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Anonymous wrote: "stay to help" ..... How much do you really think families can help alter the curriculum of a school? Seaton PTO is excellent at community building, but the families don't do anything that will impact the test scores and the in-class experience.

+1. Old principal wanted upwards differentiation. New principal doesn't. It's a policy choice and it isn't up to the parents. I don't know what "help" you think can happen. What was once a strong academic school for advanced kids is no longer, on purpose.

Yes, thank you. This is the point I was trying to make. We experienced the old principal, when Seaton had the highest math growth scores in the city, and there were hardly any families "helping" and my kids in-class experience was awesome. Under the new principal, total lack of differentiation and high expectations. But plenty of "helpers" at school!

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Anonymous wrote: "stay to help" ..... How much do you really think families can help alter the curriculum of a school? Seaton PTO is excellent at community building, but the families don't do anything that will impact the test scores and the in-class experience.

+1. Old principal wanted upwards differentiation. New principal doesn't. It's a policy choice and it isn't up to the parents. I don't know what "help" you think can happen. What was once a strong academic school for advanced kids is no longer, on purpose.

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Anonymous wrote:Can anyone help me figure out why several schools have data suppressed for 3+ when data was not suppressed for 4+?

For example, for Whittier and DC Bilingual, 4th grade math scores are "DS" for 3+ but you can see how many 4th graders scored 4+. Obviously the sample size would be greater for the 3+ sheet so it seems confusing and hard to figure out what disclosure risk would be introduced?

Because something about that data is too individually identifying. Maybe there is only one kid who got a 3 or none? Alternatively, are 1 & 2 suppressed as well? It may be that that data would allow you to back out other suppressed data.

Without identifying my school, our 4+ data for Black students in math is suppressed overall, but provided for 2 grades. When you back out all of the data and compare it against the totals, it seems like it's likely because <5% of that single grade got 4+ (which is horrifying and very out of line with the other grades).

Thanks. I understood the DS suggested there was a disclosure concern. I just could not think of what that concern might be given 4th grade math scores for 4+ were fine to present but not 3+. But, maybe you are right and the issue is that the 4+ counts would be very similar to the 3+ counts and show only a handful of students got 3s? (To me, that's still not a clear disclosure concern but I can see a business rule that gets you there.)

Yes. that is the concern. Its actually a huge debate now; lots of data providers are using this as an excuse to tamper or hide data. The census now does 'noise' infusion. So most census data now has random data inserted in it. OSSE simply doesn't show anything that would reveal a count under some cutoff. Its all silly and not really 'privacy' in the standard sense.

Thanks. I recently worked someplace that also followed the census approach though called it coarsening (but it wasn't simply creating coarser categories it was actually adding noise). It really bothered me given almost never was there a real privacy concern that was being addressed.

Anonymous wrote: "stay to help" ..... How much do you really think families can help alter the curriculum of a school? Seaton PTO is excellent at community building, but the families don't do anything that will impact the test scores and the in-class experience.

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Anonymous wrote:Huge drop at Seaton in 4+ test results compared to last year -- down 6 pts in ELA and 5.3 points in Math.

The drop compared to 2019 in 3+ scores is even worse, like 19 percent in Math. Totally horrifying. In 2019, there was not a single "gentrifier" kid in the testing grades, but the school pushed for excellences in all the kids. Now, Seaton has 100 gentrifiers and the scores are dropping.

Your hyperbole is very useful in this conversation. Thank you for that.

To clarify, do you mean to imply that the school's 80% BIPOC student population is all gentrifiers?

The school has 400 kids, the percentage you are looking at is 2 years old, and this is one of the most rapidly gentrifying zip codes in the country. Not hyperbole. Go visit.

I have a son at Seaton now. I’ve lived in Shaw since 2014. Saw the familiars on the first day Monday. It’s still one of the most diverse schools in the city. When were you last there? Did you stay to help or run away when things got hard?

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Anonymous wrote:Huge drop at Seaton in 4+ test results compared to last year -- down 6 pts in ELA and 5.3 points in Math.

The drop compared to 2019 in 3+ scores is even worse, like 19 percent in Math. Totally horrifying. In 2019, there was not a single "gentrifier" kid in the testing grades, but the school pushed for excellences in all the kids. Now, Seaton has 100 gentrifiers and the scores are dropping.

Your hyperbole is very useful in this conversation. Thank you for that.

To clarify, do you mean to imply that the school's 80% BIPOC student population is all gentrifiers?

