WaPo: What Happened when Brooklyn tried to Integrated its Middle Schools

[Anonymous]

Has the holy grail of every schools AVERAGE test score passing common core standards finally been acquired!?!?!

Eureka!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So it seems like the good news is that it gave alot of poorer and disadvantaged students access to higher performing schools.

The bad news is that almost every wealthy kid who was zoned to a lower performing school opted out. So long run, unless you can figure out a way to get wealthy families to willingly go to these schools, all you are doing is creating greater competition for limited seats in good schools while not actually improving the educational opportunities at poorer schools.

So how do you actually create buy-in? Move a very large cohort of wealthier students with the hope that enough of them will go? Create specialty programs? Only offer certain sought-after programs at these schools? I don't know what it would take.

Fairfax puts in gifted and talent programs in to its bilingual poorly performing school and 10% non Hispanic G&T and 90% Hispanic esol. Schools like baileys crossroads ES

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only negative I saw in that article was the bigot who pulled his kid from school because he assumes poor kids are dumb and unwilling to work hard. The school is probably better off without his family, though.

Did you read the part about the mom having to accompany the girls on the subway. That the school bus did not come for four days?

Have you never seen the threads here at the start of each school year with people complaining about buses that arrived incredibly late or never showed at all while school systems work out kinks in the system?

Never had that happen to anyone we know. What a joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only negative I saw in that article was the bigot who pulled his kid from school because he assumes poor kids are dumb and unwilling to work hard. The school is probably better off without his family, though.

Did you read the part about the mom having to accompany the girls on the subway. That the school bus did not come for four days?

Have you never seen the threads here at the start of each school year with people complaining about buses that arrived incredibly late or never showed at all while school systems work out kinks in the system?

Something very relevant to DC is that there are no school buses. That’s one reason people favor “neighborhood” schools.

Only around 25% of DC public/charter students attend their in-bounds school already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So it seems like the good news is that it gave alot of poorer and disadvantaged students access to higher performing schools.

The bad news is that almost every wealthy kid who was zoned to a lower performing school opted out. So long run, unless you can figure out a way to get wealthy families to willingly go to these schools, all you are doing is creating greater competition for limited seats in good schools while not actually improving the educational opportunities at poorer schools.

So how do you actually create buy-in? Move a very large cohort of wealthier students with the hope that enough of them will go? Create specialty programs? Only offer certain sought-after programs at these schools? I don't know what it would take.

I went to a magnet program that bussed in white and Asians into an 80% minority school that was failing. We did bring the scores up. But we didn’t really mix with the regular kids. Just PE and sex Ed. There wasn’t really the option for the regular kids to even get into my classes. To get to Calc BC you’d need algebra and geometry in middle school.

[Anonymous]

Yep. School within a school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only negative I saw in that article was the bigot who pulled his kid from school because he assumes poor kids are dumb and unwilling to work hard. The school is probably better off without his family, though.

Most of the 45 overperformers did not attend the underperforming Key school or whatever, they did fifth grade at private school or moved.

But you bring up an excellent topic, why are the underperforming students underperforming so significantly?

[Anonymous]

As a student who was bused to desegregate schools in 1970s, I would say a plus of the adventure was getting to have friends from different backgrounds. However, I would say all of us received a sub-optimal education -- particularly in middle school. I think an education is more important -- and the county's money would be better spent in offering private tutoring and bypassing the 'phone it in' teaching/poor curriculum that's offered here.

In the end, I think MCPS is hell bent of forgetting the law of unintended consequences and are going to go with a more extreme plan. In that case, MCPS schools are more likely to end up like S.F. -- more segregated: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/us/san-francisco-school-segregation.html

My personal opinion? Rockville really wants to cover up for results of Curriculum 2.0 disaster by changing the subject and making themselves look like social justice heroes. The generation who were first given this crap is currently in 7th grade and heading into high school where they will take the SATs and the true effect would be revealed if it weren't for this distraction.

[Anonymous]

No, first round of kids from 2.0 are currently in 10th grade. I have an 11th grader who was never involved in 2.0 and a 10th grader who was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only negative I saw in that article was the bigot who pulled his kid from school because he assumes poor kids are dumb and unwilling to work hard. The school is probably better off without his family, though.

Did you read the part about the mom having to accompany the girls on the subway. That the school bus did not come for four days?

Have you never seen the threads here at the start of each school year with people complaining about buses that arrived incredibly late or never showed at all while school systems work out kinks in the system?

Never had that happen to anyone we know. What a joke.

Are you sure? I've heard so many of these stories, and they all end FINE. Just some mix ups at the beginning of the school year.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the correction on 2.0 - gives more weight to my thesis. First generation of 2.0 kids will take SATs right at the time of boundary change! Nice distraction Rockville...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So it seems like the good news is that it gave alot of poorer and disadvantaged students access to higher performing schools.

The bad news is that almost every wealthy kid who was zoned to a lower performing school opted out. So long run, unless you can figure out a way to get wealthy families to willingly go to these schools, all you are doing is creating greater competition for limited seats in good schools while not actually improving the educational opportunities at poorer schools.

