Are charters keeping you in DC - or are they holding back your neighborhood DCPS?
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Anonymous
Yawn. Everyone who's lived here longer than a cup of coffee knows that the only reason DCPS has improved even the slightest is because of charters. They've been getting the job done, and they're here to stay. Your walkable yet undesirable DCPS is only even open at all because of charters keeping people in the city. You're just angry and bitter because you didn't get in to any of the ones you applied to. Too bad. Start your own. Drops mic. |
Anonymous
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I'm a PP who's only been here for "10 minutes" so what do I know, but it seems the answers are more nuanced than the either/or question posed would suggest at this point in time. The existence of charters may have had different effects in different areas of the city at different times, and it may depend on the charter. I said up-thread that the immersion and Montessori charters do not seem to compete directly with our neighborhood school, which has neither focus. However, I remember hearing about a new STEM-focused charter that's setting up right across the street from a DCPS school with the same STEM focus--that would definitely seem to have the effect of undermining enrollment in the DCPS school, even if not intended.
I think people are right in stating that the advent of charters made it necessary for DCPS to step up its game in order to compete for students--so in that sense, charters have helped DCPS over the past decade. As a result, many DCPS schools now have higher test scores, more attractive programs/curricula, and increasing IB attendance. It would be interesting to know what would happen if charters were now phased out--would DCPS continue to improve and would buy-in from higher SES families continue to increase, or would that just lead to renewed flight to the suburbs? Not sure if anyone knows the answer to that. In any case, I sort of agree with the education official who said in a WaPo article last year that the charter/DCPS balance is just about right. I do think that better charter-DCPS coordination is needed in the future so that the relationship is more symbiotic vs. competitive (although there will always be some competition inherent in the relationship). |
Anonymous
No, happily that ship has sailed. It means that arrogant fools such as yourself aren't able to make other peoples' decisions for them. You are a horrible human being. |
Anonymous
hmm. I don't agree with that assumption. There only needs to be a perceived difference in quality to motivate parents to switch, and as a parent I don't think a statistic showing overall results would be very persuasive. I'm interested in what I think is best for my kids, and I thought the charter option was better than in boundary DCPS, so that's the decision I made. I think DCPS is definitely pushed to improved by the fact that so many (including myself) are voting with their feet and enrolling their kids in charters. |
Anonymous
just look at the PARCC scores. Does your psyche improve by telling yourself mid-commute that charters are inherently better than DCPS? Some charters are better than neighborhood options, but this whole charter vs DCPS debate is largely pointless. http://districtmeasured.com/2015/12/01/parcc-data-release-comparing-results-for-grades-3-through-8/ http://osse.dc.gov/node/1120842 http://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/Copy%20of%20PARCC%202015%20DC%20Grades%203-8%20Aggregate%20State%20Sector%20and%20School%20Results.xlsx |
Anonymous
so evidence and data don't carry much weight. got it. |
Anonymous
Correct. Perception wins the day for the most part. That's why marketing makes such a huge difference. Not that there aren't differences, just not such a chasm as some partisans on here would have you think. |
Anonymous
Nice logical argument based in fact. 
It must be nice living in your reality where everything is so simple. |
Anonymous
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Here's the thing. I think that charters kept a lot of high SES families who did not want to or were not able to move to upper NW in the city when their children reached school age. The charters also provided a way for them to avoid the low SES people who live in their neighborhoods and other parts of the city who do send their kids to the neighborhood schools.
At this point, I think that for the high SES people who bought houses in Columbia Heights and Petworth and Brookland, the myth of charters-as-escape-hatch is what is keeping them in DC. They say, "We can play the lottery" and then they say "Our IB school is fine for PK or K, but then we'll see." For the families who are engaging in that kind of thinking, at least in my experience, their kids are kindergarten age. None of them (us, really - my kid is in K) have had to face the realities of the middle school situation. It is hard hearing from the hardened lifers about how they tried, failed, and moved to Arlington because we still think that maybe this time it'll work for us. Will it? Or are we Charlie Brown with the football? My DD goes to our not-well-regarded IB school, where we are happy, but I'm still concerned for the future. |
Anonymous
there are genuine differences. pedagogy, discipline, etc. There isn't a gold standard for measuring quality. scores are over-emphasized because that's the closest you'll get to a baseline measurement, but scores rarely provide a complete or definitive picture. DCPS is doing a lot better attracting and retaining families than it did 5-10 years ago, but it depends on the level. MS is a weak spot (Deal notwithstanding), but the HS landscape is superior for DCPS compared to charters (and graduation rates are better) |
Anonymous
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It would be great if people who live in neighborhoods that aren't majority white or majority high SES would give feed back.
If you live WOTP or IB for brent and raging against charters...well, your point isn't really valid. |
Anonymous
I think paretns care less about PARCC and more about diversity and FARMS rates. |
Anonymous
Thing is it isn't/wasn't a "myth" to our family. Ward 4 charter family - IB for Takoma and Coolidge high school. Kids went to LAMB (starting in 2004 when it was new and unproven) and attend a charter middle and a charter high school. Younger may try to go to an application high school when the time comes. We looked at our IB for PK/K and it was filled with kids who lived no where near our neighborhood and commuted there every day via the Metro. For us it was a city-wide charter over a city-wide DCPS, which is what our IB was at the time. Without question we would have left DC if charters didn't exist. |
Anonymous
I'm the OP quoted above. I did look at the available data when I made my choice. The most relevant data were the CAS scores for the schools I was considering (it was a long list that included DCPS and charters). In the end, it didn't tell me very much because (1) there were huge demographic differences between the schools that IMO heavily skewed the results; and (2) in light of that, the available data didn't answer what to me was the relevant question -- how would the various schools that I would list in the lottery serve my kids' needs. The overall scores of all DCPS and charters had almost nothing to do with my choice, so I don't see how it's relevant at all. |
Anonymous
OK, I live EoTP, my IB is considered "transitioning" but so far thats just in PS/PK. High income tends to correlate with white in our neigbhorhood but we are definitely not the majority The school is majority latino though even though no one can figure out where 300 hundred latino kids come in the catchment area. Its really a mystery. If we end up there for PS/PK we will live with that because its walkable. However, by K we will hope to be in a charter for a better "long range option" and in DC that only means through 5th grade if we are super lucky. If we don't get into another school we will move. No exceptions. I think it was a recent WaPo opinion column (Robinson maybe) who broke down the scores by race. AA kids barely hit 10% and white kids were closer to 77%. That is a grand canyon size difference that shows up in third grade testing but is must be present long before third grade.. Thats why we will bail. I just dont see how one classroom can manage kids that may be 2-3 grades apart in skill sets. If that means we move on to a to a school that is majoirty white or majoirty high income, then so be it. Would we love a cohort of like minded families to "stick together" sure. But I think people seriously undersestimate how many families that takes to turn it around. I think it will happen but much like Brent its probably a good 10 year process. And we don't have ten years at this moment in time. And even now that Brent is fantastic, most of the top Hill students still dont' believe they have a viable middle school option and thats why BASIS is bascially known as the cap hill middle school. Its why I don't think McFarland will be an option for last least 10-15 years as its only as good as its feeders, UNLESS, DCPS got its ass and made it a truly test in middle school. Its central city location would be a huge plus to a lot of parents. And yes I have lived in the city more than "cup of coffee"-almost 20 years, three transitioning neighbohroods and two houses later I am still here. I love it, I want to stay but bottom line is my kid has to kid a good education NOW. Not later. Now. |