The school has 400 kids, the percentage you are looking at is 2 years old, and this is one of the most rapidly gentrifying zip codes in the country. Not hyperbole. Go visit.

I have a son at Seaton now. I’ve lived in Shaw since 2014. Saw the familiars on the first day Monday. It’s still one of the most diverse schools in the city. When were you last there? Did you stay to help or run away when things got hard?

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huge drop at Seaton in 4+ test results compared to last year -- down 6 pts in ELA and 5.3 points in Math.

The drop compared to 2019 in 3+ scores is even worse, like 19 percent in Math. Totally horrifying. In 2019, there was not a single "gentrifier" kid in the testing grades, but the school pushed for excellences in all the kids. Now, Seaton has 100 gentrifiers and the scores are dropping.

Your hyperbole is very useful in this conversation. Thank you for that.

To clarify, do you mean to imply that the school's 80% BIPOC student population is all gentrifiers?

The school has 400 kids, the percentage you are looking at is 2 years old, and this is one of the most rapidly gentrifying zip codes in the country. Not hyperbole. Go visit.

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Anonymous wrote:Big improvement at Two Rivers, all campuses.

Slight dip at ITDS.

I don't mean this as a jab to Two Rivers, just want to make sure I am looking at site correctly. I went to the EmpowerEd site, and sorted by performance of 'all students'. When I sorted by school, it looked like they dropped 2-4% from last year's scores, and a range of 3-21% less than pre-pandemic. Again, not judging that school at all, and I think the emphasis on these tests is not the best way to use our energy. But just wanted to ask if I was looking at that data incorrectly before I started looking at other data.

It's totally possible that I'm doing it wrong. You have to be really careful looking at all the subgroups and it's easy to mess it up.

Not PP but it automatically sets to at risk group so you need to change drop down to all students.

IMO that is the strongest way to interpret these test results. If a school improves its scores bc the demographics shift and they have more affluent kids it doesn't mean as much to me. Schools that do the best job at chipping away at the achievement gap should be celebrated the most.

Those are the schools to avoid because they have learned they can close the gap by pulling down the top learners.

There are schools where there are very high achieving kids, and the lower achieving kids also improve. It is not always one or the other. I have seen teachers who have pushed kids in fourth grade to a 6th or seventh grade level while at the same time bringing up children that started at a first grade level 2-3 grade levels. The second student is still 'behind' by the end of 4th grade, but that growth is crucial. Again, not at every school, but data from schools can show both high achievement and decreasing gaps.

Sure there might be an exception or outlier but totally agree with above. DC tries to close the achievement gap by bringing down the top. The top students are not given appropriate educational content and thus do not teach their full potential. The achievement gap actually would be even wider. Courses are dumb down and grade inflation is rampant.

Talk to any teacher and ask them if they are able to effectively differentiate in classes where you have kids 3-4 grades apart, especially when the majority of those kids are on the lower end. I already know the answer to that. The outlier or exceptional teacher might be able to do that in mid elementary but no way in middle or high school. This is also based on the scenario that they have exceptional class management skills because we all know none of the kids are learning anything when behavioral issues dominant in the class which BTW gets much worst as kids get older.


Even with that, it’s

I was able to differentiate for middle schools. There were 5 different levels of lessons. In order to do it, I didn’t do whole group instruction. The issue is that in DCPS, you aren’t allowed this flexibility. They expect you to teach “tier 1” instruction and think a one size fits all approach in the core classes actually works. They will say “scaffold”, but scaffolds without changing the actual content/skill don’t help when you are too far below or too far beyond the mean.

I am a teacher and agree with this. But you have to admit that level of differentiation takes a lot of work and planning. I was able to do it years ago when I taught the same courses several years in a row. In schools where the principal switches teachers courses and grade levels often it’s really hard to do that level of planning for every lesson.

It’s way too much work. The much easier and most efficient way is to offer different levels of the same course and group kids in the appropriate level. It’s called tracking and what is offered in the overwhelming majority of middle and high schools in this country.

As to elementary, it’s called G & T, AAP, etc…

+1. I don't blame my kids' teachers for not being able to give them appropriate content, and I appreciate the times the were honest with us about this. We don't ask teachers to teach kindergarteners in the same class as third graders, but in DC we ask them to teach classes with that same range of skills and abilities.

The absence of tracking also raises the importance of the overall makeup of the school, since the classroom is going to be a random selection of kids in that grade. There are middle schools that could put together a classroom of kids at each grade who are at or above grade level but don't, which means more parents avoiding those schools outright and either living in more residentially segregated neighborhoods or sending their kids to charters. The focus on equality at the school level has second-order effects that create more inequality both between schools and at the neighborhood level.

