Hope for DCPS?

[Anonymous]

My kids are at an immersion school and the level of, for lack of a better term, cultural imperialism by the “native” population is shocking. It would be one thing if it were a DCPS school that had, I think, a reasonable mistrust of outsiders. It’s another thing when these voices demand everything be subordinate to a clearly dysfunctional educational culture that most of the parents moved to charters to avoid, dressed up in equity language or otherwise.

[Anonymous]

[quote=
Yes, this happens in our charter school. I hate it. Either your kid is in a class with all the well behaved kids of the involved parents or in a classroom with all of the challenging kids.

They asked us directly about teacher preferences and preferences about which kids we wanted our kid to be in the next grade with. Pretty shocking (and unacceptable)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has actually been an interesting discussion with some thoughtful comments.

But the problem remains the same - most people with options leave DCPS. They'll give it a try in early elementary, but then they're done. One can say whatever about race, but no one gives a damn about larger cultural issues when it comes to the wellbeing of their own child. It's disheartening to read that there are parents who are extremely exclusionary when it comes to race. And that drives the exodus, which of course is exactly what such families want.

Bold is the answer. Overwhelming majority of families place the top priority on their kid’s education and well being. This is true at the expense of all else. Those few parents here saying community trumps their kid are outliers.

DCPS has proven time and time again that they don’t care about all the kids. The higher performing kids will be “fine” which they equate as finishing school and going to any college which is a very low bar as the majority of resources go to the lowest performing.

Considering that most Americans don’t go to college, that’s not as low a bar as you think. It just might seem low in a city where a lot of people have a lot of fancy education.

To use a tired term, white parents in DCPS don’t feel like their children and their wants/needs are “centered” in DCPS. And yall are unaccustomed to that treatment and can’t stand it. Because everything has to be oriented around what you think is important, and if it isn’t, yall gonna try to change it so it is. Colonizer mindset on full display.

Lotta goofy woke catchphrases here. I think the issue is that people think the schools shouldn't be so incredibly shitty. DCPS is arguably the worst public school system in the entire country. Our kids on average do worse on standardized tests than kids in Mississippi.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has actually been an interesting discussion with some thoughtful comments.

But the problem remains the same - most people with options leave DCPS. They'll give it a try in early elementary, but then they're done. One can say whatever about race, but no one gives a damn about larger cultural issues when it comes to the wellbeing of their own child. It's disheartening to read that there are parents who are extremely exclusionary when it comes to race. And that drives the exodus, which of course is exactly what such families want.

Bold is the answer. Overwhelming majority of families place the top priority on their kid’s education and well being. This is true at the expense of all else. Those few parents here saying community trumps their kid are outliers.

DCPS has proven time and time again that they don’t care about all the kids. The higher performing kids will be “fine” which they equate as finishing school and going to any college which is a very low bar as the majority of resources go to the lowest performing.

Considering that most Americans don’t go to college, that’s not as low a bar as you think. It just might seem low in a city where a lot of people have a lot of fancy education.

To use a tired term, white parents in DCPS don’t feel like their children and their wants/needs are “centered” in DCPS. And yall are unaccustomed to that treatment and can’t stand it. Because everything has to be oriented around what you think is important, and if it isn’t, yall gonna try to change it so it is. Colonizer mindset on full display.

Lotta goofy woke catchphrases here. I think the issue is that people think the schools shouldn't be so incredibly shitty. DCPS is arguably the worst public school system in the entire country. Our kids on average do worse on standardized tests than kids in Mississippi.

I have plenty of criticism for DCPS but this is a very uneducated position. I have family in districts in places like Alabama and Oklahoma where they won't even pay for 5 days of school a week and where teachers barely make a livable wage even with the low cost of living and there is zero enrichment and there are schools that routinely fail to have any child meet expectations on statewide assessments. I have kids at a Title 1 school in DC that many people would describe as struggling and for all of DCPS's faults it is light years ahead of many public schools especially in the south. Not to mention all the political issues those districts have that restrict kids' access to basic history or literature. I mean come on.

Also for the billionth time on these boards: you cannot compare standardized test scores from an urban district like DC against state-wide results. The state-wide results in mississippi include the wealthiest areas where there is no concentrated poverty. You can compare DC against other urban areas but you also must be careful to look at whether the comparison includes metro areas with inner suburbs. DC's assessments cannot include close in suburbs because of our unique designation as a non-state district and our kids don't take the same assessments as those in the suburbs. So it's actually hard to do a 1:1 comparison of test scores in DC versus cities like San Francisco or Chicago or Philadelphia (and in any case kids take different assessments with different scoring so this furthers the challenge).

