Gifted in DCPS
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Anonymous
NP here. I am curious as to how you are formulating this opinion if you don't even have school-age children. Have you gone to open houses to observe instruction? Have you spoken to principals and teachers? Or are you basing this on reputation and things you've heard? I just spent a weekend with my dear friend whose children attend school in the highest performing MCPS cluster. Her DC are both "behind" my Deal DC if you look at the courses they are taking. One will not have algebra until 8th grade (due to curriculum 2.0) and neither of them will begin language instruction until the 7th grade. They go to great schools and are doing very well. I point it out not to say that their education is inferior but that it is very possible to receive a high quality education in DCPS. |
Anonymous
| What is the point of taking algebra on 8th grade is you haven't really mastered the fundamentals that will allow you to understand it? I see a lot of acceleration that results in students taking remedial math when they get to college. |
Anonymous
OP, I'd say half the kids at our JKLM school are "gifted," so I wouldn't sweat it. Just because DCPS doesn't haven't a program doesn't mean that he won't be in school with kids at the same level. You'll be surprised. |
Anonymous
Gifted by what measure? |
Anonymous
Will those mcps kids receive a challenging education at Whitman? Yes. I would worry more about Wilson, no matter which year one takes algebra. |
Anonymous
| Is Lake Wobegon on the Janney grounds? |
Anonymous
Another new poster, my PK4 kid is several grade levels ahead of his peers (reading at 3rd/4th grade level). It happens. And his teachers work with him on it. And, yes, PK3 and PK4 are GRADES in public schools in the district. |
Anonymous
Agree. What I can't stand about certain DCPS schools is that they equate accelerated with excellence. Taking 'advanced' classes isn't always developmentally appropriate and doesn't mean the educational quality is great. There are many kids pushed into algebra too early who don't really understand what they are doing and then have difficulty later on. |
Anonymous
Thank you. Yes, this is a DC public schools forum and PK3 is a grade in DC public schools. |
Anonymous
This definitely made me smile, although the OP will have no idea what we're talking about with all of these inside jokes. OP, here's a serious answer for you: Fairfax County, VA has a superb school system with lots of G&T programs in its schools at all grade levels, really good, rigorous, well-funded ones. Some of the best in the nation. And one of its magnet HSs is #4 in the entire country among public schools. Fairfax is a bit of a commute into DC proper, but depends where exactly. Montgomery County, MD, and Arlington County, VA, also have excellent academics. For G&T the rank is probably Fairfax first, maybe followed by MoCo then Arlington, but of course a lot of parents would dispute that ranking. Prince George's county is more mixed - it's better toward the western part (where it borders MoCo). Alexandria Co is also more mixed. What is not in dispute is that the DC school system is one of the worst in the nation, or the absolute worst, depending on the measures. Lots of people love the urban lifestyle and don't want to leave DC and so people work very hard to find the best thing for their kids. For example charters. But charters are pure lottery in DC, no matter the focus. They can say they are a G&T charter or a special needs charter or whatever but the fact is they can't do any entrance exams or anything. They just get randomly assigned. And you have about a 1%-5% chance of getting into the most popular ones. Then there are some good public elementary schools, mostly west of Rock Creek Park. People refer to them on this forum by an acronym "JKLM" etc (Janney, Key, Lafayette, Mann... there are a few others). But they don't have true G&T programs (granted they have some smart kids and involved parents), and anyway you only have 1 year of ES left and the best MS (Deal) and HS (Wilson) in the city are up and coming but still not as strong compared with say Fairfax. Basically, if you are serious about G&T for your kid, move to Fairfax and deal with the commute. If you stay in DC, be realistic about your very limited options. Especially at grade 4, the rubber really hits the road in DC with MS and HS. Not trying to insult parents who choose to stay in the District here - we're among them - just trying to give the honest goods to the OP. |
Anonymous
I would say this practice is actually more prevalent in MCPS than DCPS. Look at MCPS's fail rates in their algebra classes. Curriculum 2.0 seeks to slow down math acceleration and many parents are up in arms about it. |
Anonymous
Algebra in 8th grade is not particularly advanced. |
Anonymous
Something like a third of Deal's 8th grade is taking Geometry (after Algebra in 7th grade). Our advanced, CTY child did well at Deal, with a fair amount of differentiated instruction. I think you will find that most of the posters decrying the "mediocre" or "terrible" DC public schools have only limited first-hand knowledge. I'm not saying everything has been perfect - math has been great, humanities sometimes less challenging than we would have liked - but the black-and-white answers you hear on this board are not accurate. And, for what it's worth, white children in DC historically score at a very high level so attending one of the better-ranked schools will mean that many, many of your child's classmates would have tested into a suburban G&T program. |
Anonymous
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OP is coming from Baltimore County asking for a comparison with DCPS schools -- I googled their description of ES G&T and it sounds mostly like strong in class differentiation based on frequent benchmark tests by teachers, with some tweaks coming up due to the switch to common core. http://www.bcps.org/offices/gt/ That's why I'd just call it good teaching, and skip the G&T label. It is not what G&T was when I was a kid (which was lame weekly pull outs for strange enrichment opportunities based on IQ, nor the bus all the high IQ kids to one school model -- also not my cup of tea, but certainly a way to ensure that a school is highly ranked if you have a large enough population to pull from). So while DCPS has no "G&T program" and the label is never used, if what OP is looking for is what that brochure describes, that is what autonomous DCPS schools do (the JKLMs mentioned above). You also have good options in MD in VA if you want to move there instead, but that was not the question.
Also OP, I'm sure you are smart enough not to be fooled by the folks who tout only the national statistics about DC schools in general. I assume you were not planning to move to Ward 8. When the NAEP statistics are broken down, you will see the sad truth about the urban achievement gap - white students in DCPS (the vast majority of whom are in JKLM, and Deal and Wilson) are first in the country, ahead of the MD and VA students -- by a lot. They are being taught in DCPS. Such statistics are also awkward because they are comparing a city to states, but people seem to like to use them to rank DC at the bottom, so lets also admit that in this category DC is the top (FWIW). I really don't think you will learn what you need to know on this forum. You need to see the schools and compare what the kids are doing. That's what it took for me. 10:00 gives a serious answer, but all it really does is rehash generalized "reputation" without any of the substance people demand every time a parent of a gifted kid in DCPS says their child is being challenged at their own level of intelligence by very good teachers. You will do fine if you choose by reputation and move to MD and VA, but since this is the DCPS forum and you are looking in DC, some of us are trying to explain that our G&T kids needs are also being met in DCPS without programs or schools labeled as such. Also I know of no JKLM that accelerates students without depth of understanding. I know of no parent in my school who would stand for that. |
Anonymous
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Washington DC has one of the highest concentrations of the bright and talented in the nation. Tons of analysts, researchers, and others come from all parts of the country and the world to work in Washington DC. The highest concentration of PhDs in the nation is right here in DC.
Accordingly, it stands to reason that many DC kids come from these brilliant parents are benefiting from growing up in households where academics and intelligence are highly valued. Yet DC resists adoption of robust G&T programs, it resists magnets or test-in schools to support the clear need that exists, for one and only one reason: because it's political. It's because they fear it will skew white - a fear that is probably true, given how white students scored far above national averages per NAEP. It's a fear, purely over optics - but it's ultimately a fear that ends up holding ALL students back, and it ends up holding DCPS itself back, as many of those bright and talented families who came to DC end up pulling out of DCPS or avoiding DCPS altogether to instead send their kids to privates, to charters, or moving to the burbs, and DCPS ends up cutting off its own nose to spite its face. DCPS has a problem accepting reality. |