Anonymous
08/21/2025 17:29
Subject: DC CAPE SCORES
Anonymous wrote:Elementary schools where half or more of Black students got a 4+ on CAPE:
Math:
Key
Lafayette
Ross
Hyde-Addison
Bruce-Monroe
Whittier
Brent
Stoddert
ELA:
LAMB
Shepherd
Hyde-Addison
Lafayette
Stoddert
SWS
Oyster-Adams
Ross
Key
Mann
DC Bilingual
This is certainly good to note. Yet, if you're going to parse out demographic groups, if you have a kid from a privileged background and want to know where they will get a good education, it's more useful to look at how white students do because they are more homogeneous. We all know that there are wealthy as well as impoverished black students, and they're more likely to live in and be highly represented in wealthy neighborhoods' schools.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 17:20
Subject: DC CAPE SCORES
Elementary schools where half or more of Black students got a 4+ on CAPE:
Math:
Key
Lafayette
Ross
Hyde-Addison
Bruce-Monroe
Whittier
Brent
Stoddert
ELA:
LAMB
Shepherd
Hyde-Addison
Lafayette
Stoddert
SWS
Oyster-Adams
Ross
Key
Mann
DC Bilingual
Math:
Key
Lafayette
Ross
Hyde-Addison
Bruce-Monroe
Whittier
Brent
Stoddert
ELA:
LAMB
Shepherd
Hyde-Addison
Lafayette
Stoddert
SWS
Oyster-Adams
Ross
Key
Mann
DC Bilingual
Anonymous
08/21/2025 17:20
Subject: DC CAPE SCORES
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't understand how CAPE serves any purpose when the scores take so long to arrive. Other than very big picture sense of trends in the district, there is just not much you can do with the information 6 months after the fact. Like the idea that it factors into teacher assessment -- how is that possible when it bleeds so far into the next year?
If you are a parent can you please bring this up to your school’s superintendent and your council person?
+1
Anonymous
08/21/2025 17:16
Subject: DC CAPE SCORES
Elementary schools where more than a third of economically disadvantaged kids got a 4+ on CAPE:
Math:
Lafayette
Brent
Whittier
Friendship Chamberlain
Barnard
English:
Lafayette
Early Childhood Academy
Friendship Chamberlain
Hyde-Addison
Shepherd
Center City Congress Heights
Whittier
Stokes
Janney
Stoddert
DC Prep Benning
Powell
Math:
Lafayette
Brent
Whittier
Friendship Chamberlain
Barnard
English:
Lafayette
Early Childhood Academy
Friendship Chamberlain
Hyde-Addison
Shepherd
Center City Congress Heights
Whittier
Stokes
Janney
Stoddert
DC Prep Benning
Powell
Anonymous
08/21/2025 16:54
Subject: DC CAPE SCORES
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It's a shame the Empower Dashboard doesn't let you look at non-economically disadvantaged students (it says it does, but the graphs don't show), because that's actually what I'd like to see. Relying on white as an imperfect proxy, for all students in ES specifically, you get a VERY different list than the "top" list above... which really shows how much that list is just demographics driven.
Top 15 ELA:
Shepherd 93
Chisholm 93
Ludlow-Taylor 92
Stoddert 90
Hyde-Addison 90
Maury 88
EL Haynes 86
Payne 86
Oyster-Adams 85
Bancroft 85
Janney 85
Lafayette 84
Murch 84
SWS 83
Mundo Verde - Cook 82
Top 15 Math:
Hearst 93
Lewis 93
Shepherd 90
Lafayette 90
Ross 90
SWS 89
Brent 88
Watkins 97
Maury 87
Stoddert 87
Murch 85
Eaton 85
Garrison 85
Chisholm 81
Ludlow-Taylor 81
One thing I think is interesting about the above list is that lots of these schools are very diverse and so don't do as well "overall." But it seems to me that as a parent what you should care about is how your kid would do and this seems to give the best view of that for UMC families. It's actually encouraging to me that it suggests a diverse set of classmates is not a negative and could be a positive even looking only at test scores. (It semes like it's obviously a positive overall.) The other thing this makes very clear is that DCPSes do much better than Charters for ES when you compare like populations.
Totally agree with this. The longer I stay in the DC school system, the less helpful I think this data is for non-at-risk families except to make everyone lottery for the same schools, increasing segregation.
The longer I have kids in the system (elementary and middle), the more I think that CAPE is a very limited data point when comparing schools, whose curriculums vary pretty widely.
+1. I have kids in middle and high school, and I can now understand why most states did away with this test. Of all the many tests my kids have taken over the years, CAPE/PARCC has been the least accurate in showing whether my kids are meeting or exceeding grade expectations.
