Jefferson Middle School Academy

[Anonymous]

Thanks for this simple but smart idea. The approach is a no brainer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends on how hard current and feeder parents are willing to work.

No it doesn't. Definitely not.

It depends on how many instructors for advanced courses DCPS is willing to budget for Jefferson Academy. Only the mayor and DC City Council Committee on Education members could demand that these positions be created and funded during a future budget season. My guess is no instructors for a decade or more.

[Anonymous]

They don't need to hire extra teachers - they need to assign existing teachers to teach more advanced work and organize the student schedules that way.

They do need a decent sized cohort to make it feasible. If the overall enrollment grows more will be hired. But the teachers' certifications and skills would enable them to do it already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They don't need to hire extra teachers - they need to assign existing teachers to teach more advanced work and organize the student schedules that way.

They do need a decent sized cohort to make it feasible. If the overall enrollment grows more will be hired. But the teachers' certifications and skills would enable them to do it already.

DCPS's mantra (with several schools) has always been that they can't identify advanced students until they enter 6th grade and are then tested for their ability; and then, even if they identify some advanced students after they've entered 6th grade, they must come up with extra money in the budget to hire new teachers to teach them (and only IF there are enough students they've identified to compose a class). And, by that time, any students they identified in 6th grade are now in 7th grade.

What the poster here is saying is that existing schools don't need to hire extra teachers in order to teach advanced kids, the schools just need to move their plans around a bit. Maybe that's true. But the main consideration for us is DCPS is not being honest about how simple it would be to create space for advanced classes.

[Anonymous]

At Hardy they do spend a few weeks testing and identifying kids ready to move ahead. But then they reconfigure midyear.

So it is doable and being done elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At Hardy they do spend a few weeks testing and identifying kids ready to move ahead. But then they reconfigure midyear.

So it is doable and being done elsewhere.

And they don't hire new teachers midyear. They have same number of math teachers per student as every other DCPS middle school.

[Anonymous]

Then why can't they start advanced classes in 6th grade at Jefferson? And at other schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Then why can't they start advanced classes in 6th grade at Jefferson? And at other schools?

Good question. They do it at SH too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don't need to hire extra teachers - they need to assign existing teachers to teach more advanced work and organize the student schedules that way.

They do need a decent sized cohort to make it feasible. If the overall enrollment grows more will be hired. But the teachers' certifications and skills would enable them to do it already.

DCPS's mantra (with several schools) has always been that they can't identify advanced students until they enter 6th grade and are then tested for their ability; and then, even if they identify some advanced students after they've entered 6th grade, they must come up with extra money in the budget to hire new teachers to teach them (and only IF there are enough students they've identified to compose a class). And, by that time, any students they identified in 6th grade are now in 7th grade.

What the poster here is saying is that existing schools don't need to hire extra teachers in order to teach advanced kids, the schools just need to move their plans around a bit. Maybe that's true. But the main consideration for us is DCPS is not being honest about how simple it would be to create space for advanced classes.

So why does DCPS bother giving the PARCC math test to 5th graders? As a PP noted several posts back, the PARCC enables DCPS to easily identify academically advanced rising 6th grade math students--those who earned 4s and 5s on the 5th grade math section--as soon as the results are in. If a rising 6th grader didn't take the PARCC, or wanted to try to test into advanced math classes despite not having earned 4-5s on the PARCC, s/he could be given a placement test over the summer, or once 6th grade has begun. My understanding is that DCPS gets PARCC results in June or July, leaving ample time to create advanced math classes for already-enrolled students before school starts (even if that were to mean hiring more teachers).

Right, they aren't being honest. Placing kids in advanced MS math classes isn't all that challenging. Building the political will to justify the outlays needed to create MS and HS classes where most students are high SES outside Upper NW presents the challenge. Apparently, it's much easier to justify spending tens of millions of dollars to renovate MS buildings that are mostly empty (e.g. JA with less than 300 students in a building designed to accommodate several times that many) than to plan to challenge sizeable groups of academically advanced kids living in the school's catchment area.

