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Anonymous wrote:I totally have a crush on OP.

I bet he is dreamy in real life.

OP, before this goes on too long, can you clear up with the ladies whether or not you are a man?

OP here.

Yes, I am a man. Married, two kids and an awesome dog.

While I find the comments flattering, you should know my wife says I lack -- entirely -- all semblances of empathy.

Are you Italian?

OP here

Italian? No. Though I do have dark hair and blue eyes. (Do Italians have blue eyes? I have no clue, just looking for an excuse to throw that out there.)

I'm American.

My files are on my office computer, so nothing meaningful to reply now. Likely no meaningful reply about differences in advanced-only scores. The small sample sizes greatly limit extrapolation here. The confidence intervals for advanced white scores at Hardy probably include the numbers from Deal. (As an aside, I don't know how to calculate standard errors for an average of averages. Is there a method?) An earlier poster offers a good perspective: is the concern that your "advanced" will somehow magically become just "proficient" if he attended Hardy (and not Deal)? Hey, I don't judge people motives any further than what they say are, but that's a legitimate question.

Happy Easter and other holidays.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: please stop assuming that everyone else lives in a data-free or logic-free zone. Discarding this assumption will improve your analysis, because it will force you to accept the assumption of perfect information where it is appropriate, and therefore force you to dig deeper in your theorizing as to why parents avoid Hardy.

I'd ask you, pp, to not assume that everyone else lives in a data/logic-free zone. I don't see that assumption in OP's posts and don't live in that zone myself, though I am not an economist.

I also do not assume your 1-2-3 points in your post about what IB Hardy parents know. I've been followed numerous discussions on DCUM where some of them seemed ignorant about or resistant to knowledge about some or all of those points - using them as reasons not to send their kids to Hardy.

Anonymous wrote:Unhinged is right. Loony Toons.

PP must be an act. This is a comedy routine, right?

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Anonymous wrote:I am delighted to see all the statistics backing up the point that I perceive as so obvious: The more IB parents families their kids to Hardy, the more scores at Hardy will start reflecting IB families.

What is hard to understand about this? Nothing -- except there have been other psych/perception forces at work over the last few years that have clouded even the most logical/statistical minds.

It seems like the parents who say they are waiting for the scores to go up before they send their kids to Hardy are really saying - they're more influenced by gossip and innuendo than they are by statistics and common sense.

Perhaps they recognize that the emperor has no clothes. The percentage of white kids scoring "advanced" is much higher at Deal than Hardy.

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Compare.aspx?tab=1&school=405,246

Thank you! I had asked OP for this analysis, with no response so far.

Those results debunk this whole thread. The proportion of white kids who score advanced at deal is essentially double than hardy, both in reading and math. Over 50% vs 27%. Over 70% vs 42%. That's certainly not peanuts. And parents notice.

And what do parents determine? That Hardy will not be good enough for their kids until the scores go up, but the scores won't go up until kids like theirs go to Hardy, therefore they will keep waiting, complaining about the scores, sending their kids to private for middle school, if they can't do Deal, then to Wilson for high school where kids like theirs are mingling with Hardy kids and kids from all over DC, but somehow it's OK now.

I predict OP will be back -- but let's give him a break for tonight.

Overlooking the "advanced" numbers differentials means OP is not going to get a performance bonus on this project! But will be fun to see argument why those stats don't really matter...

here you go - he later (it must have been earlier) said that he used proficient plus advanced in his original post because that is what DCPS uses and there was no access to data that provided numbers or % of proficient vs advanced. NOT going to wade through the entire thread to find where he asserted this. To his credit, he thanked people for giving him links to get the breakdowns on everything.......but never really changed his analysis to incorporate it... and the difference is critical, because as people tried to explain, proficient is such a low bar.

but the other point is - he is Chechen (this came out when the "ladies" wanted to know if he was married) And in DC being a foreigner can be a true weakness even if you are an economist.

the one thing he now seems to accept as truth is another premise he originally rejected - that when the recession hit, Deal and Wilson began their renaissance or it increased exponentially, and now people who buy there do so specifically to go all the way through the public school system

the same just cannot be said for parents at Mann and Key who, as someone noted, were fairly recession proof....

