What’s going on at DCI?

[Anonymous]

You don't get it - DCI admins care more about inclusion and racial and socioeconomic diversity than rigor! The small number of parents who want more rigor supplement a lot. Admins don't seem to be experts on ib curriculum. THe pproblem is the vision thing pps have pointed out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't get it - DCI admins care more about inclusion and racial and socioeconomic diversity than rigor! The small number of parents who want more rigor supplement a lot. Admins don't seem to be experts on ib curriculum. THe pproblem is the vision thing pps have pointed out.

Here's the thing - we could do with a world where more people/institutions care about inclusion and racial and socioeconomic diversity. And, here's the other thing you can care about that and rigor - and that is what DCI is pursuing.

It sounds like you want/need a 'perfect' solution yesterday - DCI hasn't yet graduated a class - it is in the growing phase - let it grow. It is doing a fine job of educating my kid academically and socioemotionally; there are some small bumps, sure, but the vision is right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't get it - DCI admins care more about inclusion and racial and socioeconomic diversity than rigor! The small number of parents who want more rigor supplement a lot. Admins don't seem to be experts on ib curriculum. THe problem is the vision thing pps have pointed out.

Here's the thing - we could do with a world where more people/institutions care about inclusion and racial and socioeconomic diversity. And, here's the other thing you can care about that and rigor - and that is what DCI is pursuing.

It sounds like you want/need a 'perfect' solution yesterday - DCI hasn't yet graduated a class - it is in the growing phase - let it grow. It is doing a fine job of educating my kid academically and socioemotionally; there are some small bumps, sure, but the vision is right.

Both are good. That is why we're hoping to stick it out through the feeder into DCI eventually. And why we are in the feeder in the first place.

But the question is, to what extent can you have both? I think DCI's mix sounds about right, statistically speaking. I hope they can do it, but, it's going to be very, very difficult. Many very well regarded schools have failed (usually who they fail are the lower achieving students or students of color). It is almost like a social experiment that we as a country have not succeeded at. I would love someone to point me to a case study where the school has succeeded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please get a life, the acronyms aren't important. A poorly run school system is. I once thought that we'd be a lot further along by 2019. What's going on at DCI is predictable - mediocrity all over again.

Sure, the acronyms don't matter, it's just that they make you look like a troll. And this comment proves that point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't get it - DCI admins care more about inclusion and racial and socioeconomic diversity than rigor! The small number of parents who want more rigor supplement a lot. Admins don't seem to be experts on ib curriculum. THe problem is the vision thing pps have pointed out.

Here's the thing - we could do with a world where more people/institutions care about inclusion and racial and socioeconomic diversity. And, here's the other thing you can care about that and rigor - and that is what DCI is pursuing.

It sounds like you want/need a 'perfect' solution yesterday - DCI hasn't yet graduated a class - it is in the growing phase - let it grow. It is doing a fine job of educating my kid academically and socioemotionally; there are some small bumps, sure, but the vision is right.

Both are good. That is why we're hoping to stick it out through the feeder into DCI eventually. And why we are in the feeder in the first place.

But the question is, to what extent can you have both? I think DCI's mix sounds about right, statistically speaking. I hope they can do it, but, it's going to be very, very difficult. Many very well regarded schools have failed (usually who they fail are the lower achieving students or students of color). It is almost like a social experiment that we as a country have not succeeded at. I would love someone to point me to a case study where the school has succeeded.

The educational data show that the ratio of high need students to non-high need students that seems to help all is between 20-30% high need and 70-80% not. But engineering that ratio is difficult to impossible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't get it - DCI admins care more about inclusion and racial and socioeconomic diversity than rigor! The small number of parents who want more rigor supplement a lot. Admins don't seem to be experts on ib curriculum. THe pproblem is the vision thing pps have pointed out.

Here's the thing - we could do with a world where more people/institutions care about inclusion and racial and socioeconomic diversity. And, here's the other thing you can care about that and rigor - and that is what DCI is pursuing.

