DCPS and “Equity”

[Anonymous]

I was listening recently to someone argue that DCPS lacks equity because the best-performing (and most over-crowded) schools - the Wilson feeder pattern - are in the Upper NW, whereas EOTR schools fail to attract students from there own neighborhood and are routinely closed down due to low enrollment numbers.

Would DCPS be more equitable if Wilson and it’s feeders were also not good enough to attract in-boundary families and they by and large chose privates instead? Would DCPS be more equitable without a citywide lottery that allowed EOTR students to attend schools in other parts of the city?

Obviously, it would be wonderful to have better schools EOTR that could attract EOTR students. But my understanding is that it is not unlike DCPS has tried. Is there something that they haven’t tried which stands a good chance of working?

[Anonymous]

EOTR schools are not routinely closed down. I think the last closure was in 2011. Other than Wash Met which was is not EOTR.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was listening recently to someone argue that DCPS lacks equity because the best-performing (and most over-crowded) schools - the Wilson feeder pattern - are in the Upper NW, whereas EOTR schools fail to attract students from there own neighborhood and are routinely closed down due to low enrollment numbers.

Would DCPS be more equitable if Wilson and it’s feeders were also not good enough to attract in-boundary families and they by and large chose privates instead? Would DCPS be more equitable without a citywide lottery that allowed EOTR students to attend schools in other parts of the city?

Obviously, it would be wonderful to have better schools EOTR that could attract EOTR students. But my understanding is that it is not unlike DCPS has tried. Is there something that they haven’t tried which stands a good chance of working?

I think you're misunderstanding the equity issue. It's not that schools EOTR are worse, it's that they don't have as affluent of a student body population to do things such as fundraise through a PTA. When the majority of students live in homes with financial insecurity, the academic performance of the students is affected. This has nothing to do with the school itself, the teaching, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was listening recently to someone argue that DCPS lacks equity because the best-performing (and most over-crowded) schools - the Wilson feeder pattern - are in the Upper NW, whereas EOTR schools fail to attract students from there own neighborhood and are routinely closed down due to low enrollment numbers.

Would DCPS be more equitable if Wilson and it’s feeders were also not good enough to attract in-boundary families and they by and large chose privates instead? Would DCPS be more equitable without a citywide lottery that allowed EOTR students to attend schools in other parts of the city?

Obviously, it would be wonderful to have better schools EOTR that could attract EOTR students. But my understanding is that it is not unlike DCPS has tried. Is there something that they haven’t tried which stands a good chance of working?

I think you're misunderstanding the equity issue. It's not that schools EOTR are worse, it's that they don't have as affluent of a student body population to do things such as fundraise through a PTA. When the majority of students live in homes with financial insecurity, the academic performance of the students is affected. This has nothing to do with the school itself, the teaching, etc.

Right. Hence the question of whether there is anything that DCPS could do EOTR - that is doing elsewhere in the city or which any public school system in America is doing - that would make EOTR schools attractive. I don’t know that there is and I very doubt that redirecting funding from NW to SE would make much of a difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was listening recently to someone argue that DCPS lacks equity because the best-performing (and most over-crowded) schools - the Wilson feeder pattern - are in the Upper NW, whereas EOTR schools fail to attract students from there own neighborhood and are routinely closed down due to low enrollment numbers.

Would DCPS be more equitable if Wilson and it’s feeders were also not good enough to attract in-boundary families and they by and large chose privates instead? Would DCPS be more equitable without a citywide lottery that allowed EOTR students to attend schools in other parts of the city?

Obviously, it would be wonderful to have better schools EOTR that could attract EOTR students. But my understanding is that it is not unlike DCPS has tried. Is there something that they haven’t tried which stands a good chance of working?

I think you're misunderstanding the equity issue. It's not that schools EOTR are worse, it's that they don't have as affluent of a student body population to do things such as fundraise through a PTA. When the majority of students live in homes with financial insecurity, the academic performance of the students is affected. This has nothing to do with the school itself, the teaching, etc.

Throw $100k into all of the troubled schools EOTP and you will still see the same issues. School is only one ingredient in fostering a good student. We all know that affluence has a lot more to do with success not just because of the resources available to you during non-school hours, but because families in higher socio-economic circles read to their kids from an early age, travel with their kids, subscribe to newspapers, hang out with educated folks...kids in affluent neighborhoods are more likely to have a lot less crime in their neighborhood, more at home supervision...

