Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Some surprises for the Spanish Bilingual Schools, not that Oyster is number 1. but Bruce Monroe ranked so much higher than the HRCS bilinguals: -
17-Oyster
19-Bancroft
24-Marie Reed
35- Bruce Monroe
45-Lamb
56 DC Bilngual
65 Mundo Verde-
75-Powell

We’re a Bruce Monroe family and this doesn’t surprise me at all. Have friends with same aged kids at all of the above listed HRCS, so we can compare what the various schools are doing. Aside from Montessori at LAMB, which is fundamentally different, and really depends on what kind of student the individual kid is.

Why do you think Powell is so low? People prefer Powell to Bruce Monroe.

Such a good question! We really thought hard about whether to put Powell over Bruce Monroe, but ultimately had more confidence in Bruce Monroe. My take away after MUCH overthinking and a dozen conversations with current and former families at both schools, is that Powell is a standard DCPS, for better or worse, that has the benefit of the grandfathered Deal feed for older kids. So there were enough families in the neighborhood that didn't feel the need to lottery out (for a DCI feeder), and subsequently hyped up the school to their younger neighbors and put their higher SES bandwidth behind fundraising and PTO activities. But the school itself doesn't deviate much from the standard DCPS model and the administration is weak and makes things harder for teachers (and families). But there's still the standard DCPS curriculum and more teacher turnover, so parents get frustrated after a few years and start bailing.

Bruce Monroe "thinks outside the [DCPS] box" much more, and has a stronger administration with happier teachers. They use a different literacy curriculum, are full Spanish immersion through kindergarten (so English dominant kids have better language skills once they get to elementary grade coursework), and have a very mission-directed approach to social justice. They also do a lot more "creative thinking" in certain areas and the school works from the top down to maximize the academic and social experiences within the DCPS framework. I have a ton of confidence in the teachers and administration, and am really happy with the parent community. It's still DCPS so the individual school can only do so much (and for us, I know we'd have the same concerns at the HRCS), but for higher SES families that are on-board with the mission and aren't uncomfortable with the demographics, people are very happy with the school and really only seem to leave because of the middle school concern or certain special needs that NONE of those schools would serve adequately.

And some people will ask why not a charter instead of creative thinking within a more rigid system. That's fair, but I'm a career bureaucrat and my preference is a strong administration with layers of accountability. When a charter is good, it's good, but I think the pandemic has shown us that sometimes charters are good at the talk, but there are cracks behind the scenes that aren't always immediately apparent. Those cracks are there throughout (in curriculum, hiring, support services), and if your particular charter drops the ball in an area, your choices are suck it up or leave. But I've worked with OSSE and DCPS central office for years, so I do appreciate that I've got more familiarity with those systems and others may be less able or willing to battle layers of hierarchy. What works for me isn't necessarily what will work for you.

Anonymous wrote:This has all the makings of a 100-page thread

DCUM been sleeping on KIPP

Nope. DCUM has always known they have good test scores. And a strict, military school approach that few of us want for our kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Some surprises for the Spanish Bilingual Schools, not that Oyster is number 1. but Bruce Monroe ranked so much higher than the HRCS bilinguals: -
17-Oyster
19-Bancroft
24-Marie Reed
35- Bruce Monroe
45-Lamb
56 DC Bilngual
65 Mundo Verde-
75-Powell

We’re a Bruce Monroe family and this doesn’t surprise me at all. Have friends with same aged kids at all of the above listed HRCS, so we can compare what the various schools are doing. Aside from Montessori at LAMB, which is fundamentally different, and really depends on what kind of student the individual kid is.

Sorry, hit send too soon. This list is actually exactly how we did our lottery rankings a few years ago, except with Stokes between DCB and MV. I think it's a good representation of what we valued in our school choice - strength of curriculum, teaching quality, an socioemotional supports. Though the charters really do the soft factors better (in-house lunches, chickens, etc.), but those were less important to us. We really liked BMPV's focus on social justice and our concerns with the school are really concerns with DC schools in general. They'd be similar at this stage (mid-elementary) mostly anywhere in the city, DCPS or charter.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Some surprises for the Spanish Bilingual Schools, not that Oyster is number 1. but Bruce Monroe ranked so much higher than the HRCS bilinguals: -
17-Oyster
19-Bancroft
24-Marie Reed
35- Bruce Monroe
45-Lamb
56 DC Bilngual
65 Mundo Verde-
75-Powell

We’re a Bruce Monroe family and this doesn’t surprise me at all. Have friends with same aged kids at all of the above listed HRCS, so we can compare what the various schools are doing. Aside from Montessori at LAMB, which is fundamentally different, and really depends on what kind of student the individual kid is.

Why do you think Powell is so low? People prefer Powell to Bruce Monroe.

Anonymous wrote: Some surprises for the Spanish Bilingual Schools, not that Oyster is number 1. but Bruce Monroe ranked so much higher than the HRCS bilinguals: -
17-Oyster
19-Bancroft
24-Marie Reed
35- Bruce Monroe
45-Lamb
56 DC Bilngual
65 Mundo Verde-
75-Powell

We’re a Bruce Monroe family and this doesn’t surprise me at all. Have friends with same aged kids at all of the above listed HRCS, so we can compare what the various schools are doing. Aside from Montessori at LAMB, which is fundamentally different, and really depends on what kind of student the individual kid is.

