Anonymous wrote:The equities of tracking and ranking students are a lot more complicated than you seem to realize. Try reading some of the research literature on it.

Can you please link some of the research you're describing? I'm not sure I totally follow what you mean by "the equities of tracking and ranking." Does that just mean, "It's not fair to label some students 'catching up' or 'not-proficient'," and it might give them a poor self-concept? If so, DCPS is already giving them that label with the PARCC scores. I don't see how generating classrooms based on that same data is a problem.

The immediate problem is that it would create scheduling difficulties. If all the classes are the same, it is a lot easier to put together student schedules. Much harder if you have to put them with a specific teacher at a specific time. It is really hard to design a schedule that gets kids into the right levels in every subject.

Fair enough that it's more complicated to schedule for 3 large groups of students than it is if you treat all students as identical. But it's not that complicated. Surely a principal could figure this out. Indeed, lots of schools that are less sophisticated than DCPS do this, so it's not rocket science.

Might be an improvement, but it isn't a total fix.

Totally agree with that. But the problems DCPS middle schools face are not going to be solved by any single solution. It's going to be a bunch of different steps that collectively push toward improvement. This effort also might be a complete failure - but it can't hurt to try since so many parents seem to be clamoring for it. At the very least, if it's a complete failure after 2 years, then DCPS can shut down the differentiation experiment and point to it whenever parents ask!

OP you mentioned BASIS. Here's how the math / elective /foreign language scheduling works there.

For 6th to 8th, each student is in a group (e.g. 6 Helium).

All students have 7 classes together with their element -- and they break up to go to their respective math classes by level (determined by placement tests in 5th, and sometimes adjusted based on performance). The kids choose 1 elective and in 7th choose a foreign language -- so they aren't with their element for that class either.

The math classes have most room for differentiation and a wide range of ages. My 9th grader is in Alg 2 with a class of mostly 7th and 8th graders.

If the school only had middle school I don't know that they would be able to allow students to advance as far, because there wouldn't be quite enough kids to fill the classes (~20-22 students).

Anonymous wrote:16:19 again. As an added benefit, I suspect the students in the advanced category could handle slightly higher student:teacher ratios, which might allow lower student:teacher ratios in the classrooms where students are struggling to reach proficiency.

Oh honey. There would not be more advanced students, at least not for a long time. Instead of three sections of mixed ability, you would end up with one very small advanced class, and one remedial class that needs a low ratio to succeed. The remaining kids in the middle level would be two many for one class so you would need two, for a total of four instead of three. That is why it is so expensive.

Anonymous wrote:16:19 again. As an added benefit, I suspect the students in the advanced category could handle slightly higher student:teacher ratios, which might allow lower student:teacher ratios in the classrooms where students are struggling to reach proficiency.

That's what's happening at Hardy. 30 kids in the advanced math classes. Parents aren't thrilled, but they aren't at critical mass yet to be able to break it into 2 sections.

Anonymous wrote:15:19 again. Some of you are over-complicating what I was suggesting. It doesn't need to be a complex process. It can be as simple as (1) those that got an A in the class last year get put in one of the advanced classrooms, (2) those that got B or C get put in an on-track classroom, and (3) those who got D or F get put in a catching-up classroom.

Or alternatively, DCPS could simply use each student's PARCC score to roughly group the students by current achievement level. It's not meant to be a ranking, but rather just a rough classification to focus the teaching.

No extra teachers are needed because it's just subdividing the same students by achievement level, so that teachers can gear the classroom style to best fit the students sitting there. Lots of school systems do this; it's not complicated.

Why won't DCPS try this out? Especially since it's something lots of parents seem to want at up-and-coming schools, DCPS could institute it on a trial basis at one middle school (Hardy for example, or maybe MacFarland) to see how it works.

First off, they are in the subjects where achievement and proficiency is easiest to detect -- math. Hardy, SH and Deal all do this now. Jefferson has said it would if there are a minimum number of students to make a class (~20). And the Algebra mandate will make it happen at other schools.

You held out Deal as the model here - that's all they have, aside from so many kids that they have to have 3 separate baseball teams because of the size of the enrollment.

Anonymous wrote:15:19 again. Some of you are over-complicating what I was suggesting. It doesn't need to be a complex process. It can be as simple as (1) those that got an A in the class last year get put in one of the advanced classrooms, (2) those that got B or C get put in an on-track classroom, and (3) those who got D or F get put in a catching-up classroom.

Or alternatively, DCPS could simply use each student's PARCC score to roughly group the students by current achievement level. It's not meant to be a ranking, but rather just a rough classification to focus the teaching.

No extra teachers are needed because it's just subdividing the same students by achievement level, so that teachers can gear the classroom style to best fit the students sitting there. Lots of school systems do this; it's not complicated.

Why won't DCPS try this out? Especially since it's something lots of parents seem to want at up-and-coming schools, DCPS could institute it on a trial basis at one middle school (Hardy for example, or maybe MacFarland) to see how it works.

The equities of tracking and ranking students are a lot more complicated than you seem to realize. Try reading some of the research literature on it.

The immediate problem is that it would create scheduling difficulties. If all the classes are the same, it is a lot easier to put together student schedules. Much harder if you have to put them with a specific teacher at a specific time. It is really hard to design a schedule that gets kids into the right levels in every subject. Might be an improvement, but it isn't a total fix.

16:19 again. As an added benefit, I suspect the students in the advanced category could handle slightly higher student:teacher ratios, which might allow lower student:teacher ratios in the classrooms where students are struggling to reach proficiency.

