Mayor Plans to Underfund Charter Schools
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Anonymous
THIS |
Anonymous
This may be one of the worst things I have read on DCUM, and that is saying a lot. Props to the other posters who are acknowledging the very real problem and impact of students who are several years behind. But deciding you know how someone's life is going to 'work out' at an early age? I really hope you are just explaining your thoughts poorly. The effects of being behind start to seriously snowball by late elementary. High Impact Tutoring is great, but it's not enough. We need to fund intensive remedial classes to make sure all kids leaving elementary school are reading on grade level and have basic understanding of math skills. But there always needs to be an 'off ramp' for them to re-enter grade level classrooms. Labeling kids bc you 'know how their lives are going to work out' and basically giving up on them is pretty horrible. |
Anonymous
It’s not giving up. It’s realizing that, by the combination and (lack of) nurture a good 25-50% of those kids will be lucky to be literate at 18, and we overwhelmingly know who those kids are by the time they hit ECE. |
Anonymous
DC schools have painfully low academic standards. Read about Mississippi. They did the opposite. Extremely tough standards and now poor kids there *trounce* DC kids on tests, despite spending a fraction of what DC spends on schools. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/opinion/mississippi-education-poverty.html |
Anonymous
According to your article, Mississippi saw its 4th grade English NAEP scores rise, relative to other states, especially for poor kids, because it was among the first states to drop the discredited Calkins reading method in favor of phonics. Both charter and DCPS elementary schools have a lot of independence regarding reading curriculum. Some use the more effective phonics approach, but some retain a more Calkins-like approach. One big reason schools avoid phonics is that middle-class and UMC kids without learning disabilities learn to read anyway, and their parents tend to characterize the more effective phonics curriculum as “boring” or “drill and kill.” And since DC schools compete for those more affluent families, their incentive is to do what appeals to the families rather than what the evidence says is effective. That’s the downside of school choice. |
Anonymous
High standards are so key. I believe this is the strategy for DC Prep and KIPP too, and is why they are so successful with at-risk groups. High standards are also the norm at BASIS, which is the KIPP for bougie people. I don't know what DCPS's problem is. IME the high standards are teacher and principal dependent, but not coming from above. |
Anonymous
Couple of interesting tidbits from the article. Would never work in DC because the well-meaning performative SJW in DC have drowned out any discussion of change. We can't hold kids back because it would be racist (never mind it is the black and brown kids who are being failed by social promotion). We can't hold kids back because then you'd have 18 year olds in 3rd grade (this BS red herring is thrown around all over DCUM and in education circles). The last point is the most important. Nothing works the way you think it will. You need to be willing to try new things and see what works and adapt. Charters exist precisely because DCPS and those that control it reject all change. The WTU has successfully fought almost all change at the expense of our kids. I really wish the white denizens of W3 would stop speaking for at-risk and families of color who are saddled with lousy schools. |
Anonymous
If DC told 3rd graders they would automatically flunk if they couldnt read by the end of the year...every last one of them would know how to read by the end of 3rd grade. |
Anonymous
+1 and dead beat parents might step up and require kids to open a book because they don’t want them held back. DCPS low standards helps no one. It’s a race to the bottom. No holding kids back because it’s racist. No tracking because it’s racist. All this equity BS helps no one. What is even worst is that they are failing the group of smart, poor kids who have such potential, someone like me growing up. These kids absolutely need tracking and to be asked to do more and get out of the environment of low standards and complicity. No wonder middle class families flee DCPS to charters and privates. The emergence of charter schools absolutely has been a huge factor in keeping UMC families in this city EOTP. People on here who believe that if there were no charters that most UMC families would send their kids to their IB DCPS schools are delusional. No, they would move out of the city. The problems in DCPS are deep and dysfunctional and the longer you are in the system, the more you realize what a sh*tshow it is. |
Anonymous
These people are almost universally parents very young kids who feel really proud to be in a "diverse" school. As the kids move up, you realize it's the system and the curriculum, not the demographics, that are the problem. |
Anonymous
| Color me cynical, but when the education reform you’re bragging about is higher 4th grade NAEP scores, and the mechanism you used to achieve this is simply not allowing the lowest-scoring students to enter 4th grade in the first place, I conclude that you’re not so much educating students as hiding data. |
Anonymous
What a load of bologna. What an alternate reality you live in! |
Anonymous
You are the poster child for why reform in DC won't work. We can't improve things because unless the proposed solution solves ALL PROBLEMS we can't even try. If you read the article you would have seen the cliff for promotion got teachers and parents invested in remediation. Further research concluded that kids who repeated were no worse off down the line. Also noteworthy that, yes, the kids held back were disproportionately black and brown and Mississippi said, "Yes, and? We are trying to help kids learn to read. If that's more black and brown kids then the problem isn't our standards are too high, it is that those populations need more support to succeed". Would never fly in DC. Serious question: What do people like you get from opposing all reforms? Why are you so invested in our failing system and the tons of kids who suffer as a result? Are you a WTU member? I'm seriously asking because I do not understand why people like you behave like you do. |
Anonymous
I’m not a WTU member. I’m a parent. And I don’t oppose all reforms. For example I support the switch from Calkins to phonics, which was part of the Mississippi success story. And I didn’t even say I was opposed to this particular reform—I just said I was cynical about whether there was actual improvement or just data manipulation. I’ve seen a lot of trends in education reform over the past 25 years, and most produce some kind of showy stats at the beginning without a lot of long-term gains. One reform I lived through was moving the kindergarten age cutoff in DC back from December to September, and gosh, it turns out older kids score higher even if nothing else changes. I’m particularly cynical about this kind of system that holds kids back so they're older when they take a test, especially if they’re still allowed to drop out of high school at the same age. If they’re still dropping out at 16, you didn't increase their lifetime learning, you just changed the year they take that particular test. |
Anonymous
You haven't spent much time looking at test scores for KIPP recently. Not great. |