DCPS has issues but your talking points are bad and uninformed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has actually been an interesting discussion with some thoughtful comments.

But the problem remains the same - most people with options leave DCPS. They'll give it a try in early elementary, but then they're done. One can say whatever about race, but no one gives a damn about larger cultural issues when it comes to the wellbeing of their own child. It's disheartening to read that there are parents who are extremely exclusionary when it comes to race. And that drives the exodus, which of course is exactly what such families want.

Bold is the answer. Overwhelming majority of families place the top priority on their kid’s education and well being. This is true at the expense of all else. Those few parents here saying community trumps their kid are outliers.

DCPS has proven time and time again that they don’t care about all the kids. The higher performing kids will be “fine” which they equate as finishing school and going to any college which is a very low bar as the majority of resources go to the lowest performing.

Considering that most Americans don’t go to college, that’s not as low a bar as you think. It just might seem low in a city where a lot of people have a lot of fancy education.

To use a tired term, white parents in DCPS don’t feel like their children and their wants/needs are “centered” in DCPS. And yall are unaccustomed to that treatment and can’t stand it. Because everything has to be oriented around what you think is important, and if it isn’t, yall gonna try to change it so it is. Colonizer mindset on full display.

Lotta goofy woke catchphrases here. I think the issue is that people think the schools shouldn't be so incredibly shitty. DCPS is arguably the worst public school system in the entire country. Our kids on average do worse on standardized tests than kids in Mississippi.

I have plenty of criticism for DCPS but this is a very uneducated position. I have family in districts in places like Alabama and Oklahoma where they won't even pay for 5 days of school a week and where teachers barely make a livable wage even with the low cost of living and there is zero enrichment and there are schools that routinely fail to have any child meet expectations on statewide assessments. I have kids at a Title 1 school in DC that many people would describe as struggling and for all of DCPS's faults it is light years ahead of many public schools especially in the south. Not to mention all the political issues those districts have that restrict kids' access to basic history or literature. I mean come on.

Also for the billionth time on these boards: you cannot compare standardized test scores from an urban district like DC against state-wide results. The state-wide results in mississippi include the wealthiest areas where there is no concentrated poverty. You can compare DC against other urban areas but you also must be careful to look at whether the comparison includes metro areas with inner suburbs. DC's assessments cannot include close in suburbs because of our unique designation as a non-state district and our kids don't take the same assessments as those in the suburbs. So it's actually hard to do a 1:1 comparison of test scores in DC versus cities like San Francisco or Chicago or Philadelphia (and in any case kids take different assessments with different scoring so this furthers the challenge).

DCPS has issues but your talking points are bad and uninformed.

On this note, it would be great if there were an actual national assessment test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has actually been an interesting discussion with some thoughtful comments.

But the problem remains the same - most people with options leave DCPS. They'll give it a try in early elementary, but then they're done. One can say whatever about race, but no one gives a damn about larger cultural issues when it comes to the wellbeing of their own child. It's disheartening to read that there are parents who are extremely exclusionary when it comes to race. And that drives the exodus, which of course is exactly what such families want.

Bold is the answer. Overwhelming majority of families place the top priority on their kid’s education and well being. This is true at the expense of all else. Those few parents here saying community trumps their kid are outliers.

DCPS has proven time and time again that they don’t care about all the kids. The higher performing kids will be “fine” which they equate as finishing school and going to any college which is a very low bar as the majority of resources go to the lowest performing.

Considering that most Americans don’t go to college, that’s not as low a bar as you think. It just might seem low in a city where a lot of people have a lot of fancy education.

To use a tired term, white parents in DCPS don’t feel like their children and their wants/needs are “centered” in DCPS. And yall are unaccustomed to that treatment and can’t stand it. Because everything has to be oriented around what you think is important, and if it isn’t, yall gonna try to change it so it is. Colonizer mindset on full display.

Lotta goofy woke catchphrases here. I think the issue is that people think the schools shouldn't be so incredibly shitty. DCPS is arguably the worst public school system in the entire country. Our kids on average do worse on standardized tests than kids in Mississippi.