It sounds like you want/need a 'perfect' solution yesterday - DCI hasn't yet graduated a class - it is in the growing phase - let it grow. It is doing a fine job of educating my kid academically and socioemotionally; there are some small bumps, sure, but the vision is right.

This is good to hear. We have a kid at a feeder and look forward to see how DCI grows.

[Anonymous]

The new DC STAR report cards have discipline data for DCI.

The suspension rate is 17%; the DC average is 7% (13% of students have had in school suspension and 9% out of school suspension.

21% of Black, 20% of Latino, 5% of White and 3% of Asian students were suspended.

The suspension rates for at-risk students is 28%, ELLs 28% and students with disabilities is 35% (of course a student can be in more than one of these categories).

Hopefully this is the link to the subpage of the report card https://dcschoolreportcard.org/schools/181-0248/metric/suspensions?lang=en

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The new DC STAR report cards have discipline data for DCI.

The suspension rate is 17%; the DC average is 7% (13% of students have had in school suspension and 9% out of school suspension.

21% of Black, 20% of Latino, 5% of White and 3% of Asian students were suspended.

The suspension rates for at-risk students is 28%, ELLs 28% and students with disabilities is 35% (of course a student can be in more than one of these categories).

Hopefully this is the link to the subpage of the report card https://dcschoolreportcard.org/schools/181-0248/metric/suspensions?lang=en

We should all learn from Asian families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The new DC STAR report cards have discipline data for DCI.

The suspension rate is 17%; the DC average is 7% (13% of students have had in school suspension and 9% out of school suspension.

21% of Black, 20% of Latino, 5% of White and 3% of Asian students were suspended.

The suspension rates for at-risk students is 28%, ELLs 28% and students with disabilities is 35% (of course a student can be in more than one of these categories).

Hopefully this is the link to the subpage of the report card https://dcschoolreportcard.org/schools/181-0248/metric/suspensions?lang=en

We should all learn from Asian families.

Yet we mostly slam them for the ambitions of Tiger parents and cultural insularity. What we can learn from Asian immigrant families is to aim higher academically from a young age.

[Anonymous]

Let's not get carried away - only 2.7% of DCI's students are Asian.

(Because someone will ask - Black 35%, white 15%, Latino 40%, Multiracial 5.6%).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The new DC STAR report cards have discipline data for DCI.

The suspension rate is 17%; the DC average is 7% (13% of students have had in school suspension and 9% out of school suspension.

21% of Black, 20% of Latino, 5% of White and 3% of Asian students were suspended.

The suspension rates for at-risk students is 28%, ELLs 28% and students with disabilities is 35% (of course a student can be in more than one of these categories).

Hopefully this is the link to the subpage of the report card https://dcschoolreportcard.org/schools/181-0248/metric/suspensions?lang=en

We should all learn from Asian families.

Yet we mostly slam them for the ambitions of Tiger parents and cultural insularity. What we can learn from Asian immigrant families is to aim higher academically from a young age.

Not an apples to apples comparison. Many black/brown students at DCI come from poor families, live in high crime/high unemployment neighborhoods, many if not most from single-parent households, etc.

I've seen your view before--"Asian families do it, why can't everyone else?"--but that ignores systemic issues that account for the disparities. Not all of these kids can so easily pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

-1/2 Asian, kid of immigrants

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The new DC STAR report cards have discipline data for DCI.

The suspension rate is 17%; the DC average is 7% (13% of students have had in school suspension and 9% out of school suspension.

21% of Black, 20% of Latino, 5% of White and 3% of Asian students were suspended.

The suspension rates for at-risk students is 28%, ELLs 28% and students with disabilities is 35% (of course a student can be in more than one of these categories).

