Abbott elementary takes on the Charter School Movement

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In a lot of places, charter schools are a tool used to undermine, defund, discredit, and in many ways, destroy public education.

In DC, this is NOT the case. If you're posting here, on a DC parents forum, and are posting a non-nuanced, complete rejection of charter schools, you better have a kid who is currently at or has already graduated from, an EOTP DCPS middle school. Or you have no idea what actual parents who live in the majority of DC are actually dealing with. Send your kid to Cardozo Middle School, then we'll talk.

Charter schools, and in particular, the DC Public Charters, are not a panacea, neither all they all together bad. For parents, for integration, for equity, for students, and for the district as a whole. DC schools face an enormous numbers of challenges, and to respond to the current system with "Charters = Bad" is woefully narrow-minded, and given the demographics of DCUM comes with HUGE privilege.

Why are charters in DC immune from what you describe in your first sentence? What’s different about DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I loved the episode and for those who don't think that the same problems are happening in DC are just blind. Charters regularly take a select population of students and kick out those who require more resources, leaving DCPS with more students who have more needs. At the same time, the charters erode neighborhood schools leaving them with too small of a population to provide robust offerings.

meanwhile, actual data shows that is untrue

https://dcpcsb.org/dc-public-charter-schools-serve-higher-percentages-risk-students-and-high-needs-special-education

How many students with disabilities served by charters are adult students? Why isn’t this information broken out to enable direct comparison with DCPS?

It is *well known* in the DC SN world (just ask this board) that some charters give really strong IEPs and are much better for IEPs. Eg many charters will easily give a 1:1 and DCPS will never ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ugh. This just reinforces why I won’t watch the show. Read the room - a show with public school teachers as heroes was not exactly on my to-watch list after school shutdowns. And now anti-charter propaganda? No thanks.

Find your brain.

SCHOOL CHOICE IS A SCAM

So called "charter schools" like the Betsey DeVos model are you insane?

NO that is not a viable option for schools unless you want more dumb Americans.

It is not propaganda it is FACT that school choice makes schools worse not better.

Stop with your lies.

wow that was super convincing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In a lot of places, charter schools are a tool used to undermine, defund, discredit, and in many ways, destroy public education.

In DC, this is NOT the case. If you're posting here, on a DC parents forum, and are posting a non-nuanced, complete rejection of charter schools, you better have a kid who is currently at or has already graduated from, an EOTP DCPS middle school. Or you have no idea what actual parents who live in the majority of DC are actually dealing with. Send your kid to Cardozo Middle School, then we'll talk.

Charter schools, and in particular, the DC Public Charters, are not a panacea, neither all they all together bad. For parents, for integration, for equity, for students, and for the district as a whole. DC schools face an enormous numbers of challenges, and to respond to the current system with "Charters = Bad" is woefully narrow-minded, and given the demographics of DCUM comes with HUGE privilege.

Why are charters in DC immune from what you describe in your first sentence? What’s different about DC?

PP here. Excellent question! I don't believe we are immune, certainly it's something to watch out for. And I'm not an expert, I'll be the first to point out. But here's my take on why this is a bit different:

1) Charter schools were not a scheme to defund DCPS, and they were not born out of an unwillingness to fully fund DC public education. When charter schools were first introduced in DC, DCPS spent more per pupil than just about any other school system in the country and still had absolutely abysmal results. This was not a case where people said "we don't want to give them money, what else can we do?" This was, "we have money and it's still awful"
2) Geographically, DC is in a tough spot, because it's relatively easy for parents to move out of the school system. Arlington is a lot closer to downtown than a lot of DC! MD and VA are right there. So essentially, the population of school age children was dramatically lower than you would expect, and lower than it was in a lot of cities.
3) Irrelevant of motivations, the actual result of the introduction of charter schools has been to turn around the trend of plummeting enrollment in DC public schools. Having public charter school options for later grades, combined with free PK3 and 4 (which also keeps parents from moving to MD and VA, and I would say actually has had an even bigger impact on DC schools turning around) makes more parents likely to give their neighborhood elementary schools a try. Lots of neighborhood elementaries have actually seen big improvements in performance and enrollment as more families with resources have stayed in the district.

Like I said, this is very nuanced. I'm probably getting some details wrong, too. But if all charters in DC are bad and should be shutdown - that would have devastating negative effects on public education in DC, and so those of us who do live EOTP, like me, can get defensive when other people who have only heard stories from other places, come in with their CHARTER = EVIL narrative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I loved the episode and for those who don't think that the same problems are happening in DC are just blind. Charters regularly take a select population of students and kick out those who require more resources, leaving DCPS with more students who have more needs. At the same time, the charters erode neighborhood schools leaving them with too small of a population to provide robust offerings.

meanwhile, actual data shows that is untrue

https://dcpcsb.org/dc-public-charter-schools-serve-higher-percentages-risk-students-and-high-needs-special-education

How many students with disabilities served by charters are adult students? Why isn’t this information broken out to enable direct comparison with DCPS?

It is *well known* in the DC SN world (just ask this board) that some charters give really strong IEPs and are much better for IEPs. Eg many charters will easily give a 1:1 and DCPS will never ever.