NYC doesn't heat and maintain public middle schools that are 2/3 empty, like JA - they rent out empty classroom space to charters.

[Anonymous]

I don't think schools get PARCC until September.

[Anonymous]

DCPS is not interested in widening the achievement gap. That's the bottom line.

[Anonymous]

DCPS is mandating that Algebra be offered in every middle school starting fall 2017.

This will mean the curriculum and teachers have to be everywhere.

The next step is making that class available to 7th, and perhaps some 6th graders who are ready.

But that's only math. Every other middle school subject is not differentiated - even at Deal or Hardy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Then why can't they start advanced classes in 6th grade at Jefferson? And at other schools?

For JA, the answer is simple: They do, testing kids and offering advanced classes and all, at least when it comes to math.

Seeing SH struggle with doing that in other subjects and Deal reversing course on it, clearly it's not an "oh, why don't we just" kind of question. At the very least, it's a scheduling, budgeting, and training nightmare. But more importantly: Having preteens and teenagers in the house I can tell you first hand how fitfully those brains develop. I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one upset if my average kid get "stuck" in the average track. (Remember that by sheer statistical logic, most are average.) As much as I want my own kids to excel (and they mostly do), seeing it all in action I'm really not sold on the idea of funneling them in some sort of irreversible way at that age. My highschooler is barely ready for that, though I can see the need there more.

Unless you have children in that (middle school) age bracket or close to it, you really have to be nimble. MS is a different world, not because of some systemic failure but because it's a different beast. As my teacher friend says, elementary school is crucial, so is high school. Middle school is about getting them safely from here to there, meaning from elementary to high school.

[Anonymous]

Have taught MS and disagree with the PP who sees MS primarily as a holding pen between ES and HS.

More and more public middle schools in this country practice "flex tracking," at least in high-performing districts. Under flex tracking, a student can be moved up, or down, a track at any point during the school year after a student, parent, counselor or admin initiates a structured tracking review. The reviews are designed to help those involved reach a consensus on maintaining, or changing, a student's track, without kids (particularly low-income minorities) getting trapped on low tracks. Consider the case of the handful of BASIS 5th graders who are encouraged to take a full year of algebra. Why should these super bright kids have to wait until 7th or 8th grade to take algebra in class? Seeking to hold high fliers back at school is a recipe for unleashing a host of avoidable social and academic problems, particularly high SES flight from urban schools.

Most other rich countries don't bother with MS. College prep programs start at the equivalent of 6th or 7th grade and runs through 12th grade on a single campus, like some DC charters do. Good idea.

When I look in on the most advanced 6th grade ELA pullout group in at JA in the fall, I realized that my Brent student had mastered the material being taught to the group at least a year earlier, possibly two. Teachers can only offer so much challenge to high-performing kids when they sit in class with peers who are 2, 3 even 4 grade levels behind. Every DC public MS should flex track.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't see why DCPS can't use the PARCC scores to prove the existence of academically proficient students before they enter 6th grade. Once those parents make a commitment to middle school in 5th grade, DCPS could use those numbers to justify hiring teachers to instruct them. AND, if DCPS told 5th grade parents ahead of time that once a sufficient number of students (who meet a certain threshold PARCC score) commit to 6th grade, that teachers will be hired to instruct them, there would be a lot of interest. I guarantee you a bunch of kids would commit to JA under those circumstances.

The "chicken or egg" problem argued by DCPS just doesn't pass logic.

This is only the 3rd year of PARCC testing but I suspect PARCC will be used for some scenarios like application HS admissions. It's harder to use for MS planning because enrollment is so fluid. You don't know which students are committed to staying in boundary and the only strong indicator of MS intent is having an older sibling enrolled at a charter. What happens if a school "plans" for 12 advance kids but half of them bail for BASIS or Latin when the opportunity arises?