Anonymous wrote:Parents and kids are fed up w testing mania. Many did Opt Out and many more will in future years. This should also be recognized when analyzing data.

Anonymous wrote:what happened at DCB for third grade? didn't they have some of the highest scores in the city last year? now they seem to be the lowest among immersion schools.

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Anonymous wrote:So where is the achievement gap below 40 or 50%?

At Oyster-Adams, the black/white achievement gap in ELA is 12%; however it’s 32% in math.

There is essentially no black/white achievement gap at Ross: 4% in ELA and 0% in Math. DCPS needs to bottle and replicate whatever is going on at Ross!

High income is whats going on at Ross. How many poor/at risk black kids are at Ross?

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Anonymous wrote:So where is the achievement gap below 40 or 50%?

At Oyster-Adams, the black/white achievement gap in ELA is 12%; however it’s 32% in math.

There is essentially no black/white achievement gap at Ross: 4% in ELA and 0% in Math. DCPS needs to bottle and replicate whatever is going on at Ross!

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Anonymous wrote:Here is one big surprise. I'm pretty sure this is the first year that Bancroft ES has had enough white kids in the testing grades to break out those results.

They scored 86% on English and math --slightly higher than the DCPS average for Caucasian/white, and on par with all the wealthy (and heavily white) schools across the park.

Pretty good for a Title 1 school (68% Latino) where half the school day, instruction is in Spanish. It says a lot about Bancroft teachers' ability to teach to all levels. And it reinforces the decision of many neighborhood parents (mostly middle class, largely white) who chose to take a chance on this high poverty school instead of bailing for Munde Verde or another charter. Like they say, your middle class kid with educated parents will do well no matter where you send her/him.

Although I'm a future Bancroft parent and I want to be a booster for the school, I found the results to be depressing and an indication that the school isn't doing a good job teaching to all levels. Sure, the white kids are doing fine, but the achievement gap between white and the Latino population is concerning: ELA 86% to 24% / Math 86% to 29%. Black students fared only slightly better in ELA, though math scores were somewhat encouraging. I compare these scores to a school like Marie Reed that has similar demographics overall, though not enough white or Asian students in the testing grades to break those out. They have double or nearly double the percent of Latino students achieving a 4 or 5 that Bancroft does.

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Anonymous wrote:No educated opinions on why Murch can't keep it together? The answer can't be that it has a couple self-contained classrooms -- it always has. This isn't a new factor that explains persistent, relatively poor performance

The at-risk percentage is much higher at Murch. The percentage of at-risk students is so small at most of its neighbor schools it isn't even tracked.

Murch 14%
Janney (not tracked)
Lafayette 3.3%
Mann (not tracked)
Hearst 6%
Key not tracked
Eaton 6%
Shepherd 13%
Oyster Adams 10%

There is a lot of overlap between the individuals who are counted as "at risk" and the individuals in the self-contained classrooms. Which, again, have been present all along in Murch for many years as its relative position has dropped compared to the schools listed above, plus a list of schools closer to downtown with even higher percentages of at-risk kids.

I just looked at the linked dashboard and don't see a dramatic drop over the years from the data they show. There seems to have been a problem with the 5th grade math this year which is odd since the same teacher has been there for a long time. In additional that cohort scored highly as 4th graders so something happened there. But over all there was a mild dip in scores which most of the schools listed above have had before too. Example Janney Math 2014-2015 and reading 2015-2016. I don't see a massive issue or 10 years of dropping scores which should alarm parents.

What changed were the identities of the students being tested. You can't track these cohorts year to year because the boundary change and swing space caused a more than 35% change in individuals being tested. Its not like the kids who got 5s suddenly got 2s. The 5th grade cohort where 50% scored a 5 in third grade saw about 20% of the class leave during the swing space transition (most to Lafayette), while 23% of the class was new to Murch in 4th and 5th.

This last explanation seems right. I think the trend will start to reverse this year with more people wanting to come to the new renovated building, now that the school is out of the swing space.

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Anonymous wrote:No educated opinions on why Murch can't keep it together? The answer can't be that it has a couple self-contained classrooms -- it always has. This isn't a new factor that explains persistent, relatively poor performance

The at-risk percentage is much higher at Murch. The percentage of at-risk students is so small at most of its neighbor schools it isn't even tracked.