Game theory does not really work in this case and the people who are trying to apply it do not have a full understanding of the dynamics at work - the prisoner's dilemma does work, but the rest? I did all this at the U of Chicago and at the time it made sense, and in many places it still makes sense, but here in DC it almost NEVER makes sense. And for the wealthiest parents in Ward 3 (Mann) and coming in close (Key) it will not make sense.

Economic theories for the most part, if you are talking about Hardy, are not going to work...because for these parents it is about economics. The possibility of Hardy even becoming remotely acceptable, however, is definitely is linked with Wilson becoming acceptable - because if you are not going to go on to Wilson, what is the point of going to Hardy? The neighborhood school theory certainly does not work at the moment.

A lot of the time, almost nothing DCPS does at least, makes economic sense - spending millions to renovate empty high schools while cutting budgets at an overcrowded Wilson and the feeder schools that the boundary revisions did nothing significant to cure...

I think he has spurred a very interesting discussion, and he has had his high points and his low points.

The first low point was the conflation of proficient and advanced, the assertion that there was no data to separate it, and then the refusal to redo his original analysis, even after people explained that proficient means nothing to them.

The analysis of SH was great.

And he nailed the poster from Mann who said the reason their "advanced" scores were so low was because everyone leaves so early for private school by showing that those who are left in 5th grade percentage wise are actually more advanced - which makes sense to me because the dumber the kid, the earlier you go private....... but perhaps in the case of last year, those kids went to Hardy (not all of them could fit at Field). Because now we are taking the PARCC instead, unfortunately, we will never know......

While I accept that he made the Basis poster so furious she ended up incoherent, Basis did score second only to Deal on the 2014 DC CAS when they were still a Title I school according to OSSE (over 40% FARMS), and 44% of the entire MS scored advanced in math. Now their demographics have shifted, but conflating the number of white test takers on the 2014 DC CAS with the present school demographics of 27% FARMS by referring to them both as "from 2014" would have made me see red as well. And for two years that was an important data point in DC - that school came in, took everyone by lottery, and somehow educated a population that most people say are hopeless by middle school.

He also asked for evidence that Kipp is marketed to poor minority (primarily AA kids) because he had never "heard" anyone assert that. To me that speaks volumes about his ignorance in the particular pond he has dipped his foot in.

As an economist, even as a game theorist, you have to know your market. As he admitted, he did this out of idle curiosity because a friend was playing the lottery and he came across a Hardy thread. And as much as people here tried to educate him, on economics (some of which went over my head), on the proficient vs advanced issue, and the decision making dynamics which, when they involve your children, we all have to admit, can be fundamentally irrational and defy all economic theories - just look at how much people are paying for private school here, even people who cannot rationally afford it, using up retirement savings, sheer insanity. But these are our kids. And as he admitted, not his. And he says his wife says "he lacks empathy." I agree. And he is a foreigner.
I don't think he really gets it, and I don't think he really gets DC.

My husband came here from NYC and it took him about 5 years to wrap his second generation Latino head around our fucked up racial history, legacy, burden - what have you - here - and how in this city it is still all about black and white, even though we are so "international" whereas NYC really is polyglot chaos..............

And I don't think he gets Mann, Key, and Hardy. And you kind of have to get all of them. But there is definitely something going on there, and as an IB Hardy parent who knew Rhee was a disaster but missed the whole Pope thing because we were in diapers........ I am excited. And I have the feeling that Patricia Pride does get all of them, as well as the entire population of her school, and the DC baggage, whatever you want to call it. So I have a lot of hope.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am delighted to see all the statistics backing up the point that I perceive as so obvious: The more IB parents families their kids to Hardy, the more scores at Hardy will start reflecting IB families.

What is hard to understand about this? Nothing -- except there have been other psych/perception forces at work over the last few years that have clouded even the most logical/statistical minds.

It seems like the parents who say they are waiting for the scores to go up before they send their kids to Hardy are really saying - they're more influenced by gossip and innuendo than they are by statistics and common sense.