Some families at title 1 elementary schools here have asked leadership to group the handful of higher performing kids in the same class and have been pointedly denied and told no. They actually purposely disperse these few kids to different classes.

It got even worse in later elementary where my kid and his above grade friends were asked to basically be tutors for the worst performing kids. Spoiler alert -- it doesn't benefit either party. We pulled our younger kid out of the school into a better DCPS partially for this reason.

Everyone’s experiences are different of course. This happened to my oldest daughter as well. Oftentimes she seemed to be basically teaching many of her middles school classes. We didn’t have the option of moving for various reasons. Anyways, while not ideal it has taught her lots of skills she wouldn’t have learned otherwise - particularly around leadership, collaboration etc. skills not just about tutoring but being resilient and gaining respect too. As a natural introvert being pushed out of her comfort zone was probably helpful in some respects 🤷‍♂️

Actually learning math is better than learn those skills, which can be developed over a lifetime.

I have tutored math and writing. As a student. Both efforts helped reinforce my knowledge and made me a better student.

I’m one of the resident college professors. Nothing polishes conceptual knowledge like teaching a class. In grad school they had me teach calculus on manifolds to a couple independent study students. You’ll never forget it after something like that.

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Anonymous wrote:Can anyone help me figure out why several schools have data suppressed for 3+ when data was not suppressed for 4+?

For example, for Whittier and DC Bilingual, 4th grade math scores are "DS" for 3+ but you can see how many 4th graders scored 4+. Obviously the sample size would be greater for the 3+ sheet so it seems confusing and hard to figure out what disclosure risk would be introduced?

Because something about that data is too individually identifying. Maybe there is only one kid who got a 3 or none? Alternatively, are 1 & 2 suppressed as well? It may be that that data would allow you to back out other suppressed data.

Without identifying my school, our 4+ data for Black students in math is suppressed overall, but provided for 2 grades. When you back out all of the data and compare it against the totals, it seems like it's likely because <5% of that single grade got 4+ (which is horrifying and very out of line with the other grades).

Thanks. I understood the DS suggested there was a disclosure concern. I just could not think of what that concern might be given 4th grade math scores for 4+ were fine to present but not 3+. But, maybe you are right and the issue is that the 4+ counts would be very similar to the 3+ counts and show only a handful of students got 3s? (To me, that's still not a clear disclosure concern but I can see a business rule that gets you there.)

Yes. that is the concern. Its actually a huge debate now; lots of data providers are using this as an excuse to tamper or hide data. The census now does 'noise' infusion. So most census data now has random data inserted in it. OSSE simply doesn't show anything that would reveal a count under some cutoff. Its all silly and not really 'privacy' in the standard sense.

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Anonymous wrote:I'm genuinely curious about possible reasons why some charter schools (e.g., Lee, ITS, Stokes) have relatively 'good' CAPE scores for all students but scores for economically disadvantaged kids that are so much worse. Compare these schools to some DCPS schools like Burroughs, Whittier, or Garrison--all of which have good scores for all students (similar to Lee/ITS/Stokes) and nearly as good scores for disadvantaged kids. The obvious difference between the charters above and the DCPS schools is that the charters have lower percentages of at-risk kids (like 15% vs. 50%). Is it that the DCPS schools, because they have more at-risk kids, focus more efforts and resources at those kids than ITS/Lee/Stokes?

Some schools (inc. some examples you named) just have stronger instructional culture and teaching than others, which was developed over time through consistent leadership and sustained effort. It's not always a demographics puzzle.

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So these are 18 out of 145 elementary schools where about half the students can read/write:
Row Labels Average of Percent
Janney Elementary School 84.7
Lafayette Elementary School 78.8
Ross Elementary School 78.6
Key Elementary School 77.5
Stoddert Elementary School 76.4
Murch Elementary School 74.3
Brent Elementary School 70.7
Maury Elementary School 70.5
Hyde-Addison Elementary School 70.2
Shepherd Elementary School 69.3
Eaton Elementary School 68.5
Mann Elementary School 66.6
School-Within-School @ Goding 66.2
Hearst Elementary School 66.0
Oyster-Adams Bilingual School 65.8
Ludlow-Taylor Elementary School 52.8
DC Bilingual PCS 52.8
Washington Yu Ying PCS 50.3