So how do you actually create buy-in? Move a very large cohort of wealthier students with the hope that enough of them will go? Create specialty programs? Only offer certain sought-after programs at these schools? I don't know what it would take.

NP. My kids are in Elementary in Brooklyn's District 15, where the two Middle Schools featured in the article are located. I have friends (poor, Middle Class, and Upper Middle Class of all races) with 5th Grade kids in our school who are currently going through the Middle School application process.

From what I am seeing, hearing anecdotally, and reading, all but 2 of the Middle Schools in D15 are good and most are outstanding. Dewey and another Sunset Park school, however, are extremely low performing. The families I know don't have those schools on their list (you are allowed to apply to a maximum of 12 schools, and these families are rounding out their lists with Citywide or out-of-district schools). All of the families that I'm in touch with would be very happy with any of their top 3 picks, and satisfied with any of the rest. They would be very unhappy, maybe fleeing to charters or private, if they got a school that wasn't even on their list, like Dewey or Sunset Park Prep (I think that's the name).

I would be, too. My DH is a public school teacher and has told me how frustrating and guilt-inducing it was to have a classroom full of low achieving students with a smattering of very bright and high achieving ones -- he had to spend all of his efforts pulling the bottom ones up and didn't really have enough time to give the top ones extra. Our kids are very bright and motivated; it would kill me to put them in a classroom where they'd basically be ignored and not pushed or, worse, leaned on hard by the teacher like an assistant to help the other students (which, anecdotally, I have heard about).

I'm also friends with a number of families with African-American 5th Graders in our school. The parents are getting involved in organizations that help prep kids for entry into private schools (e.g., Prep for Prep). These are the bright and motivated kids from involved families who used to bring up the achievement stats in segregated Middle Schools. Many of them are leaving the public school system in 6th Grade for privates, who value these students for adding diversity to their ads and brochures (to be cynical about it).

All this is to say that I don't think the D15 MC and UMC families will exit the public school system if they get a matched with one of their picks. If they get the bottom schools, ones not even on their lists, however, they might.

[Anonymous]

They do something similar in San Francisco. It's been terrible for families and kids.

[Anonymous]

Did you read the part about the mom having to accompany the girls on the subway. That the school bus did not come for four days?

Putting her kid on the New York City subway so she can attend a shitty New York City public school... damn, she really, really, really, really hates her kid. Sad!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it seems like the good news is that it gave alot of poorer and disadvantaged students access to higher performing schools.

The bad news is that almost every wealthy kid who was zoned to a lower performing school opted out. So long run, unless you can figure out a way to get wealthy families to willingly go to these schools, all you are doing is creating greater competition for limited seats in good schools while not actually improving the educational opportunities at poorer schools.

So how do you actually create buy-in? Move a very large cohort of wealthier students with the hope that enough of them will go? Create specialty programs? Only offer certain sought-after programs at these schools? I don't know what it would take.

NP. My kids are in Elementary in Brooklyn's District 15, where the two Middle Schools featured in the article are located. I have friends (poor, Middle Class, and Upper Middle Class of all races) with 5th Grade kids in our school who are currently going through the Middle School application process.

From what I am seeing, hearing anecdotally, and reading, all but 2 of the Middle Schools in D15 are good and most are outstanding. Dewey and another Sunset Park school, however, are extremely low performing. The families I know don't have those schools on their list (you are allowed to apply to a maximum of 12 schools, and these families are rounding out their lists with Citywide or out-of-district schools). All of the families that I'm in touch with would be very happy with any of their top 3 picks, and satisfied with any of the rest. They would be very unhappy, maybe fleeing to charters or private, if they got a school that wasn't even on their list, like Dewey or Sunset Park Prep (I think that's the name).

I would be, too. My DH is a public school teacher and has told me how frustrating and guilt-inducing it was to have a classroom full of low achieving students with a smattering of very bright and high achieving ones -- he had to spend all of his efforts pulling the bottom ones up and didn't really have enough time to give the top ones extra. Our kids are very bright and motivated; it would kill me to put them in a classroom where they'd basically be ignored and not pushed or, worse, leaned on hard by the teacher like an assistant to help the other students (which, anecdotally, I have heard about).

I'm also friends with a number of families with African-American 5th Graders in our school. The parents are getting involved in organizations that help prep kids for entry into private schools (e.g., Prep for Prep). These are the bright and motivated kids from involved families who used to bring up the achievement stats in segregated Middle Schools. Many of them are leaving the public school system in 6th Grade for privates, who value these students for adding diversity to their ads and brochures (to be cynical about it).

All this is to say that I don't think the D15 MC and UMC families will exit the public school system if they get a matched with one of their picks. If they get the bottom schools, ones not even on their lists, however, they might.

Thanks for sharing. I'm curious (and you may not know) why AA families with 5th graders are moving to privates. It seems like, being a priority group, their kids would have a good shot at getting into the higher performing/desirable public middle schools, no?