Murch 14%
Janney (not tracked)
Lafayette 3.3%
Mann (not tracked)
Hearst 6%
Key not tracked
Eaton 6%
Shepherd 13%
Oyster Adams 10%

There is a lot of overlap between the individuals who are counted as "at risk" and the individuals in the self-contained classrooms. Which, again, have been present all along in Murch for many years as its relative position has dropped compared to the schools listed above, plus a list of schools closer to downtown with even higher percentages of at-risk kids.

I just looked at the linked dashboard and don't see a dramatic drop over the years from the data they show. There seems to have been a problem with the 5th grade math this year which is odd since the same teacher has been there for a long time. In additional that cohort scored highly as 4th graders so something happened there. But over all there was a mild dip in scores which most of the schools listed above have had before too. Example Janney Math 2014-2015 and reading 2015-2016. I don't see a massive issue or 10 years of dropping scores which should alarm parents.

What changed were the identities of the students being tested. You can't track these cohorts year to year because the boundary change and swing space caused a more than 35% change in individuals being tested. Its not like the kids who got 5s suddenly got 2s. The 5th grade cohort where 50% scored a 5 in third grade saw about 20% of the class leave during the swing space transition (most to Lafayette), while 23% of the class was new to Murch in 4th and 5th.

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Anonymous wrote:Wow, Ludlow seems to have really consolidated its gains! 72 ELA is legit, and 51 Math is a big improvement. Seems like it’s just getting better and better...

Look folks this isn't rocket science the richer/whiter the school the higher the scores..... next

With KIPP and DC Prep being notable exceptions to that rule.

How did the school DCPS set up for black men (an idea I am opposed to) fare? While I'm opposed to the idea I am willing to give any new school leeway in the first years.

You can see Ron Brown's results here: http://results.osse.dc.gov/school/436

Obviously a ways to go but better scores than Coolidge, Ballou, Anacostia, or Dunbar and on par with Roosevelt and Cardozo.

It's worth noting that they only show results for high schoolers who took geometry--if kids took it in middle school, they wouldn't show up here.

For all the people who feel like DCPS should be doing more to cater to the wishes of high SES families (look at any thread on the cluster) looking at the high school scores shows just how much work DCPS still needs to do with the students who make up a majority of their population.

But I would wonder how many the majority of the high schoolers at these school care about the PARCC or put any effort into it. The scores may not be truly reflective of comprehension but more an indicator of student apathy.

And for those for whom the low scores are indicative of where they are academically, unfortunately, there's only so much DCPS can do, esp in middle and high school. It's a bigger issue than what the schools can tackle.

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Anonymous wrote:Wow, Ludlow seems to have really consolidated its gains! 72 ELA is legit, and 51 Math is a big improvement. Seems like it’s just getting better and better...

Look folks this isn't rocket science the richer/whiter the school the higher the scores..... next

With KIPP and DC Prep being notable exceptions to that rule.

How did the school DCPS set up for black men (an idea I am opposed to) fare? While I'm opposed to the idea I am willing to give any new school leeway in the first years.

You can see Ron Brown's results here: http://results.osse.dc.gov/school/436

Obviously a ways to go but better scores than Coolidge, Ballou, Anacostia, or Dunbar and on par with Roosevelt and Cardozo.

It's worth noting that they only show results for high schoolers who took geometry--if kids took it in middle school, they wouldn't show up here.

For all the people who feel like DCPS should be doing more to cater to the wishes of high SES families (look at any thread on the cluster) looking at the high school scores shows just how much work DCPS still needs to do with the students who make up a majority of their population.

Anonymous wrote:Here is one big surprise. I'm pretty sure this is the first year that Bancroft ES has had enough white kids in the testing grades to break out those results.

They scored 86% on English and math --slightly higher than the DCPS average for Caucasian/white, and on par with all the wealthy (and heavily white) schools across the park.

Pretty good for a Title 1 school (68% Latino) where half the school day, instruction is in Spanish. It says a lot about Bancroft teachers' ability to teach to all levels. And it reinforces the decision of many neighborhood parents (mostly middle class, largely white) who chose to take a chance on this high poverty school instead of bailing for Munde Verde or another charter. Like they say, your middle class kid with educated parents will do well no matter where you send her/him.