Janney is the best. There is a statistically similar cluster of Lafayette, Ross, Key, Stoddert, Murch. After Oyster-Adams, the dropoff is steep. Also note, charters aren't great on this list (they improve for middle/high though; lots of selection stories here

I get different data here. Are you looking at kids getting a 4+ on CAPE for ELA? This is what I get using the EmpowerEd dashboard. I'm also adding the %at-risk because I think it's useful for comparing schools. Still looking at all kids but schools that are scoring high on CAPE who have larger at-risk populations tend to have better teaching because they have fewer kids showing up already at or approaching grade level. It can help with 1-1 comparisons if you are deciding between schools also. Like a question I have looking at this data is why Mann and Brent are in the 60s even with less than 10% at-risk populations. On the other hand it looks to me like Murch, Maury, Eaton, and Hyde-Addison are out-performing other schools with more favorable demographics. And finally I think Payne deserves some real accolades here -- no one else comes close to those results with such a high at-risk population. Wow. They are doing something right there.:

Janney (87) 3% at risk
Ross (87) 2%
Lafayette (79.8) 3%
Key (76.7) 3%
Stoddert (76.5) 6%
Murch (75) 10%
Shepherd (73.8) 7%
Maury (73) 18%
Eaton (72.3) 14%
Hyde-Addison (71) 15%
Oyster-Adams (67.6) 7%
Hearst (64.4) 15%
SWS (63.9) 12%
Brent (63.3) 9%
Mann (63.2) 3%
Ludlow-Taylor (61.1) 23%
EW Stokes (56.4) 11%
DC Bilingual (55.5) 17%
Yu Ying (54.3) 10%
Inspired Teaching (53.4) 21%
Payne (51.5) 46%

No clue what empower is doing. I'm using the raw data from the OSSE webpage that was the first post here. No reason to use data with unclear intermediate processing. Also I think empower is still using last year's data...

Completely anecdotal, but Mann seems to straight up not give a shit about testing. Like going out of their way to not care and focus on prepping their students instead for St. Albans/Maret/Etc. And agree on Payne. They are really the only school that seems to be an outlier/value-add.

Could you be looking at CAPE + data? Rather than just CAPE? I'm looking at the CAPE data and it matches the Empower data and the second poster, not yours. (The CAPE+ data makes schools that have self-contained classrooms look substantially worse because the pass rates are tiny, but because those are completely separate classrooms, they really have no affect on a mainstream classroom experience.) I'm looking at the raw data and the second PP is correct.

I would also note that the schools on this list with relatively higher at risk percentages and still good overall rates -- Maury, L-T, Payne -- seem to do this partially by having extraordinarily high white passage rates (like around 90-95%; top handful of ESes in the city). So it may be that they do a good job with at risk kids or it may be that they do a VERY good job with not at risk kids, it's hard to tell.

Extremely anecdotal here but regarding your observation about schools like with higher at risk percentages that have very high white passage rates:

Our experience at a Title 1 school that is gentrifying is that the teaching is unbelievably good. And this makes sense because teaching to a high needs population takes a ton of varying skills. You have to have good teaching pedagogy and know what actually works because there is no time or point in experimenting with something that isn't tried and true. They also tend to have excellent classroom management skills and be very good communicators (with kids and with adults).

If you take a teacher like that and give them a kid from a stable home with educated and invested parents and a willingness to support education at home those kids can do incredibly well. So I think these schools that have only recently shifted from being Title 1 or are still Title 1 simply have phenomenal teachers who know how to teach. That's it. That doesn't mean other schools don't have great teachers but I do think there are schools with wealthier family populations who can skate by with okay teaching and still have decent test results. I think a lot of these schools with very small at risk populations who are still only hitting 60-70% proficiency are sometimes not doing a great job with kids who have great support but need more help in the classroom -- a teacher who is used to kids showing up in K or 1st already reading may not have the skills to work with a kid who might be struggling due to a subclinical special need (ADHD that hasn't gotten bad enough to be diagnosed or may have an unusual presentation for instance). Their skills may be rusty or they may just not be as effective generally.

Anyway that's my theory. Teaching quality is my #1 when it comes to school selection before peer group (which is still a close #2). Ideally you want both but in public schools you don't always get them both. I think one thing you see at certain charters is that the teaching is very weak (do to high turnover and low pay) and test scores really show this because some charters even with very low at risk populations still have really atrocious test scores. It's a massive red flag and why we we'd rather be at a Title 1 with a higher at-risk population than a charter with more upper middle class families but very questionable academic metrics.

