Anonymous wrote:Sela has a low gap. Whittier has a low gap with at-risk kids outperforming not at risk on ELA.

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Anonymous wrote:But with the same budgets, there are schools that do not have a gaping achievement gap. ITS' (and other schools with this problem) should send someone out to interview, observe and learn from other schools. That's the whole idea of charters -- to innovate and find new ways to educate ALL students.

If it isn't working they need to course correct or fold their tent. If a school can't out-perform the traditional school sector why are they open?

Again with the nonsense. At-risk kids need more time at school because their parents don't drill multiplication facts and are more likely to park them in front of screens for hours on end. You don't mke up for that handicap with observations. You don't even make up for that handicap by making those parenta drive from SE to upper NW every morning to a rich white public or private school, other than driving the self-selection of at-risk familiea who are able to support their kids and pull their scores up.
Observe and learn. Sounds like thoughts and prayers to me. Name two schools that are doing what you say and dcum will tell you why their gap is narrower. Whatever it is, I bet it's not magical equity skills.

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Anonymous wrote:Do you all think the release of these scores will impact waitlists and enrollment? I’m wondering if we will see parents starting to remove their kid from waitlists for schools with less than stellar performance.

It will definitely be affecting my waitlists. Because our number sucks and I'm kissing the dream of Garrison goodbye. Seaton's not gonna happen. I'm in the top 5 at Langley and Langdon so I think there's still hope for one or the other. Never a Montessori believer so any fleeting interest I had in SSMA has been crushed like a bug.

Seaton and Garrison are both typically much easier to get into at PK4 and K - I'm sure you know that, but just a reminder that a PK3 seat isn't the be-all end-all.

Thanks. I know. I just really wanted to get settled somewhere already and be able to tell DC "this is your school". I'm looking forward to being part of a small but active PTA and hopefully making a difference, so maybe Noyes and I were meant to be together.

Anonymous wrote:I live in Southwest and was so pleased to see Amidon's improvement. A bunch of community members offered weekly small group or one-on-one math tutoring to 3rd graders and it looks like that helped (of course, more credit is due to the teachers!).

Jefferson Academy is also showing improvement. This is the first year they had enough white students for their scores to be broken out and they were 100% proficient in ELA and 91% in math--better than the same group at Latin, Deal, or Stuart-Hobson (the only schools I checked). The school also exceeded DC averages for ELA for both at-risk and non-at-risk students, though math has a ways to go.

Anonymous wrote:I live in Southwest and was so pleased to see Amidon's improvement. A bunch of community members offered weekly small group or one-on-one math tutoring to 3rd graders and it looks like that helped (of course, more credit is due to the teachers!).

Jefferson Academy is also showing improvement. This is the first year they had enough white students for their scores to be broken out and they were 100% proficient in ELA and 91% in math--better than the same group at Latin, Deal, or Stuart-Hobson (the only schools I checked). The school also exceeded DC averages for ELA for both at-risk and non-at-risk students, though math has a ways to go.

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She changes nothing, period, but most parents and the board love her anyway. She doesn't like having parents or kids who complicate her work on her hands, and has her ways of dissuading them from applying, or convincing them to go. The annoying families fall into various categories - at-risk kids who may score low on PARCC, SPED kids, bilingual ethnic Chinese families who can hear the poor Mandarin she and the majority of the kids speak, even really high-performing kids who get bored in YY ELA and math.

But according to dashboard, YY SPED students are well above DC averages (and there are enough to report). So are these just students with minor SPED issues?

Also 5th grade white scores at YY are extremely high. Pretty good at 4th grade as well, considering the kids are also learning Mandarin. AA scores overall decent, though gap is certainly troubling.

She changes nothing, period, but most parents and the board love her anyway. She doesn't like having parents or kids who complicate her work on her hands, and has her ways of dissuading them from applying, or convincing them to go. The annoying families fall into various categories - at-risk kids who may score low on PARCC, SPED kids, bilingual ethnic Chinese families who can hear the poor Mandarin she and the majority of the kids speak, even really high-performing kids who get bored in YY ELA and math.

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Anonymous wrote:It appears BASIS has made significant progress closing its achievement gap over the last couple f years. It was not good before. If you click in, note the dashboard defaults to the at-risk subgroup. You need to reset to see all students.

And yes, I know that their at-risk population is low, but there are enough in each grade to report scores.

https://empowerk12.org/dc-parcc-dash

At risk is low. Poor performers counseled out before PARCC testing too. BASIS also doesn't sugarcoat high student demands and at a minimum the student body reflects a willingness to accept the school culture of mountains of testing/homework. Their at-risk population is somewhat self-selected.

Data doesn't back up what you are saying for 5th grade, obviously. And the attrition level, outside of 8th to 9th, has been going down in the last 2-3 years (I would credit the new HOS who is starting year 3 -- a major step forward). And maybe "mountains of testing" could also be the kind of student by student tracking and catching skills gaps to get kids to proficiency?

I'm guessing you don't have much use for DC Prep, KIPP, Banneker and other schools that perform well with high needs students. But I don't think it's fair to lament the achievement gap and at the same time reject the style of instruction in schools where it is low or declining.

Anonymous wrote:Someone noted a spreadsheet above. Has a link to the raw data been released?

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Anonymous wrote:But with the same budgets, there are schools that do not have a gaping achievement gap. ITS' (and other schools with this problem) should send someone out to interview, observe and learn from other schools. That's the whole idea of charters -- to innovate and find new ways to educate ALL students.

If it isn't working they need to course correct or fold their tent. If a school can't out-perform the traditional school sector why are they open?

Again with the nonsense. At-risk kids need more time at school because their parents don't drill multiplication facts and are more likely to park them in front of screens for hours on end. You don't mke up for that handicap with observations. You don't even make up for that handicap by making those parenta drive from SE to upper NW every morning to a rich white public or private school, other than driving the self-selection of at-risk familiea who are able to support their kids and pull their scores up.
Observe and learn. Sounds like thoughts and prayers to me. Name two schools that are doing what you say and dcum will tell you why their gap is narrower. Whatever it is, I bet it's not magical equity skills.

I guess I'm not being clear. I don't think we disagree. The achievement gap data shows that several of the so-called progressive charter models are failing at-risk kids right now (ITS, CMI, 2R at 4th and most of the Montessori elementaries).

Cap City is doing significantly better than the city average for at-risk students. They are NOT drilling or putting students in front of screens for hours.

I'm not clear either. Rich parents drill multiplication facts at home, poor parents park their kids in front of screens. No public or public charter school can make up the gap from that handicap without a ton of resources that would have to come from the city.
The progressive charters do some amazing things that stodgy publics should do too. The Montessoris, ITS, Cap City, all put in a lot of work and energy and optimistic hard work to implement innovative methods, best practices, culture, that they should be applauded for and modeled after, and that do wonderful things for at-risk students and for diversity in DC schools. It would be unreasonable and counter-productive to tell them "close the achievement gap or die." Current at-risk funding is insufficient, and innovation/hard work can't make up for that. Doubting their good will is also a mistake. It's so obvious that ITS isn't intentionally keeping at-risk kids out.

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Anonymous wrote:New North is doomed - look at Takoma and West’s pathetic scores.

West doesn’t go to New North.

Whittier does though and was a bright spot. The others are Truesdell, Brightwood, and Takoma.

Whittier is decent - why are the others so poor?

The schools that feed to Wells are Whittier, Takoma, Lasalle-Backus, and Brightwood.

With the exception of Whittier, all of these schools performed really poorly.