Ward 6 Needs to Boot Joe Weedon

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eastern in its current form is so far from what high SES parents are looking for that it's silly to start the discussion there. I try to support my neighborhood schools, so I went to a plant sale they were doing there to support their garden program. The kids checking off how many of each plant were being purchased legitimately took 1-2 minutes per plant to find the name and check it off despite the plants being written in alphabetical order. It was multiple kids and I'd guess they were each reading at a 3rd-5th grade grade level. They seemed like nice kids but there's just no way Eastern can meaningfully provide for them and my neighbors' 6 year old who already reads at the same level without some sort of tracking program. If it's just that the future 6 year old gets pulled out/given advanced work for every class with no/limited teacher interaction, that's not what most people want or should want for their kids out of a high school. Of course they look elsewhere.

you have no idea if those kids were representative of Eastern but way to generalize. If all the white Hill parents sent their kids to Eastern they would fill up the IB and AP classes and it would be fine.

I thnk there are a LOT of DCPS high school kids reading at the elem school level. Its shameful. I have seen at least 20 come thorugh my office as part of the summer youth program. its really problematic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can at grade level kids be challenged in a classroom of most of the kids are performing well below grade level? It can't be done. No parent would put their child in such a position. DCPS and other school districts can't wish away this fact.

Tell that tot he administrator who hold teacher's responsible for students' growth via IMPACT!

Teachers should prefer growth over achievement. There are schools (Jefferson is one of them) that gets a bunch of kids who read on a 3rd grade level up to an 8th grade level in three years. Schools that can do that should be commended. But I agree that parents who have 5th graders who already read on an 8th grade level are understandably leery of sending their kids to a place like Jefferson, because they don't trust that the school will also be able to do that. The teachers are obviously gifted, and if there were a bunch of advanced kids entering, I'm sure they would make a bunch of progress n a separate class. But no parent wants their kid to be the only advanced one, or even part of a handful of advanced kids.

And no parent wants their average, on grade level student to be with below grade level students - those parents are looking for fellow students to pull them up.

[Anonymous]

Right, so where does these observations leave us vis a vis booting Joe Weedon, or not? Without a new mayor who's willing to embrace serious test-in programs modeled on those serving other US cities for decades or even generations, I don't see anything much changing where Ward 6 middle and high schools go. I picture the middle schools attracting a few more high SES families in the next decade, and Eastern attracting next to none. Joe Weedon seems irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

I don't see Joe Weedon as being able to accomplish a thing no matter where he stands on Ward 6 school issues. Why bother booting him?