Is there a reason the DCPCS numbers for students with SN do include adult students with SN while the numbers for ELL students do not include adult ELL students? How is a direct comparison possible with two different populations?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In a lot of places, charter schools are a tool used to undermine, defund, discredit, and in many ways, destroy public education.

In DC, this is NOT the case. If you're posting here, on a DC parents forum, and are posting a non-nuanced, complete rejection of charter schools, you better have a kid who is currently at or has already graduated from, an EOTP DCPS middle school. Or you have no idea what actual parents who live in the majority of DC are actually dealing with. Send your kid to Cardozo Middle School, then we'll talk.

Charter schools, and in particular, the DC Public Charters, are not a panacea, neither all they all together bad. For parents, for integration, for equity, for students, and for the district as a whole. DC schools face an enormous numbers of challenges, and to respond to the current system with "Charters = Bad" is woefully narrow-minded, and given the demographics of DCUM comes with HUGE privilege.

Why are charters in DC immune from what you describe in your first sentence? What’s different about DC?

PP here. Excellent question! I don't believe we are immune, certainly it's something to watch out for. And I'm not an expert, I'll be the first to point out. But here's my take on why this is a bit different:

1) Charter schools were not a scheme to defund DCPS, and they were not born out of an unwillingness to fully fund DC public education. When charter schools were first introduced in DC, DCPS spent more per pupil than just about any other school system in the country and still had absolutely abysmal results. This was not a case where people said "we don't want to give them money, what else can we do?" This was, "we have money and it's still awful"
2) Geographically, DC is in a tough spot, because it's relatively easy for parents to move out of the school system. Arlington is a lot closer to downtown than a lot of DC! MD and VA are right there. So essentially, the population of school age children was dramatically lower than you would expect, and lower than it was in a lot of cities.
3) Irrelevant of motivations, the actual result of the introduction of charter schools has been to turn around the trend of plummeting enrollment in DC public schools. Having public charter school options for later grades, combined with free PK3 and 4 (which also keeps parents from moving to MD and VA, and I would say actually has had an even bigger impact on DC schools turning around) makes more parents likely to give their neighborhood elementary schools a try. Lots of neighborhood elementaries have actually seen big improvements in performance and enrollment as more families with resources have stayed in the district.

Like I said, this is very nuanced. I'm probably getting some details wrong, too. But if all charters in DC are bad and should be shutdown - that would have devastating negative effects on public education in DC, and so those of us who do live EOTP, like me, can get defensive when other people who have only heard stories from other places, come in with their CHARTER = EVIL narrative.

PP here just to add - lest you think this is all just totally self serving, my kid goes to the local DCPS elementary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In a lot of places, charter schools are a tool used to undermine, defund, discredit, and in many ways, destroy public education.

In DC, this is NOT the case. If you're posting here, on a DC parents forum, and are posting a non-nuanced, complete rejection of charter schools, you better have a kid who is currently at or has already graduated from, an EOTP DCPS middle school. Or you have no idea what actual parents who live in the majority of DC are actually dealing with. Send your kid to Cardozo Middle School, then we'll talk.

Charter schools, and in particular, the DC Public Charters, are not a panacea, neither all they all together bad. For parents, for integration, for equity, for students, and for the district as a whole. DC schools face an enormous numbers of challenges, and to respond to the current system with "Charters = Bad" is woefully narrow-minded, and given the demographics of DCUM comes with HUGE privilege.

Why are charters in DC immune from what you describe in your first sentence? What’s different about DC?

PP here. Excellent question! I don't believe we are immune, certainly it's something to watch out for. And I'm not an expert, I'll be the first to point out. But here's my take on why this is a bit different:

1) Charter schools were not a scheme to defund DCPS, and they were not born out of an unwillingness to fully fund DC public education. When charter schools were first introduced in DC, DCPS spent more per pupil than just about any other school system in the country and still had absolutely abysmal results. This was not a case where people said "we don't want to give them money, what else can we do?" This was, "we have money and it's still awful"
2) Geographically, DC is in a tough spot, because it's relatively easy for parents to move out of the school system. Arlington is a lot closer to downtown than a lot of DC! MD and VA are right there. So essentially, the population of school age children was dramatically lower than you would expect, and lower than it was in a lot of cities.
3) Irrelevant of motivations, the actual result of the introduction of charter schools has been to turn around the trend of plummeting enrollment in DC public schools. Having public charter school options for later grades, combined with free PK3 and 4 (which also keeps parents from moving to MD and VA, and I would say actually has had an even bigger impact on DC schools turning around) makes more parents likely to give their neighborhood elementary schools a try. Lots of neighborhood elementaries have actually seen big improvements in performance and enrollment as more families with resources have stayed in the district.

Like I said, this is very nuanced. I'm probably getting some details wrong, too. But if all charters in DC are bad and should be shutdown - that would have devastating negative effects on public education in DC, and so those of us who do live EOTP, like me, can get defensive when other people who have only heard stories from other places, come in with their CHARTER = EVIL narrative.

