MacArthur has enrolled 238, but only 172 took the math CAPE. So about 30% of kids don't take it. Are these high achieving or low achieving students?

Regardless this is 4x the non-test rate of the rest of DCPS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For anyone interested, here are the percentages at select DCPS high schools of students who tested above grade level in the CAPE ELA and math tests:

ELA

Walls 66.11
Banneker 36.87
J-R 26.59
McA 5.53

Math

Walls 8.43
Banneker 5.8
J-R 1.68
McA 0.00

Wow-these schools don't have a lot of higher fliers in math. And MacArthur has a lot of room to improve.

High fliers in math would have taken the math Parcc in middle school and not show up in a high school's numbers. It's not surprising to me that if kids taking algebra I or geometry in high school, few would score a 5.

We've been through this. Very few students aren't taking the math PARCC in 9th grade. There were 22 9th graders at JR who took ELA but not math, 13 at SWW, and ZERO at Banneker.

We can also look at middle school geometry scores in the state-wide data. They do very well in terms of passage rates, but fewer than 20% of them get a 5.

Assign 20% of the missing kids a 5 (assign somewhat more if you assume some of the kids who do less-well in geometry retake it) and those school numbers are not changing much. (At Banneker, they're not changing at all!)

30% of kids aren't taking the test...

It’s a canard that high-performing kids leave DCPS for suburban or private schools. The average SAT math score for white kids in DCPS (601) is actually higher than the average SAT math score for (demographically very similar) white kids in FCPS (591). The average SAT math score for all white kids in DC, including charter and private school kids as well as DCPS, is 602.

Data:
DCPS, https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/publication/attachments/School%20Year%202022-2023%20SAT%20Scores.xlsx.
FCPS, https://www.fcps.edu/news/fairfax-county-students-continue-outperform-sat-state-and-global-averages.
All DC, https://reports.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/2023-district-of-columbia-sat-suite-of-assessments-annual-report.pdf.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reality is that many high fliers in math have left DCPS by middle or high school.

The top students are not staying in the system and even less now.

That's not "the reality"? I'm sure you can find high fliers in math at Walls, JR, BASIS and McKinley Tech.

The point is the majority have left. Of course there are a few but overall percentage is low in DCPS.

It’s common knowledge that families with high performing kids leave and this has trended higher in the past few years as “equity” issues dominate. That is why the data is so bad for high school. PP above is correct. It’s not because there are so many high performing kids are not taking the PARCC.

These are two very different conversations. Standardized tests in high school do not capture all students at each level and provide a very skewed picture of how the school is doing. This has been discussed ad nauseum on this forum and you can find a lot of information about this elsewhere as well. Lots of families do leave the public system by high school so that is also true but there are a lot of high achieving children who remain in the system as well. Believe it or not, one test score per year is not the full description of all of the students in our school system.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reality is that many high fliers in math have left DCPS by middle or high school.

The top students are not staying in the system and even less now.

That's not "the reality"? I'm sure you can find high fliers in math at Walls, JR, BASIS and McKinley Tech.

The point is the majority have left. Of course there are a few but overall percentage is low in DCPS.

It’s common knowledge that families with high performing kids leave and this has trended higher in the past few years as “equity” issues dominate. That is why the data is so bad for high school. PP above is correct. It’s not because there are so many high performing kids are not taking the PARCC.

Anonymous wrote:The reality is that many high fliers in math have left DCPS by middle or high school.

The top students are not staying in the system and even less now.

Ok, well, in that case we're still back to "the 9th grade math data is a fairly accurate representation", which is all I was saying.

In 2023 National Merit Semifinalists came from:
Basis
SWW
And Wilson / Jackson Reed.

So, that's at least eight nationally recognized "high fliers" who stayed in the system.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reality is that many high fliers in math have left DCPS by middle or high school.

The top students are not staying in the system and even less now.

That's not "the reality"? I'm sure you can find high fliers in math at Walls, JR, BASIS and McKinley Tech.

Indeed. What a prejudiced take.

Anonymous wrote:The reality is that many high fliers in math have left DCPS by middle or high school.

The top students are not staying in the system and even less now.

That's not "the reality"? I'm sure you can find high fliers in math at Walls, JR, BASIS and McKinley Tech.

The reality is that many high fliers in math have left DCPS by middle or high school.

