Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a dog in this fight (yet), but I think it's safe to say that a majority of kids attending Whitman are not pompous ingrates that are oblivious to reality. Sure there are some, but most are being raised by parents that are somewhat intelligent, who are sitting in high-paying jobs and hold advanced degrees. These parents have instilled in their children a sense of what's right and wrong and pushed critical thinking and rocking the boat over a sheep mentality. It is much more likely that these kids purposely tanked the test as a protest/statement against this kind of testing that public school kids are so often forced to endure. And even if they tanked it for more selfish reasons -- i.e. they were told it wouldn't effect their college admissions -- unless the school made it clear to them (in real/digestible terms) why doing well on the test was good for their school and community you can't blame them for not wanting to focus their energy on something they saw held no value for them or their future.

So when Whitman scores are low, it's political protest, but when other high school scores are low, it's...?

The reason this makes potential sense is that there was a precipitous drop in their scores in a one year period. It is hard to imagine that Whitman's teaching changed dramatically in a year or that the abilities of its students changed so suddenly. If this had been a slow, steady decline it would be harder to explain away. But it seems odd to me that Whitman teachers and students would all of a sudden become drastically less able.

It seems odd to me that the children of intelligent parents, with high-paying jobs and advanced degrees, who have instilled in their children a sense of what's right and wrong and pushed critical thinking and rocking the boat over a sheep mentality, purposely tanked the test at Whitman, but did not purposely tank the tests at the other high schools where all of those things are true as well (as far as anybody knows). Why no political protest at B-CC, for example? Or Wootton, or Walter Johnson, or Churchill?

Not sure, but it is entirely possible a relatively small number of students decided to organize a campaign that was followed by more. Lots of times high school students will follow what popular kids do. For whatever reason, maybe the same effort wasn't made at other schools. Maybe it will happen this year at other schools.

More fundamentally, you asked a reasonable question, but you offered no proposed answer of your own. Why do you think scores dropped so precipitously in one year?

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Anonymous wrote:Ironic part is Whittman and Churchill are lower rated than some Bronx public schools. Look it up. Move to the Bronx if you want good schools.

Why is that ironic. Bronx Science is one of the top public schools in the country and has been for some time. It certainly blows Whitman, Churchill and Blair out of the water.

No it does not blow Blair out of the water. Blair beats Bronx Science (which is a full Magnet) every year in every STEM competition.

That is correct.
This year Intel/Regeneron scholars
Blair = 9 scholars
Bronx = 7 scholars

https://student.societyforscience.org/regeneronsts-scholars-2017

DP.. but you are comparing whole school magnet vs 100 students/per grade magnet.

Even more impressive.
A 100 students/per grade magnet is beating a whole school magnet. In fact, it's beating all the full time magnet schools in the nation.
Wow!

PP here.. yes, that was my point. And it's the same argument when people compare TJ to Blair magnet -- whole school magnet vs 100 kids/grade. Not a fair or accurate comparison. Maybe take the top 100 performing students in Bronx HS and TJ and compare to Blair. That would be more fair and accurate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a dog in this fight (yet), but I think it's safe to say that a majority of kids attending Whitman are not pompous ingrates that are oblivious to reality. Sure there are some, but most are being raised by parents that are somewhat intelligent, who are sitting in high-paying jobs and hold advanced degrees. These parents have instilled in their children a sense of what's right and wrong and pushed critical thinking and rocking the boat over a sheep mentality. It is much more likely that these kids purposely tanked the test as a protest/statement against this kind of testing that public school kids are so often forced to endure. And even if they tanked it for more selfish reasons -- i.e. they were told it wouldn't effect their college admissions -- unless the school made it clear to them (in real/digestible terms) why doing well on the test was good for their school and community you can't blame them for not wanting to focus their energy on something they saw held no value for them or their future.

So when Whitman scores are low, it's political protest, but when other high school scores are low, it's...?

The reason this makes potential sense is that there was a precipitous drop in their scores in a one year period. It is hard to imagine that Whitman's teaching changed dramatically in a year or that the abilities of its students changed so suddenly. If this had been a slow, steady decline it would be harder to explain away. But it seems odd to me that Whitman teachers and students would all of a sudden become drastically less able.