This is a good analysis, especially for W6. As far as I understand the history, charters like Latin, Yu Ying, and TR started keeping families on the Hill starting in the early 2000s. As more families stayed on the Hill, neighborhood DCPS enrollment increased too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh. This just reinforces why I won’t watch the show. Read the room - a show with public school teachers as heroes was not exactly on my to-watch list after school shutdowns. And now anti-charter propaganda? No thanks.

I’m sure Quinta is losing sleep over that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I loved the episode and for those who don't think that the same problems are happening in DC are just blind. Charters regularly take a select population of students and kick out those who require more resources, leaving DCPS with more students who have more needs. At the same time, the charters erode neighborhood schools leaving them with too small of a population to provide robust offerings.

meanwhile, actual data shows that is untrue

https://dcpcsb.org/dc-public-charter-schools-serve-higher-percentages-risk-students-and-high-needs-special-education

How many students with disabilities served by charters are adult students? Why isn’t this information broken out to enable direct comparison with DCPS?

It is *well known* in the DC SN world (just ask this board) that some charters give really strong IEPs and are much better for IEPs. Eg many charters will easily give a 1:1 and DCPS will never ever.

Is there a reason the DCPCS numbers for students with SN do include adult students with SN while the numbers for ELL students do not include adult ELL students? How is a direct comparison possible with two different populations?

I don’t know. I’m sure you can ask a lot of questions about the data. But unless you think it’s all made up, it dispells the canard that “charters only take the top easy kids and kick the rest out!”

[Anonymous]

Look at Alabama, Arkansaw, Missouri, Mississippi, and Oklahoma and come back and show us where school choice is a good idea? Literally the worst of public education.

That is utter BS by the Christian right. Great now more child abuse given the number one place kids get abused is by Christian ministers, pastors priests etc.

Not to mention you pay for this. Seriously people book banners do not make good schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look at Alabama, Arkansaw, Missouri, Mississippi, and Oklahoma and come back and show us where school choice is a good idea? Literally the worst of public education.

That is utter BS by the Christian right. Great now more child abuse given the number one place kids get abused is by Christian ministers, pastors priests etc.

Not to mention you pay for this. Seriously people book banners do not make good schools.

Look at Democrat-run cities like Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago and St. Louis and tell me how their public schools are doing. Especially the non-magnet ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A few years ago, an EOTR DCPS elementary school was taken over by a charter--not just that the DCPS was closed and a charter used the building, but a regular school that had to take all in-bound kids was operated by a charter. The charter gave up. They weren't getting the test scores they wanted, and their model wasn't working with the kids they were getting and the churn throughout the year.

Charters have the opportunity to have a student body where all the kids have a grownup that planned seven months ahead and filled out the lottery forms and enrollment paperwork. They can kick out kids who come late, miss school, misbehave, or show up without uniforms and materials. DCPS schools do not have that opportunity.

Honestly this is the main point, and most of the time the charters *still* don't outperform DCPS w/r/t test scores. But so many charter supporters ignore it entirely, or make these specious arguments about how "they take some IEPs too!" as if there's anything approaching an apples to apples comparison to be made. But the truth is they just want to avoid at risk kids, and if their avoidance also drains money from the schools left behind to take care of those kids: so what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love Abbott Elementary and am wary of public schools run by multi-state private operators, and I have been wondering if the charter takeover thing is specific to Philadelphia or other districts where local or state laws cover that kind of thing.

I'm aware of DCPS taking over 2-3 failing DC public charter schools, but the idea of the reverse -- a school district wanting a charter operator to take over one of their schools -- was new to me. Public charter schools have taken over former DCPS buildings, but only after DCPS had decided to close them, is that correct?

Does anyone have experience with the Philadelphia school system or another place where hostile takeovers by charter operators happen?

I still love the show, but I fear people who are anti-charter will use the storyline to stir up a fear of something that isn't a universal threat. I do wish people will be informed and be vocal to prevent the spread of the legality of that kind of public school district/public charter school operator takeover activity. And support of public charter schools only for filling in gaps and to offer special programming isn't that.

I worked in a Philly charter for several years. We were identified as a turnaround school and given over to a charter company. We closed three years later after our CEO embezzled hundreds of thousands

This happens with great frequency. Lots of charters are scams

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look at Alabama, Arkansaw, Missouri, Mississippi, and Oklahoma and come back and show us where school choice is a good idea? Literally the worst of public education.

That is utter BS by the Christian right. Great now more child abuse given the number one place kids get abused is by Christian ministers, pastors priests etc.

Not to mention you pay for this. Seriously people book banners do not make good schools.

Look at Democrat-run cities like Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago and St. Louis and tell me how their public schools are doing. Especially the non-magnet ones.

DemocratIC. You misspelled it. Are you the product of an inferior charter school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look at Alabama, Arkansaw, Missouri, Mississippi, and Oklahoma and come back and show us where school choice is a good idea? Literally the worst of public education.

That is utter BS by the Christian right. Great now more child abuse given the number one place kids get abused is by Christian ministers, pastors priests etc.

Not to mention you pay for this. Seriously people book banners do not make good schools.

Umm. Literally here. Right here, in DC.