Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My prediction: The list of the best schools in the city, at every level, will be increasingly dominated by charters.

Only for middle school.

DCPS is by far the leader for elementary. High School is split.

No for elementary EOTP. It’s the immersion charters. Families that don’t get in then settle for DCPS.

Nope. Definitely not true on Capitol Hill.

OK, CH may be the exception but it is a very, very small part of EOTP.

Some CH families do choose immersion over DCPS but not majority.

No, it's actually you who are focusing on one specific slice of EOTP. Other parts -- CH included -- have different stories, but few of them are immersion charter-focused. Shepherd, Ross, Reed, Bancroft, Maury, Brent, Ludlow-Taylor, Chisholm, Payne, Watkins and Van Ness are all schools where DCPSes are the preferred destinations (either the IB itself or a nearby one). EOTR few kids are in immersion and the ones that are are mostly in/hoping for Chisholm.

Folks in Brookland, Eckington, Brentwood, Edgewood are heading to immersion (and other, e.g., Lee) charters because they're the closest good options. The charters that folks EOTR attend are not immersion, but they choose them for the same reason. For anyone close enough to Capitol Hill or WOTP, those DCPSes are typically the closest good options and so the first choice. As CH has gentrified, there are now many more CH ESes on the list and so more good spots for OOBers; same thing with the DCPS ESes along the North Cap corridor.

As a general matter, I think most people think -- and the test scores certainly bear out -- that DPCSes are the best-performing ESes.

Yeah agree. I know US News is somehow debatable, but all 10 of the top elementary schools are DCPS, with 6 WOTP and 4 EOTP (Ross, Shepherd, Maury, Brent).

And if anyone looked at that "who is beating 3rd grade expectations" chart, charter schools like Yu Ying and LAMB that have very low poverty rates have startling low 3rd grade reading scores -- they are underperforming relative to demographics.


Middle school is a different story, because DCPS really doesn't seem to have that figured out, curricularly.

But they come back in high school, with many DCPS schools offering sufficient challenge (Walls, Banneker, JR, MacArthur and McKinley Tech)

Ok, well kids at those immersion schools are learning everything via a second language. When the teacher is teaching them about ecosystems or conjunctions or Native American history or whatever, the teacher is not doing it in English.

But aren't they also learning English in those charters? I thought those charters switched to dual language by 3rd grade.

At LAMB, they switch back and forth, with one day in Spanish and the next in English. Janney, Key and other elementary schools have higher test scores than LAMB, but I'm not sure how to interpret that because it seems like comparing apples and oranges. If one school is delivering all of its lessons in the students' native language and the second school delivers half of those same lessons in a foreign language, then I guess I would expect the first school to have higher scores because it's inherently easier to learn everything in your own language. But I guess I'd think the students at the second school are more impressive because the degree of difficulty there is just so much higher.

Anonymous wrote:Peabody/Watkins decline in IB participation reflects a lot of people peeling off for L-T, Maury, or Brent when they can get in by lottery (and in many cases they have proximity preference due to the very weird Peabody/Watkins boundary).

But it actually really surprises me that they are still 52% IB. I would have predicted lower. I would love to see that broken down by campus (does it just reflect the continued popularity of Peabody for ECE?). 52% puts it only slightly below L-T (55%) and Brent (60%), which is not what I would have expected.

I actually think something is wrong with the data for Peabody/Watkins. Number of students living in boundary goes from 315 in SY19-20 to 660 in SY20-21, stays at over 600 through SY23-24, then back down to 267 in SY24-25.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For elementary schools, here's where the IB participation rate has increased the most from SY19-20 to SY24-25 by percentage point change:
-Garrison 25% to 44%
-Hyde-Addison 63% to 81%
-Bancroft 60% to 75%
-Payne 37% to 50%
-John Lewis 22% to 33%

And where the IB participation rate decreased the most from SY19-20 to SY24-25 by percentage point change:
-John Francis 79% to 58%
-Leckie 28% to 15%
-Ross 87% to 76%
-Thomson 50% to 39%
-Cleveland 37% to 26%
-Tubman 39% to 29%
-Peabody/Watkins 62% to 52%

Some honorable mentions (based on percent change) at schools with low boundary participation rates:
-Whittier 19% to 26%
-Burroughs 21% to 26%

Tubman's in a swing space. That decrease is likely temporary.