Interesting. I figured they were pretty reliable because my kid graduated from scoring 5s on CAPE/PARCC to scoring 5s on AP exams. Why do you say the CAPE/PARCC exams are inaccurate? Which exams are better?
what I mean about CAPE being limited is that you can look at two schools that have similar CAPE scores and think they are similar, but one may have more robust science, writing, social studies and the other won't, or one (in the case of middle school) is teaching biology and physics and and various histories, and the other is teaching more simplified versions of that.
I actually think the Science CAPE numbers are extremely useful for that reason, bc when a school is teaching science well they are probably teaching a lot of other courses well.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 16:52
Subject: DC CAPE SCORES
Anonymous wrote:A reminder: "at-risk" means homeless, in the foster care system, eligible for benefits like SNAP or TANF, or a high school student who is one year or more older than the expected age for their grade.
A child from a family that makes just enough to be ineligible for SNAP is not "at-risk," but many of them are still disadvantaged compared to the typical DCUM poster, who has income many times above poverty level, is college-educated, speaks English fluently, etc.
A good reminder. DC remains a highly divided city in many ways: we have the most privileged kids, educationally alongside many kids facing huge challenges. Our teachers face huge challenges in educating both groups well, along with children with learning disabilities, not to mention getting all of our kids caught up post-COVID. We owe our teachers a debt of gratitude.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 16:45
Subject: DC CAPE SCORES
A reminder: "at-risk" means homeless, in the foster care system, eligible for benefits like SNAP or TANF, or a high school student who is one year or more older than the expected age for their grade.
A child from a family that makes just enough to be ineligible for SNAP is not "at-risk," but many of them are still disadvantaged compared to the typical DCUM poster, who has income many times above poverty level, is college-educated, speaks English fluently, etc.
A child from a family that makes just enough to be ineligible for SNAP is not "at-risk," but many of them are still disadvantaged compared to the typical DCUM poster, who has income many times above poverty level, is college-educated, speaks English fluently, etc.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 16:41
Subject: DC CAPE SCORES
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It's a shame the Empower Dashboard doesn't let you look at non-economically disadvantaged students (it says it does, but the graphs don't show), because that's actually what I'd like to see. Relying on white as an imperfect proxy, for all students in ES specifically, you get a VERY different list than the "top" list above... which really shows how much that list is just demographics driven.
Top 15 ELA:
Shepherd 93
Chisholm 93
Ludlow-Taylor 92
Stoddert 90
Hyde-Addison 90
Maury 88
EL Haynes 86
Payne 86
Oyster-Adams 85
Bancroft 85
Janney 85
Lafayette 84
Murch 84
SWS 83
Mundo Verde - Cook 82
Top 15 Math:
Hearst 93
Lewis 93
Shepherd 90
Lafayette 90
Ross 90
SWS 89
Brent 88
Watkins 97
Maury 87
Stoddert 87
Murch 85
Eaton 85
Garrison 85
Chisholm 81
Ludlow-Taylor 81
One thing I think is interesting about the above list is that lots of these schools are very diverse and so don't do as well "overall." But it seems to me that as a parent what you should care about is how your kid would do and this seems to give the best view of that for UMC families. It's actually encouraging to me that it suggests a diverse set of classmates is not a negative and could be a positive even looking only at test scores. (It semes like it's obviously a positive overall.) The other thing this makes very clear is that DCPSes do much better than Charters for ES when you compare like populations.
Totally agree with this. The longer I stay in the DC school system, the less helpful I think this data is for non-at-risk families except to make everyone lottery for the same schools, increasing segregation.
The longer I have kids in the system (elementary and middle), the more I think that CAPE is a very limited data point when comparing schools, whose curriculums vary pretty widely.
+1. I have kids in middle and high school, and I can now understand why most states did away with this test. Of all the many tests my kids have taken over the years, CAPE/PARCC has been the least accurate in showing whether my kids are meeting or exceeding grade expectations.
Interesting. I figured they were pretty reliable because my kid graduated from scoring 5s on CAPE/PARCC to scoring 5s on AP exams. Why do you say the CAPE/PARCC exams are inaccurate? Which exams are better?
I am not the PP, but I have found the MAP scores to be much better in telling me about my kid's strengths and weaknesses overall. DC CAPE is fine but more of a snapshot of where they are on one day than a good look at progress from one year to the next.
This has been true for my DS as well. His CAPE/PARCC scores haven't matched his MAP scores or teacher feedback.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 16:36
Subject: DC CAPE SCORES
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It's a shame the Empower Dashboard doesn't let you look at non-economically disadvantaged students (it says it does, but the graphs don't show), because that's actually what I'd like to see. Relying on white as an imperfect proxy, for all students in ES specifically, you get a VERY different list than the "top" list above... which really shows how much that list is just demographics driven.