So many other factors-- people think money is the issue. It's not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was listening recently to someone argue that DCPS lacks equity because the best-performing (and most over-crowded) schools - the Wilson feeder pattern - are in the Upper NW, whereas EOTR schools fail to attract students from there own neighborhood and are routinely closed down due to low enrollment numbers.

Would DCPS be more equitable if Wilson and it’s feeders were also not good enough to attract in-boundary families and they by and large chose privates instead? Would DCPS be more equitable without a citywide lottery that allowed EOTR students to attend schools in other parts of the city?

Obviously, it would be wonderful to have better schools EOTR that could attract EOTR students. But my understanding is that it is not unlike DCPS has tried. Is there something that they haven’t tried which stands a good chance of working?

I think you're misunderstanding the equity issue. It's not that schools EOTR are worse, it's that they don't have as affluent of a student body population to do things such as fundraise through a PTA. When the majority of students live in homes with financial insecurity, the academic performance of the students is affected. This has nothing to do with the school itself, the teaching, etc.

Right. Hence the question of whether there is anything that DCPS could do EOTR - that is doing elsewhere in the city or which any public school system in America is doing - that would make EOTR schools attractive. I don’t know that there is and I very doubt that redirecting funding from NW to SE would make much of a difference.

Yes, absolutely. Commit to actual differentiation. Create a test-in program at one of the EOTP middle schools. Have real advanced classes, not classes you call advanced even though most of the kids aren't even on grade level. Yes, other school systems do this. DCPS won't, of course.

[Anonymous]

Underenrolled is certainly true - compare how many students that could go to Anacostia to how many attend there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was listening recently to someone argue that DCPS lacks equity because the best-performing (and most over-crowded) schools - the Wilson feeder pattern - are in the Upper NW, whereas EOTR schools fail to attract students from there own neighborhood and are routinely closed down due to low enrollment numbers.

Would DCPS be more equitable if Wilson and it’s feeders were also not good enough to attract in-boundary families and they by and large chose privates instead? Would DCPS be more equitable without a citywide lottery that allowed EOTR students to attend schools in other parts of the city?

Obviously, it would be wonderful to have better schools EOTR that could attract EOTR students. But my understanding is that it is not unlike DCPS has tried. Is there something that they haven’t tried which stands a good chance of working?

I think you're misunderstanding the equity issue. It's not that schools EOTR are worse, it's that they don't have as affluent of a student body population to do things such as fundraise through a PTA. When the majority of students live in homes with financial insecurity, the academic performance of the students is affected. This has nothing to do with the school itself, the teaching, etc.

Throw $100k into all of the troubled schools EOTP and you will still see the same issues. School is only one ingredient in fostering a good student. We all know that affluence has a lot more to do with success not just because of the resources available to you during non-school hours, but because families in higher socio-economic circles read to their kids from an early age, travel with their kids, subscribe to newspapers, hang out with educated folks...kids in affluent neighborhoods are more likely to have a lot less crime in their neighborhood, more at home supervision...

So many other factors-- people think money is the issue. It's not.

I agree with this to some extent - there are broader and deeper issues with huge impacts on student performance that can't be fixed by the school system. And it's unlikely that additional money would make those schools places that more privileged families would be comfortable sending their kids.

BUT - more money could make a huge difference in the experience of the kids already there IF it was well targeted. I mean, imagine that instead of 25 kids per elementary class, all of a sudden it was 12. Much more time for individualized attention, small group learning especially in areas like reading, the ability to truly differentiate within classes, fewer discipline issues, easier classroom management. Teacher attraction and retention becomes easier.

Now, i'm not an expert, maybe that's not the best use of that money. But it's one easy example where money could make a huge difference. Are you all of a sudden going to see a ton of kids getting 4s and 5s on PARCC? No. But the children in those schools would get a dramatically better education.

[Anonymous]

I think any additional funding would go a long way if it was used to help end generational trauma by providing expecting parents with the tools and support necessary to raise a child in a manner that will allow for financial stability and the education one needs to raise a child in a trauma-free home. Once a child is of school age (even 3 in DC), it is unfortunately most often too late to undo the damage caused by a family that has suffered from discipline in the form of abuse and the trauma growing up in a home struggling to make ends meet.

[Anonymous]

There is only so much DCPS can do about terrible parenting. I don’t know if the terrible parenting is even the fault of folks doing it, because they have such crap circumstances. But DCPS can’t fix all of that on its own.

I see it all the time in our citywide lottery school. There are some parents who are just … bad. What is DCPS supposed to do about that in schools where LOTS of parents are really really bad.

[Anonymous]

Your tax dollars recently funded a nationwide study of indicators of educational equity.

