D.C. City Council Has Given Up on Improving Schools

[Anonymous]

School performance in DC is abysmal and has gotten much worse since the pandemic. DPCS's own data shows that vast majority of students are below grade level on literacy and math.

The City Council held an oversight hearing with DC school officials last week and I could not find a single instance during the 12 hours where a council member challenged one of the officials for their complete failure to educate the city's students.

http://dc.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=8136

Most of the questioning was about budgeting, and the rest was about council members' individual pet projects and hobby horses. Nothing about the overall failure that is DC public education.

Particularly insulting was that after DM Kihn (7:39 of the video) gave a whole opening statement about how wonderful DCPS is, no one called him out on his obvious dishonesty. Hey Paul, bragging about DCPS's giant spending totals doesn't show how great schools are. It shows how bad you are at your job. If all that money were well spent, then DC schools would be among the best performing in the country. They are instead among the worst.

[jsteele]

FYI, it is not called the "DC City Council". Its name is the "DC Council".

[Anonymous]

The lottery/charter system plays into lack of accountability and focus on schools.

Don't like your IB school? Use the lottery to go to another one. No incentive to actually engage with your IB school and improve it, which could take years and might not ever benefit your kids who are currently attending. It's easier and better for the individual to just attend a different school.

Don't like DCPS? Go to a charter. No incentive to engage with DCPS, care about oversight, improve internal processes, examine curriculums, teacher certifications, calendars, anything, because if you are unhappy you can just go find a charter that caters to your concerns.

Don't like your charter? Go to a different charter or try DCPS.

And on and on. There is a really high level of cynicism and apathy about schools in this city because the system is designed to create lots of options to bail out of a bad situation, and lots of scape goats for problems. Plus the city has a large transient workforce that didn't grow up in the city's schools and thus don't learn what they are like until their kids are in them, and then if they are unhappy about what they find, are simply encouraged to use the lottery to find a different school.

And then still more people will just say "just go private" or "just move to the suburbs."

There is virtually no willingness in this city to engage with the idea that every child in the city deserves a quality public education at their neighborhood school. Even people who agree with this in principle mostly just engage in a blame game when it doesn't happen.

It's not a good system, and I say that understanding that the system in place before the lottery and charters was worse (so many failing schools and so few options, a lot of families just not served at all). But just because the lottery and charter system was an improvement over the total failure we had before does not mean it's a good idea or that it is working. It's not.

[Anonymous]

These guys are certifiable. Has anyone traced the $? Where there’s smoke there’s a fire and possibly some foreign influence $$$ (or in Nadeau’s case free food and housing )

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The lottery/charter system plays into lack of accountability and focus on schools.

Don't like your IB school? Use the lottery to go to another one. No incentive to actually engage with your IB school and improve it, which could take years and might not ever benefit your kids who are currently attending. It's easier and better for the individual to just attend a different school.

Don't like DCPS? Go to a charter. No incentive to engage with DCPS, care about oversight, improve internal processes, examine curriculums, teacher certifications, calendars, anything, because if you are unhappy you can just go find a charter that caters to your concerns.

Don't like your charter? Go to a different charter or try DCPS.

And on and on. There is a really high level of cynicism and apathy about schools in this city because the system is designed to create lots of options to bail out of a bad situation, and lots of scape goats for problems. Plus the city has a large transient workforce that didn't grow up in the city's schools and thus don't learn what they are like until their kids are in them, and then if they are unhappy about what they find, are simply encouraged to use the lottery to find a different school.

And then still more people will just say "just go private" or "just move to the suburbs."

There is virtually no willingness in this city to engage with the idea that every child in the city deserves a quality public education at their neighborhood school. Even people who agree with this in principle mostly just engage in a blame game when it doesn't happen.

It's not a good system, and I say that understanding that the system in place before the lottery and charters was worse (so many failing schools and so few options, a lot of families just not served at all). But just because the lottery and charter system was an improvement over the total failure we had before does not mean it's a good idea or that it is working. It's not.

Disagree. DCPS needs to make itself attractive to people with options first. If nobody wants to go to DCPS schools, it’s because they’re bad, and no amount of blaming families will change that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School performance in DC is abysmal and has gotten much worse since the pandemic. DPCS's own data shows that vast majority of students are below grade level on literacy and math.