Top 15 ELA:
Shepherd 93
Chisholm 93
Ludlow-Taylor 92
Stoddert 90
Hyde-Addison 90
Maury 88
EL Haynes 86
Payne 86
Oyster-Adams 85
Bancroft 85
Janney 85
Lafayette 84
Murch 84
SWS 83
Mundo Verde - Cook 82
Top 15 Math:
Hearst 93
Lewis 93
Shepherd 90
Lafayette 90
Ross 90
SWS 89
Brent 88
Watkins 97
Maury 87
Stoddert 87
Murch 85
Eaton 85
Garrison 85
Chisholm 81
Ludlow-Taylor 81
One thing I think is interesting about the above list is that lots of these schools are very diverse and so don't do as well "overall." But it seems to me that as a parent what you should care about is how your kid would do and this seems to give the best view of that for UMC families. It's actually encouraging to me that it suggests a diverse set of classmates is not a negative and could be a positive even looking only at test scores. (It semes like it's obviously a positive overall.) The other thing this makes very clear is that DCPSes do much better than Charters for ES when you compare like populations.
Totally agree with this. The longer I stay in the DC school system, the less helpful I think this data is for non-at-risk families except to make everyone lottery for the same schools, increasing segregation.
The longer I have kids in the system (elementary and middle), the more I think that CAPE is a very limited data point when comparing schools, whose curriculums vary pretty widely.
+1. I have kids in middle and high school, and I can now understand why most states did away with this test. Of all the many tests my kids have taken over the years, CAPE/PARCC has been the least accurate in showing whether my kids are meeting or exceeding grade expectations.
Interesting. I figured they were pretty reliable because my kid graduated from scoring 5s on CAPE/PARCC to scoring 5s on AP exams. Why do you say the CAPE/PARCC exams are inaccurate? Which exams are better?
I mean, I think that what those scores tell you is that your kid is just a high achiever / good test taker. It doesn't mean they're a good metric for the school system as a whole, especially when it comes to high school.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 16:35
Subject: DC CAPE SCORES
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It's a shame the Empower Dashboard doesn't let you look at non-economically disadvantaged students (it says it does, but the graphs don't show), because that's actually what I'd like to see. Relying on white as an imperfect proxy, for all students in ES specifically, you get a VERY different list than the "top" list above... which really shows how much that list is just demographics driven.
Top 15 ELA:
Shepherd 93
Chisholm 93
Ludlow-Taylor 92
Stoddert 90
Hyde-Addison 90
Maury 88
EL Haynes 86
Payne 86
Oyster-Adams 85
Bancroft 85
Janney 85
Lafayette 84
Murch 84
SWS 83
Mundo Verde - Cook 82
Top 15 Math:
Hearst 93
Lewis 93
Shepherd 90
Lafayette 90
Ross 90
SWS 89
Brent 88
Watkins 97
Maury 87
Stoddert 87
Murch 85
Eaton 85
Garrison 85
Chisholm 81
Ludlow-Taylor 81
One thing I think is interesting about the above list is that lots of these schools are very diverse and so don't do as well "overall." But it seems to me that as a parent what you should care about is how your kid would do and this seems to give the best view of that for UMC families. It's actually encouraging to me that it suggests a diverse set of classmates is not a negative and could be a positive even looking only at test scores. (It semes like it's obviously a positive overall.) The other thing this makes very clear is that DCPSes do much better than Charters for ES when you compare like populations.
Totally agree with this. The longer I stay in the DC school system, the less helpful I think this data is for non-at-risk families except to make everyone lottery for the same schools, increasing segregation.
The longer I have kids in the system (elementary and middle), the more I think that CAPE is a very limited data point when comparing schools, whose curriculums vary pretty widely.
+1. I have kids in middle and high school, and I can now understand why most states did away with this test. Of all the many tests my kids have taken over the years, CAPE/PARCC has been the least accurate in showing whether my kids are meeting or exceeding grade expectations.
Interesting. I figured they were pretty reliable because my kid graduated from scoring 5s on CAPE/PARCC to scoring 5s on AP exams. Why do you say the CAPE/PARCC exams are inaccurate? Which exams are better?
I am not the PP, but I have found the MAP scores to be much better in telling me about my kid's strengths and weaknesses overall. DC CAPE is fine but more of a snapshot of where they are on one day than a good look at progress from one year to the next.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 16:20
Subject: DC CAPE SCORES
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It's a shame the Empower Dashboard doesn't let you look at non-economically disadvantaged students (it says it does, but the graphs don't show), because that's actually what I'd like to see. Relying on white as an imperfect proxy, for all students in ES specifically, you get a VERY different list than the "top" list above... which really shows how much that list is just demographics driven.