I have plenty of criticism for DCPS but this is a very uneducated position. I have family in districts in places like Alabama and Oklahoma where they won't even pay for 5 days of school a week and where teachers barely make a livable wage even with the low cost of living and there is zero enrichment and there are schools that routinely fail to have any child meet expectations on statewide assessments. I have kids at a Title 1 school in DC that many people would describe as struggling and for all of DCPS's faults it is light years ahead of many public schools especially in the south. Not to mention all the political issues those districts have that restrict kids' access to basic history or literature. I mean come on.

Also for the billionth time on these boards: you cannot compare standardized test scores from an urban district like DC against state-wide results. The state-wide results in mississippi include the wealthiest areas where there is no concentrated poverty. You can compare DC against other urban areas but you also must be careful to look at whether the comparison includes metro areas with inner suburbs. DC's assessments cannot include close in suburbs because of our unique designation as a non-state district and our kids don't take the same assessments as those in the suburbs. So it's actually hard to do a 1:1 comparison of test scores in DC versus cities like San Francisco or Chicago or Philadelphia (and in any case kids take different assessments with different scoring so this furthers the challenge).

DCPS has issues but your talking points are bad and uninformed.

On this note, it would be great if there were an actual national assessment test.

Only if they did away with state assessments and any district-wide assessments though. I don't want my kids spending half the year testing and the rest of the year preparing for tests.

And to be honest the usefulness in assessments to me is largely in getting a handle on the quality of education in a school or district we don't yet attend (and even then it's a piece of the puzzle and not the whole story). I don't personally find it that hard to understand where my kids are at academically once they are in school and I'd much rather get personalized feedback from teachers and see stuff like math test results or read my kids writing than have them take yet another assessment. I say this as someone who was always great at taking these sorts of tests and have kids who seem to be similar. I don't think it was actually that great a measure of my learning beyond a certain baseline. It was a terrific measure of my test taking ability and skills like following directions or being able to easily eliminate wrong answers from multiple options. I wish I'd spent more time in K-12 reading and writing and doing more applied math.................

[Anonymous]

Brooklyn and NYC schools offer gifted glasses, test in academies-so true tracking for advanced students. Until DC does that, parents will always seek out schools that have a larger concentration of higher income kids becuase they tend to be the strongest academically

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has actually been an interesting discussion with some thoughtful comments.

But the problem remains the same - most people with options leave DCPS. They'll give it a try in early elementary, but then they're done. One can say whatever about race, but no one gives a damn about larger cultural issues when it comes to the wellbeing of their own child. It's disheartening to read that there are parents who are extremely exclusionary when it comes to race. And that drives the exodus, which of course is exactly what such families want.

Bold is the answer. Overwhelming majority of families place the top priority on their kid’s education and well being. This is true at the expense of all else. Those few parents here saying community trumps their kid are outliers.

DCPS has proven time and time again that they don’t care about all the kids. The higher performing kids will be “fine” which they equate as finishing school and going to any college which is a very low bar as the majority of resources go to the lowest performing.

I didn't understand this until my kids got to be middle school aged, but higher performing kids will not actually be "fine" at an inadequate middle or high school. They will be completely unprepared to succeed in college.

They will be fine in elementary -- I sent my kids to a Title 1 elementary that was 10 percent white and it was actually "fine." But when you start to really do into th curriculum and academics at the different middle schools, and talk to older parents of older kids, you realize what a narrow path there is to success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the demographics of the city are 40% black and 40% white, then the public schools should reflect that. And they often don't.

Yes, see this is my issue as a white parent. I don't think that the city sees my children as entitled to a good education. They see the DCPS job as primarily trying to decrease the achievement gap between black and white students and also meeting the educational needs of poor students in Wards 7 and 8.

Their obligation to my children is just as significant as the obligation to properly educate any other children in the city.

That said, they've been failing in their obligation to properly maintain school buildings for decades, and likely failing in many other ways.

This. DCPS only knows how to close the gap by lowering the ceiling (ie no test in gifted glasses, tracking and worse "honors for all"-too many classes are dumbed down). Plus too many are graduating who seem to be functionally illiterate. Look at Ballou test scores. I think 1% are on grade level for math and they will still get a diploma.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the demographics of the city are 40% black and 40% white, then the public schools should reflect that. And they often don't.

Sure but that's oversimplifying the issue. Anacostia and other EOTR neighborhoods are not 40% white, and AU Park is not 40% black. Unless you plan to bus kids all over the city, the neighborhood schools are not going to reflect the city average.

Can you explain how there is a school in Ward 1 with 4% Black students in this day and age?

Neighborhood schools are still a thing and most communities, rich and poor alike, support them over bussing.