I'm surprised by Ross/Thomson/John Francis. Doesn't John Francis have a brand new building? Why the drop in inbound participation? And Thomson? With Thomson, part of that might be nearby options (Garrison/Seaton) being more appealing, but hard to imagine people picking either of those over Ross or John Francis.

PP here - oh, actually I bet I know what's up with JF - they JUST moved to their new building. Probably people who left because they didn't like the swing space often don't come back - they've settled in elsewhere. So they're still seeing the hit from having been in the swing space (which was pretty far away, IIRC).

Maybe. They rebounded from 46% in SY23-24 to 58% SY24-25. Also keep in mind these are elementary-specific numbers.

For the middle school the boundary participation rate has actually increased from 34% in SY19-20 to 40% in SY24-25.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For elementary schools, here's where the IB participation rate has increased the most from SY19-20 to SY24-25 by percentage point change:
-Garrison 25% to 44%
-Hyde-Addison 63% to 81%
-Bancroft 60% to 75%
-Payne 37% to 50%
-John Lewis 22% to 33%

And where the IB participation rate decreased the most from SY19-20 to SY24-25 by percentage point change:
-John Francis 79% to 58%
-Leckie 28% to 15%
-Ross 87% to 76%
-Thomson 50% to 39%
-Cleveland 37% to 26%
-Tubman 39% to 29%
-Peabody/Watkins 62% to 52%

Some honorable mentions (based on percent change) at schools with low boundary participation rates:
-Whittier 19% to 26%
-Burroughs 21% to 26%

Tubman's in a swing space. That decrease is likely temporary.

I'm surprised by Ross/Thomson/John Francis. Doesn't John Francis have a brand new building? Why the drop in inbound participation? And Thomson? With Thomson, part of that might be nearby options (Garrison/Seaton) being more appealing, but hard to imagine people picking either of those over Ross or John Francis.

PP here - oh, actually I bet I know what's up with JF - they JUST moved to their new building. Probably people who left because they didn't like the swing space often don't come back - they've settled in elsewhere. So they're still seeing the hit from having been in the swing space (which was pretty far away, IIRC).

Peabody/Watkins decline in IB participation reflects a lot of people peeling off for L-T, Maury, or Brent when they can get in by lottery (and in many cases they have proximity preference due to the very weird Peabody/Watkins boundary).

But it actually really surprises me that they are still 52% IB. I would have predicted lower. I would love to see that broken down by campus (does it just reflect the continued popularity of Peabody for ECE?). 52% puts it only slightly below L-T (55%) and Brent (60%), which is not what I would have expected.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For elementary schools, here's where the IB participation rate has increased the most from SY19-20 to SY24-25 by percentage point change:
-Garrison 25% to 44%
-Hyde-Addison 63% to 81%
-Bancroft 60% to 75%
-Payne 37% to 50%
-John Lewis 22% to 33%

And where the IB participation rate decreased the most from SY19-20 to SY24-25 by percentage point change:
-John Francis 79% to 58%
-Leckie 28% to 15%
-Ross 87% to 76%
-Thomson 50% to 39%
-Cleveland 37% to 26%
-Tubman 39% to 29%
-Peabody/Watkins 62% to 52%

Some honorable mentions (based on percent change) at schools with low boundary participation rates:
-Whittier 19% to 26%
-Burroughs 21% to 26%

Tubman's in a swing space. That decrease is likely temporary.

I'm surprised by Ross/Thomson/John Francis. Doesn't John Francis have a brand new building? Why the drop in inbound participation? And Thomson? With Thomson, part of that might be nearby options (Garrison/Seaton) being more appealing, but hard to imagine people picking either of those over Ross or John Francis.