The top students are not staying in the system and even less now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For anyone interested, here are the percentages at select DCPS high schools of students who tested above grade level in the CAPE ELA and math tests:

ELA

Walls 66.11
Banneker 36.87
J-R 26.59
McA 5.53

Math

Walls 8.43
Banneker 5.8
J-R 1.68
McA 0.00

Wow-these schools don't have a lot of higher fliers in math. And MacArthur has a lot of room to improve.

High fliers in math would have taken the math Parcc in middle school and not show up in a high school's numbers. It's not surprising to me that if kids taking algebra I or geometry in high school, few would score a 5.

We've been through this. Very few students aren't taking the math PARCC in 9th grade. There were 22 9th graders at JR who took ELA but not math, 13 at SWW, and ZERO at Banneker.

We can also look at middle school geometry scores in the state-wide data. They do very well in terms of passage rates, but fewer than 20% of them get a 5.

Assign 20% of the missing kids a 5 (assign somewhat more if you assume some of the kids who do less-well in geometry retake it) and those school numbers are not changing much. (At Banneker, they're not changing at all!)

You have to look at what PARCC test they are taking though. Getting a 3 in Geometry as a 9th grader is not the same thing as being below grade level.

The quote was "not show up in a high school's numbers", and the implication was that this absence was driving the numbers. It's clearly not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For anyone interested, here are the percentages at select DCPS high schools of students who tested above grade level in the CAPE ELA and math tests:

ELA

Walls 66.11
Banneker 36.87
J-R 26.59
McA 5.53

Math

Walls 8.43
Banneker 5.8
J-R 1.68
McA 0.00

Wow-these schools don't have a lot of higher fliers in math. And MacArthur has a lot of room to improve.

High fliers in math would have taken the math Parcc in middle school and not show up in a high school's numbers. It's not surprising to me that if kids taking algebra I or geometry in high school, few would score a 5.

We've been through this. Very few students aren't taking the math PARCC in 9th grade. There were 22 9th graders at JR who took ELA but not math, 13 at SWW, and ZERO at Banneker.

We can also look at middle school geometry scores in the state-wide data. They do very well in terms of passage rates, but fewer than 20% of them get a 5.

Assign 20% of the missing kids a 5 (assign somewhat more if you assume some of the kids who do less-well in geometry retake it) and those school numbers are not changing much. (At Banneker, they're not changing at all!)

You have to look at what PARCC test they are taking though. Getting a 3 in Geometry as a 9th grader is not the same thing as being below grade level.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For anyone interested, here are the percentages at select DCPS high schools of students who tested above grade level in the CAPE ELA and math tests:

ELA

Walls 66.11
Banneker 36.87
J-R 26.59
McA 5.53

Math

Walls 8.43
Banneker 5.8
J-R 1.68
McA 0.00

Wow-these schools don't have a lot of higher fliers in math. And MacArthur has a lot of room to improve.

High fliers in math would have taken the math Parcc in middle school and not show up in a high school's numbers. It's not surprising to me that if kids taking algebra I or geometry in high school, few would score a 5.

We've been through this. Very few students aren't taking the math PARCC in 9th grade. There were 22 9th graders at JR who took ELA but not math, 13 at SWW, and ZERO at Banneker.

We can also look at middle school geometry scores in the state-wide data. They do very well in terms of passage rates, but fewer than 20% of them get a 5.

Assign 20% of the missing kids a 5 (assign somewhat more if you assume some of the kids who do less-well in geometry retake it) and those school numbers are not changing much. (At Banneker, they're not changing at all!)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For anyone interested, here are the percentages at select DCPS high schools of students who tested above grade level in the CAPE ELA and math tests:

ELA

Walls 66.11
Banneker 36.87
J-R 26.59
McA 5.53

Math

Walls 8.43
Banneker 5.8
J-R 1.68
McA 0.00

Wow-these schools don't have a lot of higher fliers in math. And MacArthur has a lot of room to improve.

High fliers in math would have taken the math Parcc in middle school and not show up in a high school's numbers. It's not surprising to me that if kids taking algebra I or geometry in high school, few would score a 5.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For anyone interested, here are the percentages at select DCPS high schools of students who tested above grade level in the CAPE ELA and math tests:

ELA

Walls 66.11
Banneker 36.87
J-R 26.59
McA 5.53

Math

Walls 8.43
Banneker 5.8
J-R 1.68
McA 0.00

Wow-these schools don't have a lot of higher fliers in math. And MacArthur has a lot of room to improve.

Here are the actual number of students getting 5s in math and overall number of test takers:

Walls 6/32
Banneker 22/379
J-R 10/596
MacA 0/172