Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:YY had a large class on 3rd grade (100+ kids).
ITS/CMI do NOT teach to the test -- I suspect that most DCPS did only that for the most part of the month before the test...

FWIW: Told my kid to ignore the PPARC test ("No need to read the questions. Answer randomly. Just be done with it quickly"). Not sure how many kids/parents did the same.

Just curious, why would you tell your kid that? My kid's not yet in a testing grade, but I'd want her to give her best effort on whatever she's working on..

Not pp, but I think the same. The tests make sense to politicians and "ed. reform" advocates, not actual education experts -- especially in the early years.

The teachers and admins make a big deal about the tests because it matters to *them* (the adults). But they are spending the children's time and stressing them out over something at best irrelevant (and arguably harmful) to the children.

Countering the pressure put on the kids is one of the few ways parents can fight back against this nonsense.

I respectfully disagree. As much as I dislike standardized testing, taxpayers and parents deserve some metrics on how the kids are doing. It's like spitting in the teachers' faces to tell kids to ignore the testing that literally can affect their livelihoods. We all should be invested in seeing good performances for our city schools.</vent>

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Anonymous wrote:OP here. The title of the post was rude and a little inflammatory. I apologize. Poor choice of words. I started this thread, not to pit charter and DCPS but because there seems to be a double standard when it comes to not so stellar test scores from DCPS Title I schools. Take JO Wilson as an example, only because I saw some recent no-so-flattering comments about the school. The test scores are on par with some of these charters. 24% ELA and 35% math. Yet, when someone wanted feedback about the school, everyone jumped on the poster saying it was a terrible school and never to enroll their child there. Why? It seems to have some pretty good programs too. It's not just JO Wilson but you can plug in a lot of DCPS Title I schools that are doing just as well, if not better than these HRCS like Marie Reed, Barnard, Thomson. Yet, when anyone suggests enrolling their child at one of these schools, you get the most negative feedback. Why? And why are the waitlists for these other schools into the hundreds?

Are you new to DC or just an idiot? You can't start a post like this and not expect it to be an us vs them war. People like you are the problem with education in the city. If you want to help, educate about the pros of your school, don't shit on the cons of others.

In what world would a loving parent choose JO Wilson, Marie Reed, Barnard, or Thomson over schools like Two Rivers, Cap City, LAMB, and Yu Ying?

Hmmm. My kid is at Marie Reed. I like him well enough, and I'm not the only Ivy grad parent there. We haven't done the lottery in years. I find the teaching to be quite strong, and we have little faculty turnover. I'd prefer my child to have credentialed teachers with some experience, and maybe a master's degree, as opposed to a TFA newbie with 5 weeks of training. Richard Barth, CEO of KIPP, and his wife, TFA head Wendy Kopp have their 4 kids in a regular, non charter, public school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, with unionized teachers, most of whom have the master's degrees that NYC Schools require. In my profession, we call that revealed preference.

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Anonymous wrote:Haven't they spent only half the amount of time in English as all the other children their age? Mandarin and English don't even share an alphabet. The cognitive benefits of a second language have been well established, however it takes until approximately 5th grade for some of that to begin to show up on standardized tests.

Give me a break. Oyster-Adams ELA scores are in the 80s for all grades. My YY kid scored a 5 on ELA last year (we've moved on to a private). The cognitive benefits of a 2nd language don't do a lot for Americans who can't read or write English to a high standard. English instruction at YY isn't too hot, and neither is Mandarin. Knock yourself out at home to compensate and you're "a tiger parent." Things should change.

Sorry, Oyster scores are not in the 80s for any grade, for either math or ELA. Their best scores are for fifth grade 75/56 as compared to YY 5th graders 69/73. Overall OA scores are 60/54, which aint much to write home about either.

We started out looking at white kids scores. Do that for Oyster, do it for Adams, then do it for YY and DCI. Go figure.

YY and DCI scores for AAs are horrifying, given these schools' (low) FARMs rates on the Mandarin track. They beg question why are these kids are studying immersion Chinese at all. Let me beat y'all to the punch, I'm RACIST for asking.

Let us know when Oyster has enough AAs to report scores.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:15:46 we know.

And kids at LAMB are only spending half their time in English, as they are learning to read and write in both languages. They also do Math in English and Spanish.

So while Spanish may be easier to master than Chinese, they are just as disadvantaged w/r/t PARCC as YY students.

-NP trying to wrap up this tangent

Thanks PP. Oyster students get approximately the same amount of English instruction as YY and Lamb. They also have higher poverty rates than YY...but better test scores.

We have learned one thing though: YY parents are excellent contortionists because they will bend themselves into pretzels to explain those unimpressive scores.

Thanks for your continued input, Oyster parent. You sure are proud of those 60/54 scores.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haven't they spent only half the amount of time in English as all the other children their age? Mandarin and English don't even share an alphabet. The cognitive benefits of a second language have been well established, however it takes until approximately 5th grade for some of that to begin to show up on standardized tests.

Give me a break. Oyster-Adams ELA scores are in the 80s for all grades. My YY kid scored a 5 on ELA last year (we've moved on to a private). The cognitive benefits of a 2nd language don't do a lot for Americans who can't read or write English to a high standard. English instruction at YY isn't too hot, and neither is Mandarin. Knock yourself out at home to compensate and you're "a tiger parent." Things should change.

Sorry, Oyster scores are not in the 80s for any grade, for either math or ELA. Their best scores are for fifth grade 75/56 as compared to YY 5th graders 69/73. Overall OA scores are 60/54, which aint much to write home about either.

We started out looking at white kids scores. Do that for Oyster, do it for Adams, then do it for YY and DCI. Go figure.

YY and DCI scores for AAs are horrifying, given these schools' (low) FARMs rates on the Mandarin track. They beg question why are these kids are studying immersion Chinese at all. Let me beat y'all to the punch, I'm RACIST for asking.