WaPo Article- 14 Schools Outperformed Peer Schools in DC

[Anonymous]

How is it even fair to compare a charter school to a neighborhood one? So much to unpack here.

[Anonymous]

They are saying these at risk schools on a average have 1/5th of the kids on grade level. The celebrated schools have on average 1/4th of the kids on grade level. Let’s celebrate. Seriously?

The real question is why is only 1 out of 4 or 5 kids at grade level? If you say because it’s low SES then you are perpetuating the problem. There are cities with low SES kids doing much better.

The answer is because DCPS is a disaster with its central office, has no implementation of any effective system wide support programs, socially promote all kids, expect local principals to solve systemic wide problems at the local level with no support, and continue to burden teachers with more BS administrative things and testing.

This is why a principal doesn’t last long at the school, leave or get shuffled around to other schools because they can’t fill posts, and there is a high teacher turnover.

But yes, let’s not ask those questions and this is the best we got to celebrate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is it even fair to compare a charter school to a neighborhood one? So much to unpack here.

Probably in this case since they are weighing for at-risk. Many of these charters have higher at-risk percentages than some the neighborhood schools on the list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are saying these at risk schools on a average have 1/5th of the kids on grade level. The celebrated schools have on average 1/4th of the kids on grade level. Let’s celebrate. Seriously?

The real question is why is only 1 out of 4 or 5 kids at grade level? If you say because it’s low SES then you are perpetuating the problem. There are cities with low SES kids doing much better.

The answer is because DCPS is a disaster with its central office, has no implementation of any effective system wide support programs, socially promote all kids, expect local principals to solve systemic wide problems at the local level with no support, and continue to burden teachers with more BS administrative things and testing.

This is why a principal doesn’t last long at the school, leave or get shuffled around to other schools because they can’t fill posts, and there is a high teacher turnover.

But yes, let’s not ask those questions and this is the best we got to celebrate.

Former DCPS employee here?

[Anonymous]

Are you suggesting that there is serious moral hazard to recognizing progress? My child is at one of the recognized schools. The principal could point to gains the school has achieved over the past five years and easily get a job in a suburban school district with much higher academic performance. Same thing for many of the teachers. I don’t know that recognizing their hard work absolves the central office of anything or that it sends a signal that they have reached peak performance.

It’s also grating that any time schools with a sizeable at-risk population are recognized, their work is immediately diminished because “they must be teaching to the test” or “but what about middle school.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are saying these at risk schools on a average have 1/5th of the kids on grade level. The celebrated schools have on average 1/4th of the kids on grade level. Let’s celebrate. Seriously?

The real question is why is only 1 out of 4 or 5 kids at grade level? If you say because it’s low SES then you are perpetuating the problem. There are cities with low SES kids doing much better.

The answer is because DCPS is a disaster with its central office, has no implementation of any effective system wide support programs, socially promote all kids, expect local principals to solve systemic wide problems at the local level with no support, and continue to burden teachers with more BS administrative things and testing.

This is why a principal doesn’t last long at the school, leave or get shuffled around to other schools because they can’t fill posts, and there is a high teacher turnover.

But yes, let’s not ask those questions and this is the best we got to celebrate.

Former DCPS employee here?

Nope, just a parent who has been around long enough to see all the cracks and problems. It’s no secret that DCPS is not a school system that supports teachers. Prime example, see active thread below


https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/30/1089588.page

[Anonymous]

Thanks for sharing this link. Many sobering posts, non troll posts at that. Bowser and the city council are letting us down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you suggesting that there is serious moral hazard to recognizing progress? My child is at one of the recognized schools. The principal could point to gains the school has achieved over the past five years and easily get a job in a suburban school district with much higher academic performance. Same thing for many of the teachers. I don’t know that recognizing their hard work absolves the central office of anything or that it sends a signal that they have reached peak performance.

It’s also grating that any time schools with a sizeable at-risk population are recognized, their work is immediately diminished because “they must be teaching to the test” or “but what about middle school.”

Agree with this parent- I am a parent with children in DCPS, private and charter (pk-8). I am also an educator and in my role I am all over the DMV in different classrooms in different counties. I have seen some outstanding DCPS and DC Charter teachers and met some outstanding principals. I have seen some not so great situations, but that is every single county across the DMV. Teachers/ principals from DC can easily get jobs in other schools outside of DC. It's strange how there are so many education "experts" on DCUM who I guess know more about the landscape than people who are actually in it. I also taught in both VA and DC and PARCC is much harder to "teach to the test" than the SOLs. It is much more based in critical thinking and problem-solving. But, all of the education experts here would know more than me I guess.

BTW this thread is bizarre. It started with someone sharing an article celebrating schools where clearly the teachers and principals are working hard and making progress with their students and turned into a platform to bash these schools. I know how hard this job is and clearly the 14 schools listed in this article are doing something right and making gains.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is gross. You have a list of schools that are making demonstrated progress in closing the achievement gap, and people are comparing that to school performance in neighborhoods where the biggest at-risk problem is that Larla's Tesla might not come in time for her 16th birthday.

The best way to close the achievement gap in public schools is to abolish public schooling.

Wait, isn't that what we just did since March 2020 until August 2022? How did that go?

[Anonymous]

+100. My kids have needed pricey, extensive one-on-one tutoring in math to catch up to grade level in the last six months, never mind the fact that their teachers in the upper grades at our DCPS elementary school give them 4s in math each quarter. The pretense that the kids learned much via virtual "learning" has been taken to absurd lengths. The result is that most poor kids are more screwed than ever.

[Anonymous]

Holy Moly - I work with one of the schools on the list and it is not a good environment for students. At all. I worry about the emotional toll on kids at that school. So much of the info about schools is very narrow and doesn't at all show the big picture.

[Anonymous]

BCC is close in and doing much better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BCC is close in and doing much better.

What? This comment makes 0 sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends on how you define doing well. Soft bigotry of low expectations seems apt

Why not applaud and encourage? By your standards, affirmative action is a similar example of soft bigotry of low expectations.

[Anonymous]

None of the 14 school is integrated by race or class. Ech. These programs are obviously a big improvement over bad schools segregated by race and class, but this is still an apartheid approach to education. I feel like I benefitted from attending highly socioeconomically and racially diverse public schools as a poor kid of color as much as I did from the education and enrichment provided. When I got to a top college, I struggled a bit socially and academically, but not nearly as much as I would have done without having attended diverse schools.