I too believed this kind of thing when I was at a Title 1 DCPS. But then we moved to one of the top 5 DCPS schools and the teachers are also incredible -- both teachers we've had spent years at Title 1 schools, and then moved to a higher resourced school, so they are highly effective. And they are able to do more in the classroom, because the floor is higher. So, the ceiling is also higher.

DCPS title 1 teachers *are* often amazing. But they are not better than the DCPS teachers at the good schools.

PP here. Right like I said -- ideally you want both. But in DC if you want both there are a tiny number of schools where you can get both and it can be very hard to find housing IB for those schools (and almost impossible to lottery into).

So what I'm saying is that assuming you don't have access to one of those handful of schools you may be choosing between a DCPS with a high at-risk population but potentially strong teaching (and this is where those test scores come in because that's a metric that can tell you something about teacher quality) or perhaps a charter with a low at-risk population but potentially weak teaching. This is the situation we found ourselves in and I found that the quality of teaching at the Title 1 was significantly higher whereas the peer group benefits at the charter were only a bit better. And especially as we look towards middle school (where we are moving in order to gain access to better options) I am relieved we opted for the school with great teaching over the school with more upper middle class peers. At least for us it was the right call.

Absolutely, and I made the same decision when my kids were young (title 1 DCPS with great teaching vs charter with iffy teaching and more UMC kids). Absolutely no regrets.

But, the title 1 schools have bigger problems as the kids get older. In later elementary it's harder for teachers to spend the time differentiating, and in middle school it's impossible to do it in the classroom -- you need advanced classes, otherwise the kids are stuck all learning at the same (slow) pace. So, having a cohort of high achievers becomes necessary because it allows the school to offer advanced classes. Cohort matters, bc it impacts the actual curriculum.

This was our experience. In our kid's school, our kid spent 95% of his day on computer apps while the teacher spent all of the time helping the students who were behind. Lucky for us, our kid was focused enough to teach himself through the apps and actually left the school quite well-prepared, but that wasn't due to the teachers. It was due to all the apps he used.

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So these are 18 out of 145 elementary schools where about half the students can read/write:
Row Labels Average of Percent
Janney Elementary School 84.7
Lafayette Elementary School 78.8
Ross Elementary School 78.6
Key Elementary School 77.5
Stoddert Elementary School 76.4
Murch Elementary School 74.3
Brent Elementary School 70.7
Maury Elementary School 70.5
Hyde-Addison Elementary School 70.2
Shepherd Elementary School 69.3
Eaton Elementary School 68.5
Mann Elementary School 66.6
School-Within-School @ Goding 66.2
Hearst Elementary School 66.0
Oyster-Adams Bilingual School 65.8
Ludlow-Taylor Elementary School 52.8
DC Bilingual PCS 52.8
Washington Yu Ying PCS 50.3

Janney is the best. There is a statistically similar cluster of Lafayette, Ross, Key, Stoddert, Murch. After Oyster-Adams, the dropoff is steep. Also note, charters aren't great on this list (they improve for middle/high though; lots of selection stories here

I get different data here. Are you looking at kids getting a 4+ on CAPE for ELA? This is what I get using the EmpowerEd dashboard. I'm also adding the %at-risk because I think it's useful for comparing schools. Still looking at all kids but schools that are scoring high on CAPE who have larger at-risk populations tend to have better teaching because they have fewer kids showing up already at or approaching grade level. It can help with 1-1 comparisons if you are deciding between schools also. Like a question I have looking at this data is why Mann and Brent are in the 60s even with less than 10% at-risk populations. On the other hand it looks to me like Murch, Maury, Eaton, and Hyde-Addison are out-performing other schools with more favorable demographics. And finally I think Payne deserves some real accolades here -- no one else comes close to those results with such a high at-risk population. Wow. They are doing something right there.:

Janney (87) 3% at risk
Ross (87) 2%
Lafayette (79.8) 3%
Key (76.7) 3%
Stoddert (76.5) 6%
Murch (75) 10%
Shepherd (73.8) 7%
Maury (73) 18%
Eaton (72.3) 14%
Hyde-Addison (71) 15%
Oyster-Adams (67.6) 7%
Hearst (64.4) 15%
SWS (63.9) 12%
Brent (63.3) 9%
Mann (63.2) 3%
Ludlow-Taylor (61.1) 23%
EW Stokes (56.4) 11%
DC Bilingual (55.5) 17%
Yu Ying (54.3) 10%
Inspired Teaching (53.4) 21%
Payne (51.5) 46%

No clue what empower is doing. I'm using the raw data from the OSSE webpage that was the first post here. No reason to use data with unclear intermediate processing. Also I think empower is still using last year's data...