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/25389/monitoring-educational-equity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is only so much DCPS can do about terrible parenting. I don’t know if the terrible parenting is even the fault of folks doing it, because they have such crap circumstances. But DCPS can’t fix all of that on its own.

I see it all the time in our citywide lottery school. There are some parents who are just … bad. What is DCPS supposed to do about that in schools where LOTS of parents are really really bad.

As you allude to, parenting is the tip of the iceberg to address the material conditions created by historical injustice. With that said, yes... it's easy to reduce the issue of student academic outcomes to parenting. While parents play a big part, a child's access to a quality education is impacted by nutrition, access to healthcare, exposure to violence/trauma... the list goes on. In my years working in schools, I met parents who had advanced degrees, knew all the right levers for student success (homework involvement, extracurriculars, access to caring adults) and yet the day-to-day impact of living in deep poverty still took a toll on their child's success. All of that to say-- parents, nor schools, can control for all of these powerful social forces. I'm sure that folks could point to the success of high-performing magnets and charter schools as evidence that this can be done. My counterpoint would be that we have yet to see this at-scale...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was listening recently to someone argue that DCPS lacks equity because the best-performing (and most over-crowded) schools - the Wilson feeder pattern - are in the Upper NW, whereas EOTR schools fail to attract students from there own neighborhood and are routinely closed down due to low enrollment numbers.

Would DCPS be more equitable if Wilson and it’s feeders were also not good enough to attract in-boundary families and they by and large chose privates instead? Would DCPS be more equitable without a citywide lottery that allowed EOTR students to attend schools in other parts of the city?

Obviously, it would be wonderful to have better schools EOTR that could attract EOTR students. But my understanding is that it is not unlike DCPS has tried. Is there something that they haven’t tried which stands a good chance of working?

I think you're misunderstanding the equity issue. It's not that schools EOTR are worse, it's that they don't have as affluent of a student body population to do things such as fundraise through a PTA. When the majority of students live in homes with financial insecurity, the academic performance of the students is affected. This has nothing to do with the school itself, the teaching, etc.

Throw $100k into all of the troubled schools EOTP and you will still see the same issues. School is only one ingredient in fostering a good student. We all know that affluence has a lot more to do with success not just because of the resources available to you during non-school hours, but because families in higher socio-economic circles read to their kids from an early age, travel with their kids, subscribe to newspapers, hang out with educated folks...kids in affluent neighborhoods are more likely to have a lot less crime in their neighborhood, more at home supervision...

So many other factors-- people think money is the issue. It's not.

I agree with this to some extent - there are broader and deeper issues with huge impacts on student performance that can't be fixed by the school system. And it's unlikely that additional money would make those schools places that more privileged families would be comfortable sending their kids.

BUT - more money could make a huge difference in the experience of the kids already there IF it was well targeted. I mean, imagine that instead of 25 kids per elementary class, all of a sudden it was 12. Much more time for individualized attention, small group learning especially in areas like reading, the ability to truly differentiate within classes, fewer discipline issues, easier classroom management. Teacher attraction and retention becomes easier.

Now, i'm not an expert, maybe that's not the best use of that money. But it's one easy example where money could make a huge difference. Are you all of a sudden going to see a ton of kids getting 4s and 5s on PARCC? No. But the children in those schools would get a dramatically better education.

Speaking as a DCPS teacher, that would be a HUGE benefit to students, and would definitely make a difference I expect. Like you said, it's not like students would be instantaneously getting 4 and 5 on parcc, but it would make a difference. problem is, it will never happen in this city. It would require pulling money from the bloat at Central office, but that won't happen. And a significant number of upper NW parents would complain that other schools are getting more money than theirs. A number of parents already complain that EOTP schools get more money through at risk funds. Imagine if that amount went up further.

[Anonymous]

School performance very rarely reflects the quality of school, but more the income of the students. Parent income is the strongest predictor of student achievement, so you could change around the schools that go into Wilson all you want but it wouldn’t impact the actual issue of the achievement gap and equity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think any additional funding would go a long way if it was used to help end generational trauma by providing expecting parents with the tools and support necessary to raise a child in a manner that will allow for financial stability and the education one needs to raise a child in a trauma-free home. Once a child is of school age (even 3 in DC), it is unfortunately most often too late to undo the damage caused by a family that has suffered from discipline in the form of abuse and the trauma growing up in a home struggling to make ends meet.

Meh. We've been doing what you suggest for about 6 or 7 generations now in the District of Columbia. It does. not. matter.