For high school, you can look at average SAT score.

For example, B-CC is in wealthy Montgomery County, MD and has an average SAT score of 1203, and Wakefield in Arlington, one of the wealthiest areas in Virginia, has an average SAT score of 1230.

In contrast, BASIS DC has an average SAT score of 1340.

You simply can't generalize that every suburban school is better than every DC public school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Send money to Deal so it can be #1 over Basis DC charter

Yes! Let’s throw more money at Deal and starve Basis so Deal can finally be #1!

NP no skin in the game.

LOL! For how wealthy and educated the zone is for Deal, they should be doing a whole lot beater then their numbers.

Their stats are mediocre at best as compared to similar in burbs. Just another example of low expectations in DCPS.

Deal has 1500 students from all over the city.

Deal is overwhelmingly IB. Small portion of OOB students does not make the above statement false.

The kids in Virginia, Maryland, and DC all take different tests - there is no way to measure how the kids at Deal are doing compared to the kids at schools in the burbs. You have to go back in time to when DC and MD were both giving PARCC to make a comparison.

Or you can compare the curriculums, the homework, the format of the work, course offerings...

Deal is the best DCPS (not public) middle school, but I do think it's hampered by the system. Do the kids really learn as much as the kids in suburban school districts?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Send money to Deal so it can be #1 over Basis DC charter

Yes! Let’s throw more money at Deal and starve Basis so Deal can finally be #1!

NP no skin in the game.

LOL! For how wealthy and educated the zone is for Deal, they should be doing a whole lot beater then their numbers.

Their stats are mediocre at best as compared to similar in burbs. Just another example of low expectations in DCPS.

Deal has 1500 students from all over the city.

Deal is overwhelmingly IB. Small portion of OOB students does not make the above statement false.

The kids in Virginia, Maryland, and DC all take different tests - there is no way to measure how the kids at Deal are doing compared to the kids at schools in the burbs. You have to go back in time to when DC and MD were both giving PARCC to make a comparison.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Send money to Deal so it can be #1 over Basis DC charter

Yes! Let’s throw more money at Deal and starve Basis so Deal can finally be #1!

NP no skin in the game.

LOL! For how wealthy and educated the zone is for Deal, they should be doing a whole lot beater then their numbers.

Their stats are mediocre at best as compared to similar in burbs. Just another example of low expectations in DCPS.

Deal has 1500 students from all over the city.

Deal is overwhelmingly IB. Small portion of OOB students does not make the above statement false.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Send money to Deal so it can be #1 over Basis DC charter

Yes! Let’s throw more money at Deal and starve Basis so Deal can finally be #1!

NP no skin in the game.

LOL! For how wealthy and educated the zone is for Deal, they should be doing a whole lot beater then their numbers.

Their stats are mediocre at best as compared to similar in burbs. Just another example of low expectations in DCPS.

Deal has 1500 students from all over the city.

Anonymous wrote:Send money to Deal so it can be #1 over Basis DC charter

hilarious. Ward 3 people cannot stand not being #1.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Send money to Deal so it can be #1 over Basis DC charter

Yes! Let’s throw more money at Deal and starve Basis so Deal can finally be #1!

NP no skin in the game.

LOL! For how wealthy and educated the zone is for Deal, they should be doing a whole lot beater then their numbers.

Their stats are mediocre at best as compared to similar in burbs. Just another example of low expectations in DCPS.

Anonymous wrote:Send money to Deal so it can be #1 over Basis DC charter

Yes! Let’s throw more money at Deal and starve Basis so Deal can finally be #1!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:0% of students at Ballou met or exceeded expectations on the state assessment in math.

0% of students at Anacostia met or exceeded expectations on the state assessment in math.

Charters may not be perfect, but it's clear that they are needed and should be funded fairly.

They are very needed. When you have seen up close how some DCPS schools are not even pretending to try and prepare some of these kids to be fully functional members of society (through low expectations, social promotion -- when you have seen an illiterate kid just keep getting promoted up) you will be very thankful for charters like KIPP and DC Prep, which parents have told me were "life saving" schools for their college-bound, low-income kids.

And at the other end, yes, schools like BASIS and Latin (and maybe DCI) are serving a very important need for upper income families who are not in bound for Hardy or Deal, because those kids desperately need to be challenged in order to be able to compete with their peers around the country when they go to college and beyond.

5 years ago when I was a young parent of young children, I probably would have enjoyed a juicy anti charter conversation. Now that's I've seen both ends up close, I can absolutely see the benefits.

