DC school metrics

Here's an interesting ranking of the DC's public and charter elementary, middle and high schools that looks at students achieving "advanced" scores in math and reading, rather than just "proficient." This study combined the percentage of students at each school who scored "advanced" on standardized tests.  The thinking behind this different analysis is twofold.  First, proficient just isn't good enough. But, more importantly -  because, of course, some kids at Lake Webegon will just have to be average - what are these schools doing right?

Of course - and unfortunately - poverty and privilege, have something to do with it.  So the ranking also includes the percentage in the school who are eligible for free and reduced lunch.  With this additional insight, it's not all that surprising that Janney Elementary and Key Elementary - with 0% eligible for free and reduced lunch - have very high performing students, with combined advanced math and reading scores around 80% or better.  Both schools are in tony Upper NW DC - or Upper Cupcake, as I sneeringly refer to it.  Both schools are about 70% lily white - though in the grand scheme of things, that is still pretty diverse for fanciness.

It seems that the more interesting success are in those highly ranked schools, with a signifigant percentage of kids eligible for free and reduced lunch - or poor kids.  I'm told by a reliable soucre that a school with  fewer than 40% poor kids is pretty much a middle class school.  So which schools did well against the odds - those schools that made the top 25 ranking for advanced reading and math scores and have 40%+ poor kids?  Here they are below - # is the rank; bold represents the combined percentage of students achieving advanced on math and reading standardized test; the plain font number is the percentage of poor kids; italics means it's a charter school.

#6.  Banneker High (magnet): 54, 776. 
#12 D.C. Prep Charter Middle: 77, 55
#13 Capital City Charter (elementary): 41, 49

#14 KIPP KEY (charter middle): 76, 47

#17 KIPP College Prep (charter high school): 83, 42

#18 Wilson High School: 42, 41

#19  Haynes Charter (3rd-8th): 69, 40

#20 Height Community Charter Butler (elementary): 100, 40

#21  Ellington School of Arts (high school): 42, 39

#22 Stuart-Hobson Middle: 40, 37

#24 KIPP WILL (charter middle): 82, 36

#25 Ross Elementary: 40, 36

What's one to make of all this?  Well, this education policy novice, metrics aficionado, involved parent of a DCPS second grader, and amateur blogger has a few observations to ponder further.  

First, charter schools are doing a decent job of educating poor kids.  Well, that and their engaged parents are smart enough to get them out of their failing neighborhood school, find a good charter, get them enrolled (often by winning the admission lottery), and get them there everyday.  Theese parents are also probably the same ones who check on homework and go to parent-teacher conferences, and place value on education.  This is one of the biggest criticisms of charter schools - it robs the failing schools of the good kids and parents that can lift the rest up.  See City Paper artcile "Has the Black Middle Class Given up on Neighborhood Schools."

Second, not much is happening in the way of decent elementary schools - public or charter.  Ok, maybe that's a bit unfair. There are plenty of good schools - elementary, middle, and high school - where there are dedicated (and tired) teachers, good students, and engaged parents who are scoring proficient on the tests.  This ranking focuses on high-performing "advanced" students.  Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water!

Third, only Banneker High is in the Top 10, and it's a magnet school.  Self selection is self-selection - of course, they'll do well.  But here we have a self-selection of poor kids who are high-performing, and the school is serving them well.  There is something important happening here.  Personally, I think that self-selection at the high school level - college prep, magnet schools - that start culling to make sure those students get what they need to prepare them for when they graduate as 18yo adults is just fine.  And full disclosure, I'm a product of such an inner-city, highly diverse, highly socially-economically integrated magnet school.

Fourth and fifth, and a few more observations...Standardized tests are't the greatest measurment tool of a good school.  They're also not always the best test of a student's learning and abilities.  But it's what we've got, and I'm a big believer that we have to measure something somehow - we just need to know the trade-offs we're making in that measurement.  Stuart-Hobson Middle School is my local middle school - doing fairly well, and serving good a diversity socioeconomic backgrounds.  I've got my eye on middle school for Dear Daughter - just four years away.  My own analysis and assessment will include these thoughts and many others. 

And finally, and completely unrelated, I was originally pointed to the Jay Matthews Washington Post article and school rankings through the fabulaous WaPo local politics blog "District of deBonis, " and I have a secret crush on its journalist bloggerMike deBonis :-).

First Day of School

I Have a Dream

Photo cribbed from the Internet

In observance of MLK day last week, the fourth graders at Watkins Elementary School - the DC public school where Dear Daughter is a 1st grader - recited King's famous "I Have a Dream Speech"on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. This is the seventh year they have done so, and this year it was prominently featured in the media.  Here is the amazing slide show of photos taken by my friend, neighbor, and fellow school parent, KJ.

The slide show is quite remarkable, as it captures the dream *somewhat* realized almost 50 years later.  A reality where African-American and European-American kids go to school together.  They are classmates, teammates, and *sometimes* actual friends.  These school kids don't know it any other way.

Dear Daughter's school is somewhat of an anomaly in DC, in the DC metro area, and in the country as a whole.  Its demographics are a fascinating socioeconomic study in itself - 64% Black, 30% white, 3% Asian/Pacific, 2% Hispanic.  That ethnic diversity is hard to find anywhere. Twenty-nine percent are eligible for free or reduced lunch  - it's unusual, and I think quite remarkable, to have this mix of economic strata.

Watkins School's reading and math proficiency scores don't knock your socks off - hovering around 60%  and 65% in  math and reading testing proficiency respectively.  This is respectable, if not still totally unacceptable, in light of its demographic and socioeconomic context.  

So-called thriving DC public elementary schools in Upper Northwest - aka, Upper Northwhite or Upper Cupcake - tell a different story...

Michelle Rhee - Rant and Rave (my 25 cents)

Alas, my mayoral candidate, Adrain Fenty, did not win the primary last week, so it is looking more and more likely that his hand-picked, school reform champion and My Hero, Michelle Rhee, will not remain the Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools.  At least that what it looks like here after Rhee and likely mayor-elect Vince Gray met yesterday. (Photo cribbed from the Internet)

As a mom to a child in the DC public schools, I'm pretty discouraged.  Rhee has been a reformer in the true sense of the word, bringing in sweeping and widespread change.  And while I'm usually not much of a radical - I believe that change is generally incremental and requires process - when the situation is as dire as it was when she arrived on the scene, there is no other choice in the matter than to be monomaniacal (City Paper's word - but I love it - check out their other endorsements for the primary, a total hoot!). Seriously, DCPS was an utterly failing system - poor performance, ineffective teachers, crumbling infrastructure, and a systems failure on everything from the timely delivery of textbooks to the opening of schools on time.  And yet somehow, in America, in Washington, DC (our Nation's Capital) that had become good enough.  Good enough for public school, good enough for urban schools, good enough for poor people, good enough for blacks.  Sorry, but that status quo is just plain unacceptable.  

Rhee didn't have the time nor the charge to fix things with finesse and pretty dancing - she needed to make tough, hardcore decisions - and frankly she had results to show for it.  Enrollment stabilized and went up for the first time in years.  Test performance improved.  Infrastructure improvement and schools modernization was plain staggering.  And she took a stand against ineffective teachers - she fired them!  hundreds of them! at a time!  Ouch, ok, that's harsh, and hard, and it did not win her many fans...except people like me who sort of sat there stunned, thinking, "Wow, she's brave...and I'm scared shitless of her."