Perhaps they recognize that the emperor has no clothes. The percentage of white kids scoring "advanced" is much higher at Deal than Hardy.

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Compare.aspx?tab=1&school=405,246

Thank you! I had asked OP for this analysis, with no response so far.

Those results debunk this whole thread. The proportion of white kids who score advanced at deal is essentially double than hardy, both in reading and math. Over 50% vs 27%. Over 70% vs 42%. That's certainly not peanuts. And parents notice.

And what do parents determine? That Hardy will not be good enough for their kids until the scores go up, but the scores won't go up until kids like theirs go to Hardy, therefore they will keep waiting, complaining about the scores, sending their kids to private for middle school, if they can't do Deal, then to Wilson for high school where kids like theirs are mingling with Hardy kids and kids from all over DC, but somehow it's OK now.

I predict OP will be back -- but let's give him a break for tonight.

Overlooking the "advanced" numbers differentials means OP is not going to get a performance bonus on this project! But will be fun to see argument why those stats don't really matter...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well first of all OP had the data wrong - he claimed that DCPS made no distinction between proficient and advanced and therefore he would not either because the data was not available

OP stated he had no vested interest in Hardy

OP's only vested interest so far seems to have been trying to prove that Basis was not a Title I school last year when it scored #2 on the DC CAS, second only to Deal, which has been disproven

but the way he went about asserting that was also highly misleading

so I would say that OP's views are extreme (or in some senses irrelevant) because they fail to take into account the factors that parents do when dealing with decisions about MS as opposed to ES, which include so much more than just
"will my child do well there"


for ES that is probably enough for many high SES parents who are confident about the intellectual environment they provide at home around the family dinner table and over the summers, but once you get to MS parents are thinking

about peer groups
potential temptations
rigorous and challenging educations that need to start before 9th grade to be college ready and college acceptable

"performing well" becomes a deal breaker if it is a concern, but otherwise it is a baseline I think for most of us

I think OP may have much younger kids or older kids or no kids....... no skin in the game and not many friends who do
and that is like me sitting in Econ 101 while studying Latin America at the same time and thinking - what the heck?

the bottom line is us IB folks are real people and real parents and his economic analysis ignores most of the factors that play into the decision making process at this stage in the school game

Please point out where OP Claimed DCPS made no distinction between proficient and advanced. I don't see that anywhere.

OP acknowledges he has "no skin in the game" as you put it. and offers he analysis as an objective way of looking at the situation. If you don't want to send your kids to Hardy, no matter what the data is, fine -- you don't have to. But why try to discredit OP? Why appear to be angry with someone who simply provided data?

Anonymous wrote:Well first of all OP had the data wrong - he claimed that DCPS made no distinction between proficient and advanced and therefore he would not either because the data was not available

OP stated he had no vested interest in Hardy

OP's only vested interest so far seems to have been trying to prove that Basis was not a Title I school last year when it scored #2 on the DC CAS, second only to Deal, which has been disproven

but the way he went about asserting that was also highly misleading

so I would say that OP's views are extreme (or in some senses irrelevant) because they fail to take into account the factors that parents do when dealing with decisions about MS as opposed to ES, which include so much more than just
"will my child do well there"


for ES that is probably enough for many high SES parents who are confident about the intellectual environment they provide at home around the family dinner table and over the summers, but once you get to MS parents are thinking

about peer groups
potential temptations
rigorous and challenging educations that need to start before 9th grade to be college ready and college acceptable

"performing well" becomes a deal breaker if it is a concern, but otherwise it is a baseline I think for most of us

I think OP may have much younger kids or older kids or no kids....... no skin in the game and not many friends who do
and that is like me sitting in Econ 101 while studying Latin America at the same time and thinking - what the heck?

the bottom line is us IB folks are real people and real parents and his economic analysis ignores most of the factors that play into the decision making process at this stage in the school game

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the upshot here is, parents choose, or decline to choose Hardy based on more than just whether their kid would theoretically perform well there. My kid would theoretically perform well at Hardy, and I think Hardy is a great school, but I chose to send him elsewhere. Some people will say that's racist, some people will say that's a waste of a perfectly good school, whatever. The bottom line is, if you are lucky enough to be able to choose, you will likely choose what you feel is the best fit for your child, and base that decision on those factors that are most important to you (it's the reason why so many OOB parents send their kids to Hardy - they chose that option, decided their IB school wasn't the right fit, and were lucky enough to make it happen). It's not perfect, and not everyone will agree with your decision, but, hey, that's their problem, not yours.