I was surprised too. It's hard to get a sense of exactly where students are going to because OSSE only shows it publicly if 10 or more students attend an OOB school.

Can't see anything for Ross.

John Francis looks like a shift toward Hyde-Addison, Marie Reed, and Stevens.

Thomson looks like a shift toward Seaton (11% of students IB for Thomson attended Seaton last year), John Francis, and Cleveland. And a steady contingent has been at Center City Shaw and KIPP Grow since SY19-20.

Anonymous wrote:For elementary schools, here's where the IB participation rate has increased the most from SY19-20 to SY24-25 by percentage point change:
-Garrison 25% to 44%
-Hyde-Addison 63% to 81%
-Bancroft 60% to 75%
-Payne 37% to 50%
-John Lewis 22% to 33%

And where the IB participation rate decreased the most from SY19-20 to SY24-25 by percentage point change:
-John Francis 79% to 58%
-Leckie 28% to 15%
-Ross 87% to 76%
-Thomson 50% to 39%
-Cleveland 37% to 26%
-Tubman 39% to 29%
-Peabody/Watkins 62% to 52%

Some honorable mentions (based on percent change) at schools with low boundary participation rates:
-Whittier 19% to 26%
-Burroughs 21% to 26%

Tubman's in a swing space. That decrease is likely temporary.

I'm surprised by Ross/Thomson/John Francis. Doesn't John Francis have a brand new building? Why the drop in inbound participation? And Thomson? With Thomson, part of that might be nearby options (Garrison/Seaton) being more appealing, but hard to imagine people picking either of those over Ross or John Francis.

For elementary schools, here's where the IB participation rate has increased the most from SY19-20 to SY24-25 by percentage point change:
-Garrison 25% to 44%
-Hyde-Addison 63% to 81%
-Bancroft 60% to 75%
-Payne 37% to 50%
-John Lewis 22% to 33%

And where the IB participation rate decreased the most from SY19-20 to SY24-25 by percentage point change:
-John Francis 79% to 58%
-Leckie 28% to 15%
-Ross 87% to 76%
-Thomson 50% to 39%
-Cleveland 37% to 26%
-Tubman 39% to 29%
-Peabody/Watkins 62% to 52%

Some honorable mentions (based on percent change) at schools with low boundary participation rates:
-Whittier 19% to 26%
-Burroughs 21% to 26%

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My prediction: The list of the best schools in the city, at every level, will be increasingly dominated by charters.

Only for middle school.

DCPS is by far the leader for elementary. High School is split.

No for elementary EOTP. It’s the immersion charters. Families that don’t get in then settle for DCPS.

Nope. Definitely not true on Capitol Hill.

OK, CH may be the exception but it is a very, very small part of EOTP.

Some CH families do choose immersion over DCPS but not majority.

No, it's actually you who are focusing on one specific slice of EOTP. Other parts -- CH included -- have different stories, but few of them are immersion charter-focused. Shepherd, Ross, Reed, Bancroft, Maury, Brent, Ludlow-Taylor, Chisholm, Payne, Watkins and Van Ness are all schools where DCPSes are the preferred destinations (either the IB itself or a nearby one). EOTR few kids are in immersion and the ones that are are mostly in/hoping for Chisholm.

Folks in Brookland, Eckington, Brentwood, Edgewood are heading to immersion (and other, e.g., Lee) charters because they're the closest good options. The charters that folks EOTR attend are not immersion, but they choose them for the same reason. For anyone close enough to Capitol Hill or WOTP, those DCPSes are typically the closest good options and so the first choice. As CH has gentrified, there are now many more CH ESes on the list and so more good spots for OOBers; same thing with the DCPS ESes along the North Cap corridor.

As a general matter, I think most people think -- and the test scores certainly bear out -- that DPCSes are the best-performing ESes.

Yeah agree. I know US News is somehow debatable, but all 10 of the top elementary schools are DCPS, with 6 WOTP and 4 EOTP (Ross, Shepherd, Maury, Brent).

And if anyone looked at that "who is beating 3rd grade expectations" chart, charter schools like Yu Ying and LAMB that have very low poverty rates have startling low 3rd grade reading scores -- they are underperforming relative to demographics.