Top 15 ELA:
Shepherd 93
Chisholm 93
Ludlow-Taylor 92
Stoddert 90
Hyde-Addison 90
Maury 88
EL Haynes 86
Payne 86
Oyster-Adams 85
Bancroft 85
Janney 85
Lafayette 84
Murch 84
SWS 83
Mundo Verde - Cook 82
Top 15 Math:
Hearst 93
Lewis 93
Shepherd 90
Lafayette 90
Ross 90
SWS 89
Brent 88
Watkins 97
Maury 87
Stoddert 87
Murch 85
Eaton 85
Garrison 85
Chisholm 81
Ludlow-Taylor 81
One thing I think is interesting about the above list is that lots of these schools are very diverse and so don't do as well "overall." But it seems to me that as a parent what you should care about is how your kid would do and this seems to give the best view of that for UMC families. It's actually encouraging to me that it suggests a diverse set of classmates is not a negative and could be a positive even looking only at test scores. (It semes like it's obviously a positive overall.) The other thing this makes very clear is that DCPSes do much better than Charters for ES when you compare like populations.
Totally agree with this. The longer I stay in the DC school system, the less helpful I think this data is for non-at-risk families except to make everyone lottery for the same schools, increasing segregation.
The longer I have kids in the system (elementary and middle), the more I think that CAPE is a very limited data point when comparing schools, whose curriculums vary pretty widely.
+1. I have kids in middle and high school, and I can now understand why most states did away with this test. Of all the many tests my kids have taken over the years, CAPE/PARCC has been the least accurate in showing whether my kids are meeting or exceeding grade expectations.
Interesting. I figured they were pretty reliable because my kid graduated from scoring 5s on CAPE/PARCC to scoring 5s on AP exams. Why do you say the CAPE/PARCC exams are inaccurate? Which exams are better?
Anonymous
08/21/2025 16:17
Subject: DC CAPE SCORES
And to round it out, SWW's At Risk rate is 10%.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 16:16
Subject: DC CAPE SCORES
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It's a shame the Empower Dashboard doesn't let you look at non-economically disadvantaged students (it says it does, but the graphs don't show), because that's actually what I'd like to see. Relying on white as an imperfect proxy, for all students in ES specifically, you get a VERY different list than the "top" list above... which really shows how much that list is just demographics driven.
Top 15 ELA:
Shepherd 93
Chisholm 93
Ludlow-Taylor 92
Stoddert 90
Hyde-Addison 90
Maury 88
EL Haynes 86
Payne 86
Oyster-Adams 85
Bancroft 85
Janney 85
Lafayette 84
Murch 84
SWS 83
Mundo Verde - Cook 82
Top 15 Math:
Hearst 93
Lewis 93
Shepherd 90
Lafayette 90
Ross 90
SWS 89
Brent 88
Watkins 97
Maury 87
Stoddert 87
Murch 85
Eaton 85
Garrison 85
Chisholm 81
Ludlow-Taylor 81
One thing I think is interesting about the above list is that lots of these schools are very diverse and so don't do as well "overall." But it seems to me that as a parent what you should care about is how your kid would do and this seems to give the best view of that for UMC families. It's actually encouraging to me that it suggests a diverse set of classmates is not a negative and could be a positive even looking only at test scores. (It semes like it's obviously a positive overall.) The other thing this makes very clear is that DCPSes do much better than Charters for ES when you compare like populations.
Totally agree with this. The longer I stay in the DC school system, the less helpful I think this data is for non-at-risk families except to make everyone lottery for the same schools, increasing segregation.
The longer I have kids in the system (elementary and middle), the more I think that CAPE is a very limited data point when comparing schools, whose curriculums vary pretty widely.
+1. I have kids in middle and high school, and I can now understand why most states did away with this test. Of all the many tests my kids have taken over the years, CAPE/PARCC has been the least accurate in showing whether my kids are meeting or exceeding grade expectations.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 16:14
Subject: DC CAPE SCORES
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:They are doing a great job, but Banneker and McKinley are also both application schools which means the entire student body including the at-risk population was selected to be there.
True, and yet, the PP had written that their At Risk population was higher than the other schools on the list, and at 14%, if you compare it to the other high schools, that's factually untrue.
Should be:
True, and yet, the PP had written that Latin's At Risk population was higher than the other schools on the list, and at 14%, if you compare it to the other high schools, that's factually untrue.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 16:14
Subject: DC CAPE SCORES
Anonymous wrote:They are doing a great job, but Banneker and McKinley are also both application schools which means the entire student body including the at-risk population was selected to be there.
True, and yet, the PP had written that their At Risk population was higher than the other schools on the list, and at 14%, if you compare it to the other high schools, that's factually untrue.