15:19 again. Some of you are over-complicating what I was suggesting. It doesn't need to be a complex process. It can be as simple as (1) those that got an A in the class last year get put in one of the advanced classrooms, (2) those that got B or C get put in an on-track classroom, and (3) those who got D or F get put in a catching-up classroom.

Or alternatively, DCPS could simply use each student's PARCC score to roughly group the students by current achievement level. It's not meant to be a ranking, but rather just a rough classification to focus the teaching.

No extra teachers are needed because it's just subdividing the same students by achievement level, so that teachers can gear the classroom style to best fit the students sitting there. Lots of school systems do this; it's not complicated.

Why won't DCPS try this out? Especially since it's something lots of parents seem to want at up-and-coming schools, DCPS could institute it on a trial basis at one middle school (Hardy for example, or maybe MacFarland) to see how it works.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my days of attending Takoma Education Center, now called Education Campus, we had a GT program within the school. A few of us were pulled out of class during a particular subject for advanced instruction.

Not sure why schools can't do this anymore.

NP. I was wondering too. Why couldn't a middle school just say, in essence, "For 2017-18, we're going to use a combination of objective test results + grades to split all students into three groups for each subject: (1) advanced, (2) on track, and (3) catching up." The teachers assigned to each group would then focus their efforts and teaching style as appropriate for each group.

It seems like doing something like that would go a long way toward resolving the angst some parents have on these topics.

Why can't some middle school do something like that?

Because the data show it exacerbates the achievement gap - and that is too little to really help the advanced/truly gifted students either.

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/09/28/443193523/who-are-the-gifted-and-talented-and-what-do-they-need

That article is about extrordinary gifted children, not just garden variety smart. Regular smart kids would do just fine with an honors class in their best subjects. But it is more expensive to offer, because the school still has to offer all the regular classes too.

The poster who first mentioned Takoma EC back in the day called for G&T, which is only for the outliers in most places.

The really expensive/complicated part is figuring out how you will decide who gets into the advanced track, and who doesn't and making sure the selection process isn't biased. It isn't as simple as taking a test (see AAP in Fairfax, or the HGCs in Montgomery Co). And then finding a curriculum, etc

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my days of attending Takoma Education Center, now called Education Campus, we had a GT program within the school. A few of us were pulled out of class during a particular subject for advanced instruction.

Not sure why schools can't do this anymore.

NP. I was wondering too. Why couldn't a middle school just say, in essence, "For 2017-18, we're going to use a combination of objective test results + grades to split all students into three groups for each subject: (1) advanced, (2) on track, and (3) catching up." The teachers assigned to each group would then focus their efforts and teaching style as appropriate for each group.

It seems like doing something like that would go a long way toward resolving the angst some parents have on these topics.

Why can't some middle school do something like that?

Because the data show it exacerbates the achievement gap - and that is too little to really help the advanced/truly gifted students either.

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/09/28/443193523/who-are-the-gifted-and-talented-and-what-do-they-need

That article is about extrordinary gifted children, not just garden variety smart. Regular smart kids would do just fine with an honors class in their best subjects. But it is more expensive to offer, because the school still has to offer all the regular classes too.

Anonymous wrote:Deal kids come in more well prepared on average than kids in other schools. On average, kids at Deal are on grade level and they get a good result without differentiation.

That is not the case at other MS. Take Hardy. The IB cohort is a lot like deal. But there is also a large group of kids way below grade level. This makes it very tough for one teacher to challenge all kids in an integrated class. So the classes get taught below grade level, making Hardy unattractive for IB families.

Not really. 63% of Deal students are proficient or advanced in ELA and just 50% in Math. Among subgroups - minorities, special needs students -- it's signficantly lower.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my days of attending Takoma Education Center, now called Education Campus, we had a GT program within the school. A few of us were pulled out of class during a particular subject for advanced instruction.

Not sure why schools can't do this anymore.

NP. I was wondering too. Why couldn't a middle school just say, in essence, "For 2017-18, we're going to use a combination of objective test results + grades to split all students into three groups for each subject: (1) advanced, (2) on track, and (3) catching up." The teachers assigned to each group would then focus their efforts and teaching style as appropriate for each group.

It seems like doing something like that would go a long way toward resolving the angst some parents have on these topics.

Why can't some middle school do something like that?

Because the data show it exacerbates the achievement gap - and that is too little to really help the advanced/truly gifted students either.

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/09/28/443193523/who-are-the-gifted-and-talented-and-what-do-they-need

Anonymous wrote:In my days of attending Takoma Education Center, now called Education Campus, we had a GT program within the school. A few of us were pulled out of class during a particular subject for advanced instruction.

Not sure why schools can't do this anymore.

NP. I was wondering too. Why couldn't a middle school just say, in essence, "For 2017-18, we're going to use a combination of objective test results + grades to split all students into three groups for each subject: (1) advanced, (2) on track, and (3) catching up." The teachers assigned to each group would then focus their efforts and teaching style as appropriate for each group.

It seems like doing something like that would go a long way toward resolving the angst some parents have on these topics.

Why can't some middle school do something like that?

Deal kids come in more well prepared on average than kids in other schools. On average, kids at Deal are on grade level and they get a good result without differentiation.

That is not the case at other MS. Take Hardy. The IB cohort is a lot like deal. But there is also a large group of kids way below grade level. This makes it very tough for one teacher to challenge all kids in an integrated class. So the classes get taught below grade level, making Hardy unattractive for IB families.

Double down on ECE. Provide wrap around services to students and families in elementary schools. Job training for parents.

Until you get more kids leaving 5th grade at grade level, the middle schools simply aren't going to be able to address the needs of students at both ends of the spectrum.

The city's priority has to be the needy kids -- MS is their last chance to maybe catch up before dropping out.