Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I go to the OSSE website, I can see the breakdown of FARMS versus non FARMS for Brent ES.

Last year, 3rd grade had 46% FARM.
4th grade 60% FARM.
5th grade was 80% FARM.

The overall school is 28% FARM.

It's a fine school for under 3rd grade. Good teachers and some interesting stuff happening for children.

By third grade, your child will take 6 practice tests for the DCCAS. (That's over 24 instructional hours devoted to practicing for the DCCAS.) That coupled with no substantial language offerings, no music program and a "museum magnet program" that seems to comprised of going on field trips to museums (different from any other school how??) makes other schools look more appealing.

Families leave for suburban schools just as they always have. The rallying cry at Brent is that if there were a good feeder, families will stay.

Brent needs to focus on compelling programming within their walls and pull away from their reliance on nonstop test prep in the 3rd-5th grades, if they are going to keep local families.

No music program??? While it certainly could be more robust and integrated, we have an excellent music teacher who is exposing students to various instruments (my 1st grader is learning guitar during music class). The museum magnet program moniker lives on from an earlier era and suffers from the inability of some teachers to step up and be more creative. However, museum night is quite impressive, particular for upper grades and the EC teachers are introducing the masters and modernists to Pre-K students.

A thread about Maury seems to be focused on Brent . . .

Anonymous wrote:When I go to the OSSE website, I can see the breakdown of FARMS versus non FARMS for Brent ES.

Last year, 3rd grade had 46% FARM.
4th grade 60% FARM.
5th grade was 80% FARM.

The overall school is 28% FARM.

It's a fine school for under 3rd grade. Good teachers and some interesting stuff happening for children.

By third grade, your child will take 6 practice tests for the DCCAS. (That's over 24 instructional hours devoted to practicing for the DCCAS.) That coupled with no substantial language offerings, no music program and a "museum magnet program" that seems to comprised of going on field trips to museums (different from any other school how??) makes other schools look more appealing.

Families leave for suburban schools just as they always have. The rallying cry at Brent is that if there were a good feeder, families will stay.

Brent needs to focus on compelling programming within their walls and pull away from their reliance on nonstop test prep in the 3rd-5th grades, if they are going to keep local families.

No music program??? While it certainly could be more robust and integrated, we have an excellent music teacher who is exposing students to various instruments (my 1st grader is learning guitar during music class). The museum magnet program moniker lives on from an earlier era and suffers from the inability of some teachers to step up and be more creative. However, museum night is quite impressive, particular for upper grades and the EC teachers are introducing the masters and modernists to Pre-K students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bump. How is Maury doing 2 years later? Did those MC families stay after 3rd grade or did they bail?

I'd say the percentages at Maury are starting to approach the numbers at Brent. 52% AA. 40% FARMs. 46% in-boundary.

Brent must have changed.... 32% AA, 21% FARMs these days, 38% in-boundary.

Really interested in Maury and what the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades are like in 2013.

Our child was in Maury's 3rd when this question came up and stayed until 5th. I'd say about 80% of Maury's current 5th grade were also at Maury in 3rd grade. Some moved, some were removed, some were added, some came back. I can highly recommend it. Some of the strengths: its teachers (many experienced, all highly motivated and on the same page, consistent in their methods and background), its community (involved but not in your face, or rarely), and its kids (just all around really nice, fair, considerate, and each with a set of smarts they cherish).

Anonymous wrote:Bump. How is Maury doing 2 years later? Did those MC families stay after 3rd grade or did they bail?

I'd say the percentages at Maury are starting to approach the numbers at Brent. 52% AA. 40% FARMs. 46% in-boundary.

Bump. How is Maury doing 2 years later? Did those MC families stay after 3rd grade or did they bail?

Anonymous wrote:"Stats can only get you so far in understanding a situation. The "why" for the stats can't be assumed. "

Yes, help me understand why if Brent is such a great school, why can't they pull off a miracle and get these kids to do better on a standardized test?

If you can't do it at Brent, how will it ever happen at schools that aren't gentrifying from preschool up?

I am a Brent parent and worry about the same question. It keeps me up at night, no joke.

I wonder if dispersing kids who are statistically at risk of not achieving and not concentrating them in one place may be part of the answer. Montgomery County has played with this idea a bit and had some success.

You are right to challenge the definition of a "great school". That label gets thrown around to some weird places for wierd reasons in the crazy dcps system. It's all relative and subjective.

Anonymous wrote:

That's why Michelle Rhee's massive fire and hire campaign was short-sighted. Not that one shouldn't get rid of bad teachers but that the school system needs to work on more anti-poverty measures in addition to hiring great teachers.