The much more difficult and complex conversation is the 'yes and ...'. Agreed that for parents right now, having choices can be a great thing. But there are still kids in those schools with 0% proficient rates who should not be ignored/forgotten. So just focusing on the success of the kids who 'got out' is only half of the conversation. I know the city is trying to do things to draw enrollment (and therefore funds) back to some of the under enrolled DCPS schools like these CTE programs https://dcpscte.org/schools/ - but that is not going to address the kids who are years behind academically.

I think the city needs to start in elementary school and drastically change how they instruct kids who are significantly behind - not by retaining them because there is a lot of research about how being significantly older than your peers is not good. But having a remediation/intensive track to get kids caught up, the they can re-enter grade level courses when proficient. Until we have kids entering middle and high school on or near grade level, it is going to seem like an impossible task to get kids to where they need to be to graduate.

Those kids in the 0% schools need to be given a chance; but they should also be held accountable, and we should be more realistic about how their lives are going to work out earlier. This means separating out the kids with potential.

This may be one of the worst things I have read on DCUM, and that is saying a lot. Props to the other posters who are acknowledging the very real problem and impact of students who are several years behind. But deciding you know how someone's life is going to 'work out' at an early age? I really hope you are just explaining your thoughts poorly.

The effects of being behind start to seriously snowball by late elementary. High Impact Tutoring is great, but it's not enough. We need to fund intensive remedial classes to make sure all kids leaving elementary school are reading on grade level and have basic understanding of math skills. But there always needs to be an 'off ramp' for them to re-enter grade level classrooms. Labeling kids bc you 'know how their lives are going to work out' and basically giving up on them is pretty horrible.

DC schools have painfully low academic standards. Read about Mississippi. They did the opposite. Extremely tough standards and now poor kids there *trounce* DC kids on tests, despite spending a fraction of what DC spends on schools.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/opinion/mississippi-education-poverty.html

Thank you for sharing this article. Every person who argues for social promotion should be forced to read it.

"In fact, the third-grade gate lit a fire under Mississippi. It injected accountability: Principals, teachers, parents and children themselves were galvanized to ensure that kids actually learned to read. Each child’s progress in reading is carefully monitored, and those who lag — as early as kindergarten and ramping up in second and third grades — are given additional tutoring."

"Those who did not pass would get a second chance at the end of the school year. Children who fail this second try are urged to enroll in summer school as a last desperate effort to raise reading levels. Those who fail a third time are held back — about 9 percent of third graders — although there is a chance for a good-cause exemption if, for example, a child has a learning disability or speaks limited English."

"What happens to the children forced to repeat third grade? A Boston University study this year found that those held back did not have any negative outcomes such as increased absences or placement in special education programs. On the contrary, they did much better several years later in sixth-grade English tests compared with those who just missed being held back."

Anonymous wrote:Send money to Deal so it can be #1 over Basis DC charter

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Color me cynical, but when the education reform you’re bragging about is higher 4th grade NAEP scores, and the mechanism you used to achieve this is simply not allowing the lowest-scoring students to enter 4th grade in the first place, I conclude that you’re not so much educating students as hiding data.

You are the poster child for why reform in DC won't work. We can't improve things because unless the proposed solution solves ALL PROBLEMS we can't even try. If you read the article you would have seen the cliff for promotion got teachers and parents invested in remediation. Further research concluded that kids who repeated were no worse off down the line. Also noteworthy that, yes, the kids held back were disproportionately black and brown and Mississippi said, "Yes, and? We are trying to help kids learn to read. If that's more black and brown kids then the problem isn't our standards are too high, it is that those populations need more support to succeed". Would never fly in DC.

Serious question: What do people like you get from opposing all reforms? Why are you so invested in our failing system and the tons of kids who suffer as a result? Are you a WTU member? I'm seriously asking because I do not understand why people like you behave like you do.

I’m not a WTU member. I’m a parent. And I don’t oppose all reforms. For example I support the switch from Calkins to phonics, which was part of the Mississippi success story.

And I didn’t even say I was opposed to this particular reform—I just said I was cynical about whether there was actual improvement or just data manipulation. I’ve seen a lot of trends in education reform over the past 25 years, and most produce some kind of showy stats at the beginning without a lot of long-term gains. One reform I lived through was moving the kindergarten age cutoff in DC back from December to September, and gosh, it turns out older kids score higher even if nothing else changes. I’m particularly cynical about this kind of system that holds kids back so they're older when they take a test, especially if they’re still allowed to drop out of high school at the same age. If they’re still dropping out at 16, you didn't increase their lifetime learning, you just changed the year they take that particular test.

