Selective High Schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's completely reasonable to wonder why DCPS isn't doing more to serve you, and to see the world through your own eyes.

But DC is a city where half the kids live in Wards 7 and 8, 27% of all kids have household incomes below the poverty line, and more than 3 in 10 won't graduate from high school.

School districts are built around the typical kid, not the exceptional kid. In DC, the typical kid is poor and does poorly in school. When they think of how to make Phelps better, it has nothing to do with your kid at all. It has nothing to do with attracting more kids like your kid. It's about dealing with the kids they currently have, and that's overwhelming enough to them without having to sell themselves to kids who will probably turn out fine regardless of how much effort DCPS puts into them. They won't get more political capital from the bulk of DC residents for trying to do more for your kid--just the opposite. And they won't get money from the big foundations either.

You don't have to like it. But the system isn't designed for you and it doesn't care if you like it.

This is explained well, and I hear your point, but public schools need to serve all of its students well and all of the taxpayers who fund its schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Former DCPS teacher here.

Grades are inflated at a lot of schools. To meet numbers, a lot of failing students are given BS work at the end of the quarter and receive a D. That doesn't sit well with some teachers who feel that it's unfair to the students who actually earned a D, so rather than stand their ground, they take the "true" D student and bump them up to a C. Then there's the other issue of students getting grades based on behavior instead of academic ability. Schools like Banneker and Walls have mechanisms in place to filter out the true high achievers.

Why don't other schools do this?
There's a lot of posturing going on in the District. The students who have been led to believe that they are high achievers typically have better behavior and more focus than their peers, so while they can't get in to Walls or Banneker, they should be able to go somewhere with students on the same level. Hence the schools with lower requirements.

And under that tier are a handful of charters who take kids through a lottery and ship the misbehaving ones right back to their neighborhood schools any time after count day. The neighborhood schools are at the bottom rung in my opinion. Not because of the quality of the teachers or because of the quality of the majority of the students. It's simply because the other schools have weeded out all of the high flyers who would have balanced things out. This would never happen, but I would love to see what would happen if all students and teachers were subject to a city-wide lottery.

Except for Wilson. The kids who are high fliers and very interested in STEM will choose Wilson over all the others. Are they making a mistake?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Former DCPS teacher here.

Grades are inflated at a lot of schools. To meet numbers, a lot of failing students are given BS work at the end of the quarter and receive a D. That doesn't sit well with some teachers who feel that it's unfair to the students who actually earned a D, so rather than stand their ground, they take the "true" D student and bump them up to a C. Then there's the other issue of students getting grades based on behavior instead of academic ability. Schools like Banneker and Walls have mechanisms in place to filter out the true high achievers.

Why don't other schools do this?
There's a lot of posturing going on in the District. The students who have been led to believe that they are high achievers typically have better behavior and more focus than their peers, so while they can't get in to Walls or Banneker, they should be able to go somewhere with students on the same level. Hence the schools with lower requirements.

And under that tier are a handful of charters who take kids through a lottery and ship the misbehaving ones right back to their neighborhood schools any time after count day. The neighborhood schools are at the bottom rung in my opinion. Not because of the quality of the teachers or because of the quality of the majority of the students. It's simply because the other schools have weeded out all of the high flyers who would have balanced things out. This would never happen, but I would love to see what would happen if all students and teachers were subject to a city-wide lottery.

Except for Wilson. The kids who are high fliers and very interested in STEM will choose Wilson over all the others. Are they making a mistake?

I don't think it's a mistake. I would encourage that just as much as I encourage the ones who choose Wilson simply because they want a "normal" high school experience. In a lot of ways, Wilson affords a better opportunity to have a balanced and well-rounded high school experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Former DCPS teacher here.

Grades are inflated at a lot of schools. To meet numbers, a lot of failing students are given BS work at the end of the quarter and receive a D. That doesn't sit well with some teachers who feel that it's unfair to the students who actually earned a D, so rather than stand their ground, they take the "true" D student and bump them up to a C. Then there's the other issue of students getting grades based on behavior instead of academic ability. Schools like Banneker and Walls have mechanisms in place to filter out the true high achievers.

Why don't other schools do this?
There's a lot of posturing going on in the District. The students who have been led to believe that they are high achievers typically have better behavior and more focus than their peers, so while they can't get in to Walls or Banneker, they should be able to go somewhere with students on the same level. Hence the schools with lower requirements.

And under that tier are a handful of charters who take kids through a lottery and ship the misbehaving ones right back to their neighborhood schools any time after count day. The neighborhood schools are at the bottom rung in my opinion. Not because of the quality of the teachers or because of the quality of the majority of the students. It's simply because the other schools have weeded out all of the high flyers who would have balanced things out. This would never happen, but I would love to see what would happen if all students and teachers were subject to a city-wide lottery.

Seems to me then that the "bottom of the rung" schools would be better served focusing on the root causes of the behavior problems and help kids work on the issues causing them stress and focus more on the core skills rather than keeping up the pretense and posturing. They should focus foremost on serving the kids they have, rather than the kids they want to have. Then maybe the system might start to improve as a whole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Former DCPS teacher here.

Grades are inflated at a lot of schools. To meet numbers, a lot of failing students are given BS work at the end of the quarter and receive a D. That doesn't sit well with some teachers who feel that it's unfair to the students who actually earned a D, so rather than stand their ground, they take the "true" D student and bump them up to a C. Then there's the other issue of students getting grades based on behavior instead of academic ability. Schools like Banneker and Walls have mechanisms in place to filter out the true high achievers.

Why don't other schools do this?
There's a lot of posturing going on in the District. The students who have been led to believe that they are high achievers typically have better behavior and more focus than their peers, so while they can't get in to Walls or Banneker, they should be able to go somewhere with students on the same level. Hence the schools with lower requirements.

And under that tier are a handful of charters who take kids through a lottery and ship the misbehaving ones right back to their neighborhood schools any time after count day. The neighborhood schools are at the bottom rung in my opinion. Not because of the quality of the teachers or because of the quality of the majority of the students. It's simply because the other schools have weeded out all of the high flyers who would have balanced things out. This would never happen, but I would love to see what would happen if all students and teachers were subject to a city-wide lottery.

Seems to me then that the "bottom of the rung" schools would be better served focusing on the root causes of the behavior problems and help kids work on the issues causing them stress and focus more on the core skills rather than keeping up the pretense and posturing. They should focus foremost on serving the kids they have, rather than the kids they want to have. Then maybe the system might start to improve as a whole.

A lot of teachers in those schools share your sentiment, myself included. Unfortunately, the "sages" down in central office do not.