Anonymous wrote:Depends if you definite "objectively, clearly successful" as
a) having a high percentage of kids passing cape (which could happen if the kids entering are better students OR if the school gets better at preparing kids who start out lower performing)
b) having median growth scores that outperform other dcps schools when controlling for demographics
c) offerings: tracked classes, extracurriculars, certain languages or curricula
d) something else
Not an indicator in itself, but a result of the other factors - enrollment trends can be something to look at. The 8th grade that just graduated was the smallest grade in the school. The rising 8th grade is roughly 1.5 times the size, and the rising 7th grade is even larger. Not sure yet how many 6th graders there will be. When schools are changing quickly the data lags a bit, which may be reflected in test scores in the coming years, since there are always delays in posting those results. Also, I know a lot of people on here are concerned about having a large enough high performing cohort - if you look at the PARCC/CAPE scores and sort by sub groups, you will see that some sub groups are performing amongst the highest in the city.
As discussed on here a lot, figuring out how to chip away at the achievement gap is a whole other conversation/challenge. I am sure all of the trends above can be said about other schools in DC that are experiencing enrollment increases and are in gentrifying neighborhoods.