Bussing? We are talking walking distance to multiple other elementary schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the demographics of the city are 40% black and 40% white, then the public schools should reflect that. And they often don't.

Sure but that's oversimplifying the issue. Anacostia and other EOTR neighborhoods are not 40% white, and AU Park is not 40% black. Unless you plan to bus kids all over the city, the neighborhood schools are not going to reflect the city average.

Can you explain how there is a school in Ward 1 with 4% Black students in this day and age?

Which school is that?

Bancroft.

[Anonymous]

I think the schools aren't shitty, except in the sense that no one seems to be able to turn the children of the undereducated in DC into successes.

Not to pick on specific schools, but if the entire population of Key had its teachers switched for the ones at Truesdell or all the Brent students were sent to Beers and the Beers students went to Brent, the test scores of the failing students and the test scores of the succeeding students wouldn't change.

The children of the successful succeed. The children of the failures fail.

What do you do about that?
For me, it tells me that my kid will succeed in any environment. For others, it makes them freak out and want to self-segregate. For undereducated and multigenerational poor parents in DC who want better, it seems like they pick charters once they see how bad their kids are doing in school.

As far as I can tell though, nobody has solved urban education. Any DCPS seems able to send a kid who's prepared to learn in K to college but can't get a kid who's below age level at K to what most of us would consider high school level competency (regardless of whether DCPS would give them a diploma).

(Sorry, depressing.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the schools aren't shitty, except in the sense that no one seems to be able to turn the children of the undereducated in DC into successes.

Not to pick on specific schools, but if the entire population of Key had its teachers switched for the ones at Truesdell or all the Brent students were sent to Beers and the Beers students went to Brent, the test scores of the failing students and the test scores of the succeeding students wouldn't change.

The children of the successful succeed. The children of the failures fail.

What do you do about that?
For me, it tells me that my kid will succeed in any environment. For others, it makes them freak out and want to self-segregate. For undereducated and multigenerational poor parents in DC who want better, it seems like they pick charters once they see how bad their kids are doing in school.

As far as I can tell though, nobody has solved urban education. Any DCPS seems able to send a kid who's prepared to learn in K to college but can't get a kid who's below age level at K to what most of us would consider high school level competency (regardless of whether DCPS would give them a diploma).

(Sorry, depressing.)

Again, that feels true in elementary school but is absolutely not in middle and high school. You think that kid from Key, the child of successful parents will be able to go to Cardozo and succeed? With no advanced classes as options? They will be bored out of their mind and will not be prepared for college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has actually been an interesting discussion with some thoughtful comments.

But the problem remains the same - most people with options leave DCPS. They'll give it a try in early elementary, but then they're done. One can say whatever about race, but no one gives a damn about larger cultural issues when it comes to the wellbeing of their own child. It's disheartening to read that there are parents who are extremely exclusionary when it comes to race. And that drives the exodus, which of course is exactly what such families want.

Bold is the answer. Overwhelming majority of families place the top priority on their kid’s education and well being. This is true at the expense of all else. Those few parents here saying community trumps their kid are outliers.

DCPS has proven time and time again that they don’t care about all the kids. The higher performing kids will be “fine” which they equate as finishing school and going to any college which is a very low bar as the majority of resources go to the lowest performing.

Considering that most Americans don’t go to college, that’s not as low a bar as you think. It just might seem low in a city where a lot of people have a lot of fancy education.

To use a tired term, white parents in DCPS don’t feel like their children and their wants/needs are “centered” in DCPS. And yall are unaccustomed to that treatment and can’t stand it. Because everything has to be oriented around what you think is important, and if it isn’t, yall gonna try to change it so it is. Colonizer mindset on full display.

Lotta goofy woke catchphrases here. I think the issue is that people think the schools shouldn't be so incredibly shitty. DCPS is arguably the worst public school system in the entire country. Our kids on average do worse on standardized tests than kids in Mississippi.

I have plenty of criticism for DCPS but this is a very uneducated position. I have family in districts in places like Alabama and Oklahoma where they won't even pay for 5 days of school a week and where teachers barely make a livable wage even with the low cost of living and there is zero enrichment and there are schools that routinely fail to have any child meet expectations on statewide assessments. I have kids at a Title 1 school in DC that many people would describe as struggling and for all of DCPS's faults it is light years ahead of many public schools especially in the south. Not to mention all the political issues those districts have that restrict kids' access to basic history or literature. I mean come on.