The City Council held an oversight hearing with DC school officials last week and I could not find a single instance during the 12 hours where a council member challenged one of the officials for their complete failure to educate the city's students.

http://dc.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=8136

Most of the questioning was about budgeting, and the rest was about council members' individual pet projects and hobby horses. Nothing about the overall failure that is DC public education.

Particularly insulting was that after DM Kihn (7:39 of the video) gave a whole opening statement about how wonderful DCPS is, no one called him out on his obvious dishonesty. Hey Paul, bragging about DCPS's giant spending totals doesn't show how great schools are. It shows how bad you are at your job. If all that money were well spent, then DC schools would be among the best performing in the country. They are instead among the worst.

I know Kihn. Smarmy and shameless.

[Anonymous]

Aren’t there any performance metrics? Where oriole have to resign or heard till after a massive mess like the two bills or the schools or the bus thing or the shootings thing?

[Anonymous]

Cities (within city limits) are nice for young adults, but no place to raise a family in. You move to the suburbs when you have kids for safety, stricter police forces, good schools, green space and being around more independent folks. Cities contain highly dependent populations.

[Anonymous]

When we read the draft proposal for the new DCPS Social Studies we knew it was time to get out. DCPS is no longer seeking to educate a 21st century workforce. Instead they’ve built an indoctrination system to create the foot soldiers for the progressive revolution. The kids are being taught that America is irretrievably broken and it’s institutions need to be torn down. Once they graduate with a worthless degree most have few prospects for gainful employment and will scramble for work in a shrinking pool of nonprofit jobs. Others will run for ANC commissioner.

[Anonymous]

You just need to lower the standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lottery/charter system plays into lack of accountability and focus on schools.

Don't like your IB school? Use the lottery to go to another one. No incentive to actually engage with your IB school and improve it, which could take years and might not ever benefit your kids who are currently attending. It's easier and better for the individual to just attend a different school.

Don't like DCPS? Go to a charter. No incentive to engage with DCPS, care about oversight, improve internal processes, examine curriculums, teacher certifications, calendars, anything, because if you are unhappy you can just go find a charter that caters to your concerns.

Don't like your charter? Go to a different charter or try DCPS.

And on and on. There is a really high level of cynicism and apathy about schools in this city because the system is designed to create lots of options to bail out of a bad situation, and lots of scape goats for problems. Plus the city has a large transient workforce that didn't grow up in the city's schools and thus don't learn what they are like until their kids are in them, and then if they are unhappy about what they find, are simply encouraged to use the lottery to find a different school.

And then still more people will just say "just go private" or "just move to the suburbs."

There is virtually no willingness in this city to engage with the idea that every child in the city deserves a quality public education at their neighborhood school. Even people who agree with this in principle mostly just engage in a blame game when it doesn't happen.

It's not a good system, and I say that understanding that the system in place before the lottery and charters was worse (so many failing schools and so few options, a lot of families just not served at all). But just because the lottery and charter system was an improvement over the total failure we had before does not mean it's a good idea or that it is working. It's not.

Disagree. DCPS needs to make itself attractive to people with options first. If nobody wants to go to DCPS schools, it’s because they’re bad, and no amount of blaming families will change that.

But it's very hard to improve a DCPS without buy in from families, preferably IB or at least nearby families. Sometimes schools are able to do it because it become so hard to get into other schools (whether nearby DCPS or charters) that families at least try out the IB, and then you can build some trust and they stick around past K.

But if there are other options readily available, then even when are doing a great job with PK and K, it's hard to retain because if they can get into the already-great charter or DCPS nearby, they will, rather than sitting around to see if the IB follows through on the positive trend they have going. It's so hard. And it's easy for that nearby charter to deliver "great" because they have a population of self-selected parents who were invested enough to do the lottery and pick the charter, and therefor by definition don't have the high-needs kids you will find at most DCPS in the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we read the draft proposal for the new DCPS Social Studies we knew it was time to get out. DCPS is no longer seeking to educate a 21st century workforce. Instead they’ve built an indoctrination system to create the foot soldiers for the progressive revolution. The kids are being taught that America is irretrievably broken and it’s institutions need to be torn down. Once they graduate with a worthless degree most have few prospects for gainful employment and will scramble for work in a shrinking pool of nonprofit jobs. Others will run for ANC commissioner.

Do you see the current make up of the congress and the outright lying on Fox news as seeing America as broken? I do. That has nothing to do with indoctrination of DC students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School performance in DC is abysmal and has gotten much worse since the pandemic. DPCS's own data shows that vast majority of students are below grade level on literacy and math.