This is one of the things I could never understand about the vehemency of the anti-Rhee folks. As you say, "not that one shouldn't get rid of bad teachers but that the school system needs to work on more anti-poverty measures in addition to hiring great teachers." Rhee was obviously engaged in the hiring / firing (we can argue about how successfully).

So the critique was often, what? That she wasn't implementing enough anti-poverty measures? Tough to do as the DCPS chancellor.

Okay, I should have added that in some cases she did the "hiring and firing" badly. She was not a competent manager. And one of her blind spots was that simply hiring determined, bright-eyed young people could somehow raise test scores -- especially when she threw some people into principal positions in schools where they were overwhelmed. Not a problem for Rhee, she just fired them. But the question then is who will you hire to take their place? Who would want to take the risk that they would be hung out to dry like that?

That's why Michelle Rhee's massive fire and hire campaign was short-sighted. Not that one shouldn't get rid of bad teachers but that the school system needs to work on more anti-poverty measures in addition to hiring great teachers.

This is one of the things I could never understand about the vehemency of the anti-Rhee folks. As you say, "not that one shouldn't get rid of bad teachers but that the school system needs to work on more anti-poverty measures in addition to hiring great teachers." Rhee was obviously engaged in the hiring / firing (we can argue about how successfully).

So the critique was often, what? That she wasn't implementing enough anti-poverty measures? Tough to do as the DCPS chancellor.

Anonymous wrote:Well, that's the $1,000,000 question isn't it? The cynical answer would be that you don't, and that DCPS will be perceived as less dysfunctional as it gentrifies. Watch those test scores skyrocket as those FARM numbers fall!

I think a lot of this topic centers on the fact that "good school" means "capable of effectively educating middle-class kids." Not, "can make scholars out of more than a very kids living in poverty." The way to educate poor kids is to make them not poor--which means making their parents not poor.

Unfortunately, that's not the sort of thing we do here in America.

Exactly. That's why Michelle Rhee's massive fire and hire campaign was short-sighted. Not that one shouldn't get rid of bad teachers but that the school system needs to work on more anti-poverty measures in addition to hiring great teachers.

Anonymous wrote:"Stats can only get you so far in understanding a situation. The "why" for the stats can't be assumed. "

Yes, help me understand why if Brent is such a great school, why can't they pull off a miracle and get these kids to do better on a standardized test?

If you can't do it at Brent, how will it ever happen at schools that aren't gentrifying from preschool up?

Well, that's the $1,000,000 question isn't it? The cynical answer would be that you don't, and that DCPS will be perceived as less dysfunctional as it gentrifies. Watch those test scores skyrocket as those FARM numbers fall!

I think a lot of this topic centers on the fact that "good school" means "capable of effectively educating middle-class kids." Not, "can make scholars out of more than a very kids living in poverty." The way to educate poor kids is to make them not poor--which means making their parents not poor.

Unfortunately, that's not the sort of thing we do here in America.

"Stats can only get you so far in understanding a situation. The "why" for the stats can't be assumed. "

Yes, help me understand why if Brent is such a great school, why can't they pull off a miracle and get these kids to do better on a standardized test?

If you can't do it at Brent, how will it ever happen at schools that aren't gentrifying from preschool up?

"Last year, 3rd grade had 46% FARM.

4th grade 60% FARM.

5th grade was 80% FARM."

These numbers look right on, but they are not because of a drain of middle class parents, it is because the school changed in a major way when the current third graders were in pk.

Stats can only get you so far in understanding a situation. The "why" for the stats can't be assumed.

10:11, you're right. I worded that poorly. Students in most low-peforming DCPS schools now take 6 practice tests for the DCCAS. The process of sitting for that test is 4 hours. 6x 4 is 24.

There is plenty of teaching time focused on performing well on those practice tests, not to mention the 2 week period of school that is devoted to the actual taking of the DC CAS. At Brent, more time is devoted to standardized test taking than say, foreign language.

Plenty of parents are ok with that amount of time learning to take a test. Those parents will stay.

I'm a Brent parent and it's a nice school, but if I get lucky in a lottery that gets my kids more arts, or language and less test prep, I'll be gone.

Yes, test prep is a problem everywhere, but especially so at Brent where the poverty is concentrated in the upper grades. The FARMs tend to do poorly on the test and Brent is under pressure to raise those scores.

Even if your child can do very well on the test, they will still be subject to this test prep.

Right now the focus on Brent is a viable middle school. I can tell you right now there is no way my kids will be around that long if the focus doesn't move off of getting a high score on the DCCAS.

Clearly, there are others who feel differently.

Anonymous wrote:The benefit to "jumping early" is that your child doesn't learn to hate a school that substitutes test prep for actual learning.

Ok, I get it now. But is that actually why the majority of parents do so? From what I've heard schools in MCPS or FCPS aren't a whole lot less test-obsessed.