

The problem isn't the test. It's DCPS.

You've missed my point, which was about the test. Even BASIS did much worse on science than on math or ELA.

Anonymous wrote:I've looked at a handful of schools, and the science scores are across the board lower than ELA or math. I know it's a new test--and I know I've only looked at a few schools, but it does also say that on math and ELA, a 4 is "meets grade-level expectations," but for science, it's a 3.

I wonder if the science test needs to be redesigned to better reflect the curricula schools are teaching.

Here are some of the science results for middle schools:

percent proficient:

BASIS: 64%
Latin, Anna Cooper: 54%
Latin, original: 38%
Deal: 35%
ITDS: 24%
Hardy: 21%
Francis: 10 %
SH: 6%
EH:7%

The problem isn't the test. It's DCPS.

Anonymous wrote:I've looked at a handful of schools, and the science scores are across the board lower than ELA or math. I know it's a new test--and I know I've only looked at a few schools, but it does also say that on math and ELA, a 4 is "meets grade-level expectations," but for science, it's a 3.

I wonder if the science test needs to be redesigned to better reflect the curricula schools are teaching.

Overall, the CAPE is a terrible test and we're the only ones who use it, so why it's not fine tuned to our curricula is beyond me. We really need to just start using what either VA or MD use so apples to apples comparisons are possible.

I've looked at a handful of schools, and the science scores are across the board lower than ELA or math. I know it's a new test--and I know I've only looked at a few schools, but it does also say that on math and ELA, a 4 is "meets grade-level expectations," but for science, it's a 3.

I wonder if the science test needs to be redesigned to better reflect the curricula schools are teaching.

It’s not 2025 yet so it’s accurate.

It says "The DC School Report Card currently displays data from the 2023-24 school year. Data from the 2024-25 school year will be available in December 2025" but now that it's December, I'm not sure if this statement is out of date or is the data old.

New data I think. If you look at the schools that are adding grades, you can tell what year it is by how many grades are offered.

Does this have new data or is it just a slicing and dicing of the old data?

https://schoolreportcard.dc.gov/home

Now with Science CAPE!