It seems odd to me that the children of intelligent parents, with high-paying jobs and advanced degrees, who have instilled in their children a sense of what's right and wrong and pushed critical thinking and rocking the boat over a sheep mentality, purposely tanked the test at Whitman, but did not purposely tank the tests at the other high schools where all of those things are true as well (as far as anybody knows). Why no political protest at B-CC, for example? Or Wootton, or Walter Johnson, or Churchill?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a dog in this fight (yet), but I think it's safe to say that a majority of kids attending Whitman are not pompous ingrates that are oblivious to reality. Sure there are some, but most are being raised by parents that are somewhat intelligent, who are sitting in high-paying jobs and hold advanced degrees. These parents have instilled in their children a sense of what's right and wrong and pushed critical thinking and rocking the boat over a sheep mentality. It is much more likely that these kids purposely tanked the test as a protest/statement against this kind of testing that public school kids are so often forced to endure. And even if they tanked it for more selfish reasons -- i.e. they were told it wouldn't effect their college admissions -- unless the school made it clear to them (in real/digestible terms) why doing well on the test was good for their school and community you can't blame them for not wanting to focus their energy on something they saw held no value for them or their future.

So when Whitman scores are low, it's political protest, but when other high school scores are low, it's...?

....a culture of not valuing education. Come on, you know how this goes. White kids get the benefit of the doubt. Black kids are too busy birthin' babies in the hallways to take a test. That's how DCUM works.

+1 BCC has quite a few parents with high paying jobs, yet somehow those kids didn't tank the test.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a dog in this fight (yet), but I think it's safe to say that a majority of kids attending Whitman are not pompous ingrates that are oblivious to reality. Sure there are some, but most are being raised by parents that are somewhat intelligent, who are sitting in high-paying jobs and hold advanced degrees. These parents have instilled in their children a sense of what's right and wrong and pushed critical thinking and rocking the boat over a sheep mentality. It is much more likely that these kids purposely tanked the test as a protest/statement against this kind of testing that public school kids are so often forced to endure. And even if they tanked it for more selfish reasons -- i.e. they were told it wouldn't effect their college admissions -- unless the school made it clear to them (in real/digestible terms) why doing well on the test was good for their school and community you can't blame them for not wanting to focus their energy on something they saw held no value for them or their future.

So when Whitman scores are low, it's political protest, but when other high school scores are low, it's...?

The reason this makes potential sense is that there was a precipitous drop in their scores in a one year period. It is hard to imagine that Whitman's teaching changed dramatically in a year or that the abilities of its students changed so suddenly. If this had been a slow, steady decline it would be harder to explain away. But it seems odd to me that Whitman teachers and students would all of a sudden become drastically less able.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a dog in this fight (yet), but I think it's safe to say that a majority of kids attending Whitman are not pompous ingrates that are oblivious to reality. Sure there are some, but most are being raised by parents that are somewhat intelligent, who are sitting in high-paying jobs and hold advanced degrees. These parents have instilled in their children a sense of what's right and wrong and pushed critical thinking and rocking the boat over a sheep mentality. It is much more likely that these kids purposely tanked the test as a protest/statement against this kind of testing that public school kids are so often forced to endure. And even if they tanked it for more selfish reasons -- i.e. they were told it wouldn't effect their college admissions -- unless the school made it clear to them (in real/digestible terms) why doing well on the test was good for their school and community you can't blame them for not wanting to focus their energy on something they saw held no value for them or their future.

So when Whitman scores are low, it's political protest, but when other high school scores are low, it's...?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a dog in this fight (yet), but I think it's safe to say that a majority of kids attending Whitman are not pompous ingrates that are oblivious to reality. Sure there are some, but most are being raised by parents that are somewhat intelligent, who are sitting in high-paying jobs and hold advanced degrees. These parents have instilled in their children a sense of what's right and wrong and pushed critical thinking and rocking the boat over a sheep mentality. It is much more likely that these kids purposely tanked the test as a protest/statement against this kind of testing that public school kids are so often forced to endure. And even if they tanked it for more selfish reasons -- i.e. they were told it wouldn't effect their college admissions -- unless the school made it clear to them (in real/digestible terms) why doing well on the test was good for their school and community you can't blame them for not wanting to focus their energy on something they saw held no value for them or their future.

So when Whitman scores are low, it's political protest, but when other high school scores are low, it's...?