Completely anecdotal, but Mann seems to straight up not give a shit about testing. Like going out of their way to not care and focus on prepping their students instead for St. Albans/Maret/Etc. And agree on Payne. They are really the only school that seems to be an outlier/value-add.

Could you be looking at CAPE + data? Rather than just CAPE? I'm looking at the CAPE data and it matches the Empower data and the second poster, not yours. (The CAPE+ data makes schools that have self-contained classrooms look substantially worse because the pass rates are tiny, but because those are completely separate classrooms, they really have no affect on a mainstream classroom experience.) I'm looking at the raw data and the second PP is correct.

I would also note that the schools on this list with relatively higher at risk percentages and still good overall rates -- Maury, L-T, Payne -- seem to do this partially by having extraordinarily high white passage rates (like around 90-95%; top handful of ESes in the city). So it may be that they do a good job with at risk kids or it may be that they do a VERY good job with not at risk kids, it's hard to tell.

Extremely anecdotal here but regarding your observation about schools like with higher at risk percentages that have very high white passage rates:

Our experience at a Title 1 school that is gentrifying is that the teaching is unbelievably good. And this makes sense because teaching to a high needs population takes a ton of varying skills. You have to have good teaching pedagogy and know what actually works because there is no time or point in experimenting with something that isn't tried and true. They also tend to have excellent classroom management skills and be very good communicators (with kids and with adults).

If you take a teacher like that and give them a kid from a stable home with educated and invested parents and a willingness to support education at home those kids can do incredibly well. So I think these schools that have only recently shifted from being Title 1 or are still Title 1 simply have phenomenal teachers who know how to teach. That's it. That doesn't mean other schools don't have great teachers but I do think there are schools with wealthier family populations who can skate by with okay teaching and still have decent test results. I think a lot of these schools with very small at risk populations who are still only hitting 60-70% proficiency are sometimes not doing a great job with kids who have great support but need more help in the classroom -- a teacher who is used to kids showing up in K or 1st already reading may not have the skills to work with a kid who might be struggling due to a subclinical special need (ADHD that hasn't gotten bad enough to be diagnosed or may have an unusual presentation for instance). Their skills may be rusty or they may just not be as effective generally.

Anyway that's my theory. Teaching quality is my #1 when it comes to school selection before peer group (which is still a close #2). Ideally you want both but in public schools you don't always get them both. I think one thing you see at certain charters is that the teaching is very weak (do to high turnover and low pay) and test scores really show this because some charters even with very low at risk populations still have really atrocious test scores. It's a massive red flag and why we we'd rather be at a Title 1 with a higher at-risk population than a charter with more upper middle class families but very questionable academic metrics.

I too believed this kind of thing when I was at a Title 1 DCPS. But then we moved to one of the top 5 DCPS schools and the teachers are also incredible -- both teachers we've had spent years at Title 1 schools, and then moved to a higher resourced school, so they are highly effective. And they are able to do more in the classroom, because the floor is higher. So, the ceiling is also higher.

DCPS title 1 teachers *are* often amazing. But they are not better than the DCPS teachers at the good schools.

PP here. Right like I said -- ideally you want both. But in DC if you want both there are a tiny number of schools where you can get both and it can be very hard to find housing IB for those schools (and almost impossible to lottery into).

So what I'm saying is that assuming you don't have access to one of those handful of schools you may be choosing between a DCPS with a high at-risk population but potentially strong teaching (and this is where those test scores come in because that's a metric that can tell you something about teacher quality) or perhaps a charter with a low at-risk population but potentially weak teaching. This is the situation we found ourselves in and I found that the quality of teaching at the Title 1 was significantly higher whereas the peer group benefits at the charter were only a bit better. And especially as we look towards middle school (where we are moving in order to gain access to better options) I am relieved we opted for the school with great teaching over the school with more upper middle class peers. At least for us it was the right call.

Absolutely, and I made the same decision when my kids were young (title 1 DCPS with great teaching vs charter with iffy teaching and more UMC kids). Absolutely no regrets.

But, the title 1 schools have bigger problems as the kids get older. In later elementary it's harder for teachers to spend the time differentiating, and in middle school it's impossible to do it in the classroom -- you need advanced classes, otherwise the kids are stuck all learning at the same (slow) pace. So, having a cohort of high achievers becomes necessary because it allows the school to offer advanced classes. Cohort matters, bc it impacts the actual curriculum.