Cardozo: XQ is it Working?
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Anonymous
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Hello All,
I am currently a teacher at Cardozo EC. Throughout my career, I have taught kindergarten, 7th grade, and high school. There is not one way to do education, however at Cardozo, we have decided that as a way to let students help assist us in letting them know how and what ways they like to learn. Our principal, Arthur Mola, and his XQ Design Leader, William Blake, have decided that we will create 4-5 separate cohorts where students will tell teachers, aides, librarians, and other dedicated staff how to teach and we meet Fridays for 3 hours, but still, there is no palpable results that demonstrate the effectiveness of this learning program. It is a novel idea on its face, but it has been no less than a disaster. We are 4 months behind schedule and are still flushing out how to complete the most simplest of tasks from the Day 1 guidebook. Over $2 million dollars has been sunk into the program but the students have not received any of the benefits. For example there are 6 newly added classes that are supposed to have career pathways to help students to become entrepreneurs. Only two have instructors, and one of the four vacant spots has been filled in by the principal who teaches “Ghetto Economics”. The kids receive no work, have the worst truancy records and instead of trying to help them see the value of school, citizenship, and stewardship, he lectures them on how to “make money on the street”. (Whatever that’s supposed to mean.) We have tried to explain that this pathway is not one of success because we want our students to master the basics in their studies first that will prepare them for the real world instead of coming out of high school “owning their own business”, which realistically, isn’t possible since we just received our scores back and Cardozo is at 4% proficiency in Math and 6% in Reading. I have spoken to other schools who participate in the program and while their path to success is not where it would be, they are not as far behind as we are. If you are a community member of Cardozo, please call the school (202) 673-7385 and ask that standardized learning be re-introduced into the classroom, XQ be either disbanded, or made clearer to the parents, students, and staff, and hopefully we can all create better opportunities for our children so that they have a chance to be better prepared for the real world. |
Anonymous
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Maddening. Quite from the current boundary review thread:
"DCPS is always holding the bag for failed charter experiments. But who holds the bag for failed DCPS experiments???" |
Anonymous
Preach! |
Anonymous
| Is a charter stepping up to take all the kids IB for Cardozo, by right no questions asked, including those self-contained classrooms and non-English-speaking recent arrivals? News to me. |
Anonymous
| This sounds horrible OP. I’m never going to understand why schools cannot just focus on teaching content and skills. |
Anonymous
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It can’t be turned into a charter because it’s considered a monument in DC since its one of the oldest all-black highschools.
They’d have to start a search for a new principal and a new XQ Director. Essentially replace the personnel, not change the school’s model from public to charter. The WTU wouldn’t support it either. Nevertheless, good point though. |
Anonymous
Everyone thinks that there’s a shortcut to greatness, but the only ones who truly lose out are the kids and since they’re already disenfranchised in so many ways, it’s unconscionable that the principal and the director of this program are taking advantage of this group of kids this way. |
Anonymous
Sometimes when schools close, charters make blanket offers to the entire population. For example, Friendship Armstrong "acquired" City Arts and Prep back when it closed. Is any charter offering that for Cardozo kids? If in some imaginary world Cardozo closed, DCPS would still be legally bound to offer a seat somewhere to every single Cardozo student, and some of them might choose other DCPS schools. It's not that any single charter, or charters in general, are "holding the bag". Holding the bag is like what happened with Dorothy Height or Excel. https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/791826.page |
Anonymous
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Who is William Blake?
Is XQ coming to ALL DCPS schools? Let’s hope not! https://hechingerreport.org/anatomy-of-a-failure-how-an-xq-super-school-flopped/ |
Anonymous
“They’d developed a projects-driven curriculum that would give students nearly unprecedented control over what they would learn” ughhh Because that’s exactly what at risk-kids need - not to be taught at all! |
Anonymous
this whole article absolutely infuriated me. who it their right minds believes this is the right way to teach math? it’s like they think 7th graders are preschoolers: “That first year, students in Steve Stephano’s seventh grade math class made moving machines. One student team rigged two record players to arms they’d designed to draw geometric shapes as the record players spun around. Another group built a cylinder of lights attached to a mirror and programmed the lights to flash and change colors.” |
Anonymous
I found his Twitter/X account. He seems like a politician and fraud more than an educator. https://twitter.com/thekoolestdoc?lang=en |
Anonymous
| Sounds like a great way for absolutely no one to be ready to succeed in college. |
Anonymous
Found this too. https://www.the74million.org/article/i-changed-my-shoes-and-it-revolutionized-how-i-was-able-to-rethink-high-school/ Because our footwear is going to save our students from the violence on the streets. Can’t remember the last time another teacher taught me how to pass a test by wearing magical sneakers. Who hired this clown?🤡 |
Anonymous
😂😂😂 |