Hopefully this is the link to the subpage of the report card https://dcschoolreportcard.org/schools/181-0248/metric/suspensions?lang=en

There are a few data issues here. The 7% is for all of DC, not comparable grades; it's extremely unusual to suspend elementary school kids, which are almost half of all DC students. A grade-by-grade comparison would tell much more. In the previous year (OSSE discontinued this particular report), DCI had a far lower suspension rate than the city as a whole for comparable grades: https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/2017_Equity_Report_Public%20Charter%20School_District%20of%20Columbia%20International%20School.pdf

Second, DCI suspends more students in-school (which means they're still at school, getting some instruction etc.) than out-of-school - 13% vs. 9%. It looks like they're almost alone in actually reporting in-school suspensions. The overall DC in-school suspension rate is actually listed as 0% (https://dcschoolreportcard.org/state/99999-0000/metric/suspensions?lang=en) - which is ridiculous; most middle and high schools in DC use in-school suspension, they just aren't reporting it.

In other words, DCI comes off as much more comparatively suspension-happy than it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't get it - DCI admins care more about inclusion and racial and socioeconomic diversity than rigor! The small number of parents who want more rigor supplement a lot. Admins don't seem to be experts on ib curriculum. THe pproblem is the vision thing pps have pointed out.

Here's the thing - we could do with a world where more people/institutions care about inclusion and racial and socioeconomic diversity. And, here's the other thing you can care about that and rigor - and that is what DCI is pursuing.

It sounds like you want/need a 'perfect' solution yesterday - DCI hasn't yet graduated a class - it is in the growing phase - let it grow. It is doing a fine job of educating my kid academically and socioemotionally; there are some small bumps, sure, but the vision is right.

Please save us the holier than thou screed. If City leaders really cared about inclusion and socioeconomic diversity in schools, they'd work harder to provide challenge for the most capable students, who are mostly white and high SES.

Sounds like you're happy to believe that slamming parents who aren't impressed with DCI as those in search of perfect solutions will improve matters. Not the case. As a native Mandarin speaker, I see a mountain of dysfunction when I try to speak to bright DCI Chinese track high schoolers who can't hold down a pretty basic conversation in Chinese. As a professional in a STEM field, I wasn't satisfied with middle school math challenge, not even close. DCI can grow for a decade at this rate without doing a fine job of educating the strongest students. We bailed shaking our heads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please get a life, the acronyms aren't important. A poorly run school system is. I once thought that we'd be a lot further along by 2019. What's going on at DCI is predictable - mediocrity all over again.

Sure, the acronyms don't matter, it's just that they make you look like a troll. And this comment proves that point.

Absolutely, disappointed in DCI equates to troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't get it - DCI admins care more about inclusion and racial and socioeconomic diversity than rigor! The small number of parents who want more rigor supplement a lot. Admins don't seem to be experts on ib curriculum. THe problem is the vision thing pps have pointed out.

Here's the thing - we could do with a world where more people/institutions care about inclusion and racial and socioeconomic diversity. And, here's the other thing you can care about that and rigor - and that is what DCI is pursuing.

It sounds like you want/need a 'perfect' solution yesterday - DCI hasn't yet graduated a class - it is in the growing phase - let it grow. It is doing a fine job of educating my kid academically and socioemotionally; there are some small bumps, sure, but the vision is right.

Both are good. That is why we're hoping to stick it out through the feeder into DCI eventually. And why we are in the feeder in the first place.

But the question is, to what extent can you have both? I think DCI's mix sounds about right, statistically speaking. I hope they can do it, but, it's going to be very, very difficult. Many very well regarded schools have failed (usually who they fail are the lower achieving students or students of color). It is almost like a social experiment that we as a country have not succeeded at. I would love someone to point me to a case study where the school has succeeded.

DCI could have both with a BASIS type system, with 5th grade entry and without social promotion in middle school, or small classes and mostly high SES students like at Washington Latin. On its current path, DCI is going to need 10 or 15 years for their demographics to shift to see good results. Great results will not be impossible with IB diploma curriculum without various inputs the DCI feeders and DC public schools in general do not offer. These include GT programs and bona fide two-way language immersion programs outside Oyster.