Some surprises for the Spanish Bilingual Schools, not that Oyster is number 1. but Bruce Monroe ranked so much higher than the HRCS bilinguals: -
17-Oyster
19-Bancroft
24-Marie Reed
35- Bruce Monroe
45-Lamb
56 DC Bilngual
65 Mundo Verde-
75-Powell

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What DC statistics have white kids at the 60th percentile at Ross, Janney, and Lafayette?? Those appear to be completely made up numbers. PP please share where you found those stats.

It’s not scores it’s DC report card of how the white students at Lafayette perform compared to white students across the city. Not just raw 4+ PARCC but also growth I believe as well. Have you all never looked at DC school report cards?

Not that part, apparently. Do you have links because I have no idea what you’re talking about.

I posted above about this analysis, but didn't know that it was called normalization. Like I said, white kids at my charter school were not performing at the level the city expected them to be performing, based on comparison to other white students across the city. I found it very helpful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids’ NOVA elementary didn’t break the top 100 and has higher reading and math scores than Ross. Yikes.

Nova doesn’t use PARCC do they?

And even if they did, you’d be hard pressed to show that your white kids are scoring 95% in reading and math I’d bet.

Anonymous wrote:My kids’ NOVA elementary didn’t break the top 100 and has higher reading and math scores than Ross. Yikes.

Nova doesn’t use PARCC do they?

Anonymous wrote:My kids’ NOVA elementary didn’t break the top 100 and has higher reading and math scores than Ross. Yikes.

Apples and oranges, Jan. There’s a reason you moved to the burbs.

My kids’ NOVA elementary didn’t break the top 100 and has higher reading and math scores than Ross. Yikes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shepherd ES is ranked too low. They had some of the top scores in DC.

It's a great school and the scores are very respectable, but they're not better than some of the higher ranked schools. But the methodology, whatever it is, is not based on just scores. HA is right above SWS, Murch, and Brent - all of which have higher scores. I think a lot of the ranking is based on whatever algorithm calculates this:

Reading Performance
A descriptive term reflecting a school's reading/language arts percentage proficiency compared with the percentage U.S. News predicted for it. The predicted value was calculated scientifically based on each school's economic and ethnic diversity and these subgroups' relationship to elementary school reading/language arts proficiency in the state.

That would also explain why some of the HRCS are lower than many would expect, since they have lower scores overall and bigger achievement gaps than many of the higher ranked DCPS (but disproportionately higher numbers of high scoring white/higher SES kids, which raises their scores compared to the non-Wilson feeder DCPS).

That is just rewarding WOTP and Cap Hill schools for being the whitest. Shepherd scores higher than about every single school when you compare white/black. Shepherd has the highest #1 in white student performance as well as top 3 for black. That is way more than respectable, it’s downright amazing. So if you compare for peer performance, I don’t see how you don’t rank Shepherd as top 3 if not #1.

-no dog in fight

No dog in this fight? Obviously, you have a kid at Shepherd.

According to the latest PARCC scores, 40-50% of Shepherd kids score below grade level in math and ELA. In comparison, the numbers at Ross are much, much better (only a few kids are just below grade level).

In addition, Ross, the #1 school, is EOTP and majority non-white.

Maybe get your facts straight before posting?

No, I don’t. I am a black mom that carefully examines scores of black students around the city.

Again, you are looking at raw numbers.
Using DC school report card usage of normalizing scores for demographics,

Shepherd:
White students 96.24%
Black students 73.49%

Ross:
White students: 59.80%
Black students: 66.53%

Janney:
White students: 61%
Black students: 79.72%

Lafayette:
White students: 59.32%
Black: 76.86%

I’ve never seen these normalized numbers before. Where are they coming from and what do they mean versus the raw numbers?

The person is just making them up. Utter nonsense.

Lafayette:
https://pdf.tembotools.com/?url=https://dcschoolreportcard.org/schools/1-0261?layout=pdf_layout_2019&type=pdf&printBackground=true

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What DC statistics have white kids at the 60th percentile at Ross, Janney, and Lafayette?? Those appear to be completely made up numbers. PP please share where you found those stats.

It’s not scores it’s DC report card of how the white students at Lafayette perform compared to white students across the city. Not just raw 4+ PARCC but also growth I believe as well. Have you all never looked at DC school report cards?

No kids at WOTP schools. But if you are at the top of the PARCC there is not much room to go up. If you are at the bottom of the barrel, then easy to go up and lots of room. That’s why “growth” is DC’s way to make poor performing schools look better on paper than they actually are.

Not true when you look at raw scores of white kids in schools mentioned above. They all score high 80%-mid 95% so it’s raw scores compared to white peers across the city.

DP. But why would these be better numbers than the raw scores? Who frankly cares if the raw scores are at an acceptable level to you? Or worse, if this weird weighted data artificially inflates scores at some schools. It seems as arbitrary as USNWR and like cherry-picking the data you want to see.

I will wager DC School Report card system (a system mandated by law) is a lot more reliable than US News data points.

Lol, as a District government employee, I’d wager the exact opposite. And all of these secret algorithms are pretty pointless when you have actual data to compare, even if it’s three years old at this point.

Well why don’t you tell me what’s wrong with DC school report card metrics and what’s better about USNews