....a culture of not valuing education. Come on, you know how this goes. White kids get the benefit of the doubt. Black kids are too busy birthin' babies in the hallways to take a test. That's how DCUM works.

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a dog in this fight (yet), but I think it's safe to say that a majority of kids attending Whitman are not pompous ingrates that are oblivious to reality. Sure there are some, but most are being raised by parents that are somewhat intelligent, who are sitting in high-paying jobs and hold advanced degrees. These parents have instilled in their children a sense of what's right and wrong and pushed critical thinking and rocking the boat over a sheep mentality. It is much more likely that these kids purposely tanked the test as a protest/statement against this kind of testing that public school kids are so often forced to endure. And even if they tanked it for more selfish reasons -- i.e. they were told it wouldn't effect their college admissions -- unless the school made it clear to them (in real/digestible terms) why doing well on the test was good for their school and community you can't blame them for not wanting to focus their energy on something they saw held no value for them or their future.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a dog in this fight (yet), but I think it's safe to say that a majority of kids attending Whitman are not pompous ingrates that are oblivious to reality. Sure there are some, but most are being raised by parents that are somewhat intelligent, who are sitting in high-paying jobs and hold advanced degrees. These parents have instilled in their children a sense of what's right and wrong and pushed critical thinking and rocking the boat over a sheep mentality. It is much more likely that these kids purposely tanked the test as a protest/statement against this kind of testing that public school kids are so often forced to endure. And even if they tanked it for more selfish reasons -- i.e. they were told it wouldn't effect their college admissions -- unless the school made it clear to them (in real/digestible terms) why doing well on the test was good for their school and community you can't blame them for not wanting to focus their energy on something they saw held no value for them or their future.

So when Whitman scores are low, it's political protest, but when other high school scores are low, it's...?

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a dog in this fight (yet), but I think it's safe to say that a majority of kids attending Whitman are not pompous ingrates that are oblivious to reality. Sure there are some, but most are being raised by parents that are somewhat intelligent, who are sitting in high-paying jobs and hold advanced degrees. These parents have instilled in their children a sense of what's right and wrong and pushed critical thinking and rocking the boat over a sheep mentality. It is much more likely that these kids purposely tanked the test as a protest/statement against this kind of testing that public school kids are so often forced to endure. And even if they tanked it for more selfish reasons -- i.e. they were told it wouldn't effect their college admissions -- unless the school made it clear to them (in real/digestible terms) why doing well on the test was good for their school and community you can't blame them for not wanting to focus their energy on something they saw held no value for them or their future.

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone been able to provide an explanation as to what went wrong at Whitman? Assuming on average the test takers at Whitman didn’t change their habits from test takers in prior years, why was there such a huge change in score? Can it be that the last group of Whitman test takes were just significantly less prepared (or intellectually capable) than prior Whitman students? Why would that happen? Changes at Whitman perhaps? The effect seems to be a school-wide phenomenon?

I don’t think you can blame the lower scores on the test either. If the low score had something to do with the test, why don’t we see similar effects at other schools?

Also, look at the internals. The Black and Hispanic students at Whitman actually scored slightly higher on average than White and Asian students? In fact, the only reason Whitman scored a 4 instead of a 3 is because it appears the Black and Hispanic students are propping up the score ---- they average 4/10 whereas the White and Asian students average 3/10.

I’m not trying to make excuses for Whitman’s poor scores. Instead, I’m trying to understand what could have gone wrong.

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone been able to provide an explanation as to what went wrong at Whitman? Assuming on average the test takers at Whitman didn’t change their habits from test takers in prior years, why was there such a huge change in score? Can it be that the last group of Whitman test takes were just significantly less prepared (or intellectually capable) than prior Whitman students? Why would that happen? Changes at Whitman perhaps? The effect seems to be a school-wide phenomenon?

I don’t think you can blame the lower scores on the test either. If the low score had something to do with the test, why don’t we see similar effects at other schools?

Also, look at the internals. The Black and Hispanic students at Whitman actually scored slightly higher on average than White and Asian students? In fact, the only reason Whitman scored a 4 instead of a 3 is because it appears the Black and Hispanic students are propping up the score ---- they average 4/10 whereas the White and Asian students average 3/10.

I’m not trying to make excuses for Whitman’s poor scores. Instead, I’m trying to understand what could have gone wrong.