Also for the billionth time on these boards: you cannot compare standardized test scores from an urban district like DC against state-wide results. The state-wide results in mississippi include the wealthiest areas where there is no concentrated poverty. You can compare DC against other urban areas but you also must be careful to look at whether the comparison includes metro areas with inner suburbs. DC's assessments cannot include close in suburbs because of our unique designation as a non-state district and our kids don't take the same assessments as those in the suburbs. So it's actually hard to do a 1:1 comparison of test scores in DC versus cities like San Francisco or Chicago or Philadelphia (and in any case kids take different assessments with different scoring so this furthers the challenge).

DCPS has issues but your talking points are bad and uninformed.

this is just a bunch of nonsensical excuses.

dc is far, far wealthier than mississippi. we spend exponentially more than mississippi on schools. and yet our kids do worse on tests.

maybe the difference is expectations. in dc, we dont count kids as absent unless they show up for school *after 2pm*. in mississippi, if third graders can't pass a state reading test, they automatically flunk third grade.

dc could learn a lot from mississppi.

The New York Times:

"Among just children in poverty, Mississippi fourth graders now are tied for best performers in the nation in NAEP reading tests and rank second in math."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/opinion/mississippi-education-poverty.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has actually been an interesting discussion with some thoughtful comments.

But the problem remains the same - most people with options leave DCPS. They'll give it a try in early elementary, but then they're done. One can say whatever about race, but no one gives a damn about larger cultural issues when it comes to the wellbeing of their own child. It's disheartening to read that there are parents who are extremely exclusionary when it comes to race. And that drives the exodus, which of course is exactly what such families want.

Bold is the answer. Overwhelming majority of families place the top priority on their kid’s education and well being. This is true at the expense of all else. Those few parents here saying community trumps their kid are outliers.

DCPS has proven time and time again that they don’t care about all the kids. The higher performing kids will be “fine” which they equate as finishing school and going to any college which is a very low bar as the majority of resources go to the lowest performing.

Considering that most Americans don’t go to college, that’s not as low a bar as you think. It just might seem low in a city where a lot of people have a lot of fancy education.

To use a tired term, white parents in DCPS don’t feel like their children and their wants/needs are “centered” in DCPS. And yall are unaccustomed to that treatment and can’t stand it. Because everything has to be oriented around what you think is important, and if it isn’t, yall gonna try to change it so it is. Colonizer mindset on full display.

Lotta goofy woke catchphrases here. I think the issue is that people think the schools shouldn't be so incredibly shitty. DCPS is arguably the worst public school system in the entire country. Our kids on average do worse on standardized tests than kids in Mississippi.

I have plenty of criticism for DCPS but this is a very uneducated position. I have family in districts in places like Alabama and Oklahoma where they won't even pay for 5 days of school a week and where teachers barely make a livable wage even with the low cost of living and there is zero enrichment and there are schools that routinely fail to have any child meet expectations on statewide assessments. I have kids at a Title 1 school in DC that many people would describe as struggling and for all of DCPS's faults it is light years ahead of many public schools especially in the south. Not to mention all the political issues those districts have that restrict kids' access to basic history or literature. I mean come on.

Also for the billionth time on these boards: you cannot compare standardized test scores from an urban district like DC against state-wide results. The state-wide results in mississippi include the wealthiest areas where there is no concentrated poverty. You can compare DC against other urban areas but you also must be careful to look at whether the comparison includes metro areas with inner suburbs. DC's assessments cannot include close in suburbs because of our unique designation as a non-state district and our kids don't take the same assessments as those in the suburbs. So it's actually hard to do a 1:1 comparison of test scores in DC versus cities like San Francisco or Chicago or Philadelphia (and in any case kids take different assessments with different scoring so this furthers the challenge).

DCPS has issues but your talking points are bad and uninformed.

this is just a bunch of nonsensical excuses.

dc is far, far wealthier than mississippi. we spend exponentially more than mississippi on schools. and yet our kids do worse on tests.

maybe the difference is expectations. in dc, we dont count kids as absent unless they show up for school *after 2pm*. in mississippi, if third graders can't pass a state reading test, they automatically flunk third grade.

dc could learn a lot from mississppi.

The New York Times:

"Among just children in poverty, Mississippi fourth graders now are tied for best performers in the nation in NAEP reading tests and rank second in math."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/opinion/mississippi-education-poverty.html

How many years would DC give kids to pass 3rd grade? Social promotion exists because no one wants a 14 year old in elementary school