Couple things:
1. Bolded is akin to Trump screaming "fake news" at anything he doesn't like. You have an opinion and no data or studies are going to convince you
2. If you think delaying K is the same thing as having a promotion cliff then you are just ignorant. Not remotely the same thing. Alarms me you would equate the two
3. The comment about "Still dropping out at 16" is, as I said, why people like you stand in the way of progress. Unless we solve for ALL problems (i.e. no one drops out) it isn't worthwhile to try and improve the system and outcomes for anyone
4. Your latching onto Caulkins vs phonics is a sign that you are more interested in academic discussion than transformational change. You want to nibble on some inane pedagogical discussion while others want to help kids. Read the article! The cliff forced Mississippi to try all kinds of remediation to overcome the failures. Some worked, some didn't

My thesis remains. People like you are the biggest impediment to systemic improvement. You want to sit in the back and throw stones form the cheap seats. You want to tell us why proposed solutions won't solve all problems and argue that in the absence of a silver bullet no change can be made. You. Are. The. Problem.

No.

You are the problem.

Send money to Deal so it can be #1 over Basis DC charter

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Color me cynical, but when the education reform you’re bragging about is higher 4th grade NAEP scores, and the mechanism you used to achieve this is simply not allowing the lowest-scoring students to enter 4th grade in the first place, I conclude that you’re not so much educating students as hiding data.

Pretty nutty how you think schools that don't engage in social promotion are doing something sketchy. I think it's safe to say you're part of the problem.

+1. They are not manipulating the data. If you can’t pass 3rd grade, then you don’t move up to 4th. So yes the scores will be higher in 4th because these students actually are on grade level.

That is not manipulating the data. That is not socially promoting. Then you give supports to the kids who did not move up and can follow them to see how they do as another data point.

Anonymous wrote:Color me cynical, but when the education reform you’re bragging about is higher 4th grade NAEP scores, and the mechanism you used to achieve this is simply not allowing the lowest-scoring students to enter 4th grade in the first place, I conclude that you’re not so much educating students as hiding data.

Pretty nutty how you think schools that don't engage in social promotion are doing something sketchy. I think it's safe to say you're part of the problem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Color me cynical, but when the education reform you’re bragging about is higher 4th grade NAEP scores, and the mechanism you used to achieve this is simply not allowing the lowest-scoring students to enter 4th grade in the first place, I conclude that you’re not so much educating students as hiding data.

You are the poster child for why reform in DC won't work. We can't improve things because unless the proposed solution solves ALL PROBLEMS we can't even try. If you read the article you would have seen the cliff for promotion got teachers and parents invested in remediation. Further research concluded that kids who repeated were no worse off down the line. Also noteworthy that, yes, the kids held back were disproportionately black and brown and Mississippi said, "Yes, and? We are trying to help kids learn to read. If that's more black and brown kids then the problem isn't our standards are too high, it is that those populations need more support to succeed". Would never fly in DC.

Serious question: What do people like you get from opposing all reforms? Why are you so invested in our failing system and the tons of kids who suffer as a result? Are you a WTU member? I'm seriously asking because I do not understand why people like you behave like you do.

I’m not a WTU member. I’m a parent. And I don’t oppose all reforms. For example I support the switch from Calkins to phonics, which was part of the Mississippi success story.

And I didn’t even say I was opposed to this particular reform—I just said I was cynical about whether there was actual improvement or just data manipulation. I’ve seen a lot of trends in education reform over the past 25 years, and most produce some kind of showy stats at the beginning without a lot of long-term gains. One reform I lived through was moving the kindergarten age cutoff in DC back from December to September, and gosh, it turns out older kids score higher even if nothing else changes. I’m particularly cynical about this kind of system that holds kids back so they're older when they take a test, especially if they’re still allowed to drop out of high school at the same age. If they’re still dropping out at 16, you didn't increase their lifetime learning, you just changed the year they take that particular test.

Couple things:
1. Bolded is akin to Trump screaming "fake news" at anything he doesn't like. You have an opinion and no data or studies are going to convince you
2. If you think delaying K is the same thing as having a promotion cliff then you are just ignorant. Not remotely the same thing. Alarms me you would equate the two
3. The comment about "Still dropping out at 16" is, as I said, why people like you stand in the way of progress. Unless we solve for ALL problems (i.e. no one drops out) it isn't worthwhile to try and improve the system and outcomes for anyone
4. Your latching onto Caulkins vs phonics is a sign that you are more interested in academic discussion than transformational change. You want to nibble on some inane pedagogical discussion while others want to help kids. Read the article! The cliff forced Mississippi to try all kinds of remediation to overcome the failures. Some worked, some didn't

My thesis remains. People like you are the biggest impediment to systemic improvement. You want to sit in the back and throw stones form the cheap seats. You want to tell us why proposed solutions won't solve all problems and argue that in the absence of a silver bullet no change can be made. You. Are. The. Problem.