Middle school is a different story, because DCPS really doesn't seem to have that figured out, curricularly.

But they come back in high school, with many DCPS schools offering sufficient challenge (Walls, Banneker, JR, MacArthur and McKinley Tech)

Ok, well kids at those immersion schools are learning everything via a second language. When the teacher is teaching them about ecosystems or conjunctions or Native American history or whatever, the teacher is not doing it in English.

But aren't they also learning English in those charters? I thought those charters switched to dual language by 3rd grade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My prediction: The list of the best schools in the city, at every level, will be increasingly dominated by charters.

Only for middle school.

DCPS is by far the leader for elementary. High School is split.

No for elementary EOTP. It’s the immersion charters. Families that don’t get in then settle for DCPS.

Nope. Definitely not true on Capitol Hill.

OK, CH may be the exception but it is a very, very small part of EOTP.

Some CH families do choose immersion over DCPS but not majority.

No, it's actually you who are focusing on one specific slice of EOTP. Other parts -- CH included -- have different stories, but few of them are immersion charter-focused. Shepherd, Ross, Reed, Bancroft, Maury, Brent, Ludlow-Taylor, Chisholm, Payne, Watkins and Van Ness are all schools where DCPSes are the preferred destinations (either the IB itself or a nearby one). EOTR few kids are in immersion and the ones that are are mostly in/hoping for Chisholm.

Folks in Brookland, Eckington, Brentwood, Edgewood are heading to immersion (and other, e.g., Lee) charters because they're the closest good options. The charters that folks EOTR attend are not immersion, but they choose them for the same reason. For anyone close enough to Capitol Hill or WOTP, those DCPSes are typically the closest good options and so the first choice. As CH has gentrified, there are now many more CH ESes on the list and so more good spots for OOBers; same thing with the DCPS ESes along the North Cap corridor.

As a general matter, I think most people think -- and the test scores certainly bear out -- that DPCSes are the best-performing ESes.

Yeah agree. I know US News is somehow debatable, but all 10 of the top elementary schools are DCPS, with 6 WOTP and 4 EOTP (Ross, Shepherd, Maury, Brent).

And if anyone looked at that "who is beating 3rd grade expectations" chart, charter schools like Yu Ying and LAMB that have very low poverty rates have startling low 3rd grade reading scores -- they are underperforming relative to demographics.


Middle school is a different story, because DCPS really doesn't seem to have that figured out, curricularly.

But they come back in high school, with many DCPS schools offering sufficient challenge (Walls, Banneker, JR, MacArthur and McKinley Tech)

Ok, well kids at those immersion schools are learning everything via a second language. When the teacher is teaching them about ecosystems or conjunctions or Native American history or whatever, the teacher is not doing it in English.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:people actually stay for middle school in decent numbers at the set of dcps schools listed earlier. other dcps elementary schools like garrison, seaton, langley are also preferred by some over charters; thats a change.

Yes. People used to avoid Langley at all.costs and choose SSMA over it. Those days are gone and while Langley is still quite low performing, it has a lot more buy-in than it did 10 years ago.

+1, similar story at Garrison and Seaton, I know UMC families in that neighborhood who are really happy at both schools. I don't know how many IB kids from these schools will wind up buying into the new Euclid middle but it's not going to zero. As in other parts of the city, a lot of families are running into the problem of being shut out of charters for MS/HS, but not wanting to move. Some of these families can make private work but I actually think you'll see this being out of reach for more and more families in DC because the cost of living is so high already and tuition at even the lower cost privates are also going up. It was more of an option for people who bought prior to 2018 or so, because they were able to buy on the dip and then experienced income growth over the next decade. But the families entering elementary schools now were more likely to have bought 2018-present, paying much higher prices and in more recent years dealing with much higher interest rates. Both of these factors make private less appealing, as does the increasingly unsteady state of federal work -- it's harder to commit to a private school tuition when you don't have at least one income that feels like a guarantee no matter what.

