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Anonymous wrote:Schools are extremely well funded here and yet even the very best schools are only just fine (and the bad schools are so bad they look more like jobs programs for their employees than places for kids to learn).
Schools are decently funded, not well. Just because we spend a lot per pupil does not mean we are well funded. Salaries in general are higher here, this every teacher, social worker, music teacher, etc. costs more.
If you want better schools you should look at how the countries getting results teach. Students actually have LESS hours of direct instruction and both students AND teachers spend more time collaborating with peers. However here in US for some reason more is ‘better’ and teaching has also become babysitting. If your child is disruptive in other countries it’s not as acceptable as it is here.
We don’t need to look abroad. You can look just about anywhere else in this country. Our students are outscored on proficiency tests by kids in Mississippi. DC schools are uniquely bad.
You are comparing an entire state to one city. I bet if you just looked at city-to-city comparisons only you will get a different picture.
I am not trying to say DC schools are fine...they aren't...but let's at least do apples-to-apples comparisons.
You think poorly funded schools in the middle of nowhere Mississippi have some unfair advantage over DC schools?
You can see how bad DC is here, per the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/24/us/math-reading-scores-pandemic.html
Again, you provided state wide results…there are of course many well-funded suburban schools in every state including Mississippi, with high test scores.
The only fair comparison is urban school district vs urban school district.
To repeat…I don’t think DC schools are good but
you can’t use just a city school district compared to an entire state for a true comparison.
Why not? Please explain. People compare DC to states all the time…
You really need this explained? It’s fair to compare DCPS which is just a city to all of Maryland and not Baltimore? It’s fair to compare DCPS to all of Michigan but not Detroit?
What other explanation do you need?
DC is one of the wealthiest, most well educated cities in the entire world, with schools that are lavishly funded compared to most other places. You think we should be compared to...Detroit?
I think cities should be compared to other cities. Fairly simple concept, no?
DC's median income is $65,000/year. Yes, it is considered one of the 10 highest median income cities in the US...so fine, compare us to San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Boston, Nashvill, NYC public schools.
Very strange how this concept eludes you.
This.
Also, it's not the overall wealth of the city that is going to dictate the quality of its public schools. Cities tend to have more individual people living under the poverty line than suburbs, small towns, and rural areas. And all of these kids are in public schools. DC has many wealthy people, but what percent of their kids go to public schools? It is harder to educated kids in poverty. Test scores correlate very closely with parental incomes and education level. So cities often have lower mean and median test scores in public schools because the percent of public school students living in poverty in a city will be much higher than the percent of student state wide living in poverty. The public school test scores for the state of Maryland will include all the kids living in poverty in Baltimore City, yes. But it will also include all the kids in the suburbs with well-educated, high income parents, of which there are far more state wide.
If you look at scores in DCPS on a school-by-school basis, you will find that the schools with high at risk numbers have the lowest test scores (and there are many of these schools), and the schools with low at risk numbers have the highest test scores (there are far fewer of these schools). The wealthiest students in DC mostly attend private schools, plus charters attract a disproportionate number of UMC and MC families as compared to poor families. Thus DCPS is left to educate the city's neediest children, who receive the least support at home, have the least educated parents, and often have major disruptions such as housing insecurity, food insecurity, parents who are unemployed, in prison, or have substance abuse issues. You will find the same issues in most major cities in the country.
Which is why it makes no sense to compare DCPS with statewide averages for test scores and school performance, and the proper comparison is other major city systems.
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