The City Council held an oversight hearing with DC school officials last week and I could not find a single instance during the 12 hours where a council member challenged one of the officials for their complete failure to educate the city's students.

http://dc.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=8136

Most of the questioning was about budgeting, and the rest was about council members' individual pet projects and hobby horses. Nothing about the overall failure that is DC public education.

Particularly insulting was that after DM Kihn (7:39 of the video) gave a whole opening statement about how wonderful DCPS is, no one called him out on his obvious dishonesty. Hey Paul, bragging about DCPS's giant spending totals doesn't show how great schools are. It shows how bad you are at your job. If all that money were well spent, then DC schools would be among the best performing in the country. They are instead among the worst.

I know Kihn. Smarmy and shameless.

Don't his kids go to private schools??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lottery/charter system plays into lack of accountability and focus on schools.

Don't like your IB school? Use the lottery to go to another one. No incentive to actually engage with your IB school and improve it, which could take years and might not ever benefit your kids who are currently attending. It's easier and better for the individual to just attend a different school.

Don't like DCPS? Go to a charter. No incentive to engage with DCPS, care about oversight, improve internal processes, examine curriculums, teacher certifications, calendars, anything, because if you are unhappy you can just go find a charter that caters to your concerns.

Don't like your charter? Go to a different charter or try DCPS.

And on and on. There is a really high level of cynicism and apathy about schools in this city because the system is designed to create lots of options to bail out of a bad situation, and lots of scape goats for problems. Plus the city has a large transient workforce that didn't grow up in the city's schools and thus don't learn what they are like until their kids are in them, and then if they are unhappy about what they find, are simply encouraged to use the lottery to find a different school.

And then still more people will just say "just go private" or "just move to the suburbs."

There is virtually no willingness in this city to engage with the idea that every child in the city deserves a quality public education at their neighborhood school. Even people who agree with this in principle mostly just engage in a blame game when it doesn't happen.

It's not a good system, and I say that understanding that the system in place before the lottery and charters was worse (so many failing schools and so few options, a lot of families just not served at all). But just because the lottery and charter system was an improvement over the total failure we had before does not mean it's a good idea or that it is working. It's not.

Disagree. DCPS needs to make itself attractive to people with options first. If nobody wants to go to DCPS schools, it’s because they’re bad, and no amount of blaming families will change that.

But it's very hard to improve a DCPS without buy in from families, preferably IB or at least nearby families. Sometimes schools are able to do it because it become so hard to get into other schools (whether nearby DCPS or charters) that families at least try out the IB, and then you can build some trust and they stick around past K.

But if there are other options readily available, then even when are doing a great job with PK and K, it's hard to retain because if they can get into the already-great charter or DCPS nearby, they will, rather than sitting around to see if the IB follows through on the positive trend they have going. It's so hard. And it's easy for that nearby charter to deliver "great" because they have a population of self-selected parents who were invested enough to do the lottery and pick the charter, and therefor by definition don't have the high-needs kids you will find at most DCPS in the city.

the best thing DCPS did was start free PK. that has been the number one reason that upper middle class families starting considering DPCS and their IB school. Once they are and saving 20k/year on childcare they are more willing to stick around a few years. And over time, the school gets more and more gentrified, test scores go up and DCPS declares that its their spending and curriculum that have raised the test scores. If yuou disagregate data you will clearly see the correlation with higher test scores over time on pace the gentrification of the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School performance in DC is abysmal and has gotten much worse since the pandemic. DPCS's own data shows that vast majority of students are below grade level on literacy and math.

The City Council held an oversight hearing with DC school officials last week and I could not find a single instance during the 12 hours where a council member challenged one of the officials for their complete failure to educate the city's students.

http://dc.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=8136

Most of the questioning was about budgeting, and the rest was about council members' individual pet projects and hobby horses. Nothing about the overall failure that is DC public education.

Particularly insulting was that after DM Kihn (7:39 of the video) gave a whole opening statement about how wonderful DCPS is, no one called him out on his obvious dishonesty. Hey Paul, bragging about DCPS's giant spending totals doesn't show how great schools are. It shows how bad you are at your job. If all that money were well spent, then DC schools would be among the best performing in the country. They are instead among the worst.

I know Kihn. Smarmy and shameless.

Don't his kids go to private schools??

I would expect so.