Anonymous wrote:people actually stay for middle school in decent numbers at the set of dcps schools listed earlier. other dcps elementary schools like garrison, seaton, langley are also preferred by some over charters; thats a change.

Yes. People used to avoid Langley at all.costs and choose SSMA over it. Those days are gone and while Langley is still quite low performing, it has a lot more buy-in than it did 10 years ago.

people actually stay for middle school in decent numbers at the set of dcps schools listed earlier. other dcps elementary schools like garrison, seaton, langley are also preferred by some over charters; thats a change.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My prediction: The list of the best schools in the city, at every level, will be increasingly dominated by charters.

Only for middle school.

DCPS is by far the leader for elementary. High School is split.

No for elementary EOTP. It’s the immersion charters. Families that don’t get in then settle for DCPS.

Nope. Definitely not true on Capitol Hill.

OK, CH may be the exception but it is a very, very small part of EOTP.

Some CH families do choose immersion over DCPS but not majority.

No, it's actually you who are focusing on one specific slice of EOTP. Other parts -- CH included -- have different stories, but few of them are immersion charter-focused. Shepherd, Ross, Reed, Bancroft, Maury, Brent, Ludlow-Taylor, Chisholm, Payne, Watkins and Van Ness are all schools where DCPSes are the preferred destinations (either the IB itself or a nearby one). EOTR few kids are in immersion and the ones that are are mostly in/hoping for Chisholm.

Folks in Brookland, Eckington, Brentwood, Edgewood are heading to immersion (and other, e.g., Lee) charters because they're the closest good options. The charters that folks EOTR attend are not immersion, but they choose them for the same reason. For anyone close enough to Capitol Hill or WOTP, those DCPSes are typically the closest good options and so the first choice. As CH has gentrified, there are now many more CH ESes on the list and so more good spots for OOBers; same thing with the DCPS ESes along the North Cap corridor.

As a general matter, I think most people think -- and the test scores certainly bear out -- that DPCSes are the best-performing ESes.

Yeah agree. I know US News is somehow debatable, but all 10 of the top elementary schools are DCPS, with 6 WOTP and 4 EOTP (Ross, Shepherd, Maury, Brent).

And if anyone looked at that "who is beating 3rd grade expectations" chart, charter schools like Yu Ying and LAMB that have very low poverty rates have startling low 3rd grade reading scores -- they are underperforming relative to demographics.


Middle school is a different story, because DCPS really doesn't seem to have that figured out, curricularly.

But they come back in high school, with many DCPS schools offering sufficient challenge (Walls, Banneker, JR, MacArthur and McKinley Tech)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My prediction: The list of the best schools in the city, at every level, will be increasingly dominated by charters.

Only for middle school.

DCPS is by far the leader for elementary. High School is split.

No for elementary EOTP. It’s the immersion charters. Families that don’t get in then settle for DCPS.

Nope. Definitely not true on Capitol Hill.

OK, CH may be the exception but it is a very, very small part of EOTP.

Some CH families do choose immersion over DCPS but not majority.

No, it's actually you who are focusing on one specific slice of EOTP. Other parts -- CH included -- have different stories, but few of them are immersion charter-focused. Shepherd, Ross, Reed, Bancroft, Maury, Brent, Ludlow-Taylor, Chisholm, Payne, Watkins and Van Ness are all schools where DCPSes are the preferred destinations (either the IB itself or a nearby one). EOTR few kids are in immersion and the ones that are are mostly in/hoping for Chisholm.

Folks in Brookland, Eckington, Brentwood, Edgewood are heading to immersion (and other, e.g., Lee) charters because they're the closest good options. The charters that folks EOTR attend are not immersion, but they choose them for the same reason. For anyone close enough to Capitol Hill or WOTP, those DCPSes are typically the closest good options and so the first choice. As CH has gentrified, there are now many more CH ESes on the list and so more good spots for OOBers; same thing with the DCPS ESes along the North Cap corridor.

As a general matter, I think most people think -- and the test scores certainly bear out -- that DPCSes are the best-performing ESes.