I am the PP who discussed the PD payoff matrices and provided a list of 10 reasons to choose high-performing cohorts despite an expectation that your own kid's performance on standardized tests will be no worse either way.

The above PP, yes, thank you, this is a good way (and a nice way) of saying what I am trying to say.

To the PP who points out that my information assumption is just as extreme as OP's, yep, mea culpa. We have no survey data on what IB Hardy parents think about this (wouldn't that be interesting!), so we are left to our own devices and you are free to assume whatever you wish. The truth no doubt lies in between these extremes.

Note however: this PD or coordination game is played by Hardy IB families, so let's keep the analysis focused on what they might think, and not on whatever Hardy-bashing nonsense you find on DCUM by people claiming or insinuating IB Hardy status. I see some posts criticizing Hardy wherein, based on the language used and the lack of knowledge about the feeder ESs and private schools and just my gut feeling, I wonder how many of them are actually IB. These people are just trolling, welcome to the internet. When we form our assumptions about what IB Hardy parents know or don't know, let's base those assumptions on the actual IB demographic (affluent, well-educated, democrat) and not on whatever people say on DCUM claiming to be IB.

And yes, people use outdated information and emotion and all that. However, I did quickly provide off the top of my head 10 rational reasons to choose a high performing school, and together we could think of more. So if we want our analysis to have rigor, let's not ignore the possibility of emotion and hearsay playing a role, but let's also not dismiss the many solid reasons to make the choice. I imagine we could also make a list of 10 reasons to choose a Title I school like Hardy.

One of the reasons why I bother participating in this thread is because I hate the assumptions and race-baiting in the other Hardy threads. There seems to be this constant suggestion that, if you choose to avoid Hardy, you are ignorant of the analysis posted by OP. Or, you are a racist. I think this is generally wrong on both counts. In most cases we are talking about highly educated people with liberal values who are well informed but simply think differently from the OP about how to choose a school. To each his or her own.

Anonymous wrote:I think the upshot here is, parents choose, or decline to choose Hardy based on more than just whether their kid would theoretically perform well there. My kid would theoretically perform well at Hardy, and I think Hardy is a great school, but I chose to send him elsewhere. Some people will say that's racist, some people will say that's a waste of a perfectly good school, whatever. The bottom line is, if you are lucky enough to be able to choose, you will likely choose what you feel is the best fit for your child, and base that decision on those factors that are most important to you (it's the reason why so many OOB parents send their kids to Hardy - they chose that option, decided their IB school wasn't the right fit, and were lucky enough to make it happen). It's not perfect, and not everyone will agree with your decision, but, hey, that's their problem, not yours.

Anonymous wrote:child in uniform..."ghetto" school...?
please, please tell me this was a sarcastic attempt at humour.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:child in uniform..."ghetto" school...?
please, please tell me this was a sarcastic attempt at humour.

Children at Washington Latin and NCS wear uniforms
but there have been a number of vocal IB Hardy parents who misleadingly claim that they would send their children but for the uniforms. It is dishonest and a distractor..........

ignore it

I have to honestly say that the uniforms mean something to me. I would not send my child to Latin either. A public school should not have uniforms, and when some have uniforms and others don't, it sends the message that the school "needs" uniforms to keep order. Private schools are a different matter entirely, but I do not think some publics should require uniforms while others don't. It would factor into my decision.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:child in uniform..."ghetto" school...?
please, please tell me this was a sarcastic attempt at humour.

Children at Washington Latin and NCS wear uniforms
but there have been a number of vocal IB Hardy parents who misleadingly claim that they would send their children but for the uniforms. It is dishonest and a distractor..........

ignore it