I'm not going to go into too much detail with these, but I couldn't find anything on them so I did want to share my thoughts for others in the future. Just so its understood where my thoughts are going from, I'm active duty Army so I have had some experience at work, including my division's two-week marksmanship course on the M4. I have also shot a few USPSA competitions and have about 14 days of professional training on the civilian side including Mike Pannone, Jason Falla/Redback One, and Specialized Services Group. All of the classes I've taken have been either pistol, carbine, or both and range from beginner to intermediate. I've done some instructing, most of it for the Army at the battalion level but also for the last gun club I was a member of - I was the lead instructor for their "marksmanship/defensive" program, but we didn't have a lot of throughput so it wasn't anything serious. All of that being said, below are my thoughts.
BLUF: The biggest positive to these classes over many others is the convenience of location and scheduling. ESS is located very close to major population centers outside of DC which meant that I could drive there in 20-30 minutes and most people seemed to be within an hour. Between that and the fact that they split up the carbine course after work during the week, it cost significantly less time and money then driving several hours each way and potentially having to pay for a hotel, as well as giving up a full day or two on the weekend. If you're a beginner, I definitely think its worth it. If you're at the intermediate level, I think its worth it if you can't make it to some of the other training opportunities in the area and you go in with the understanding that the classes are likely geared towards beginners, unless otherwise stated.
Practical Carbine Course
Background: This is a beginner class that spends about four hours in the classroom going over gear, cleaning, fundamentals, etc. Admittedly, I was pretty bored through most of the classroom stuff but for newer shooters or those who have never received formal instruction, I think it provided a lot of good info and would serve as a solid way to prepare someone for a more typical level one course because there was a fair amount of info that they covered that I have not yet seen in civilian courses. We spent the other four hours on the range running through a few different drills which ultimately culminated with the VTAC 1-5 and a competition with the 2+2 reload drill. I shot about 800 rounds of carbine and 130 rounds of pistol, but most of the drills we were given a 2-7 shot suggestion so those won't be hard numbers for everyone attending.
Good: cleaning portion got a lot of questions so it seemed valuable to other students; instructor ratio was very good at 1:3/4; introduced transition to pistol; scheduling was setup so that it was a four-hour block from 1800-2200 on Wednesday and then again from 1800-2200 on Thursday.
Bad: the live fire was more of a guided range day than actual instruction - from what I could tell the instructors acted much more like RSOs and only offered tips every now and then, usually when a student had some crazy inefficient weapons handling (that being said - they may have just been much more attentive to the newer shooters and I didn't pick up on it; also, their primary instructor wasn't able to make it so I don't know how much of a difference that made).
Neutral: We shot a lot of rounds. Part of me just wanted some trigger time on my new upper so I was cool with just dumping ammo, but there definitely wasn't a huge focus on making every shot count.
Active Threat Response - Level One
Background: This is also a beginner class that spends four hours on classroom topics, again covering fundamentals of marksmanship, but also introducing crime stats for the area, mindset discussion, and other similar topics. A lot of the discussion was pretty good and a solid precursor for the rest of the day which was four different scenarios with sim rounds in their shoot-house.
Good: Each person was able to run through every scenario 2-3 times so that you could improve on your mistakes. There was a lead instructor who would set the scene before your first take and then afterwards gave you the overall objective of the scenario as well as immediate critiques. After your 2-3 takes were done, you'd proceed back to the classroom where another instructor (the one with the most relevant real-world experience) would break down what you did on film. Obviously the sim rounds provided another method of feedback that you really don't get from any other method. While students waited in the classroom for their turn, they brought in one of the lawyers that consults for ESS and teaches their class on gun laws in VA so that we could ask questions and discuss. The instructors and other students did a pretty good job of hiding each scenario so it didn't matter whether you went first or last, you still didn't really know what to expect. There is definitely a level two in the works.
Bad: There was a lot of down time while each student went through the shoot house. This is unavoidable and I think they've mitigated it as well as they can between having the lawyer present and finding the right class size for a decent balance, but most of the afternoon was sitting around talking while waiting for your turn. ESS made it clear that the level one took a lot of time and manpower (which I don't doubt) so it seems like something they may only do every six months or so.
Neutral: There was a wide variety between the four scenarios presented in the shoot house. This was good because it helped students to grasp several different concepts, but force on force training is so hard to come by that I was pretty disappointed that we didn't do more gunning. I don't want to give away too much of the scenarios, but out of the four there was only one that was designed to be a clear kinetic engagement.