s/o Gifted classes in DC schools
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Anonymous
CK starts to raise the bar, and yes, it's where we should be looking to get all students. But by the same token, G&T kids are capable of going beyond that - one could probably accelerate G&T kids faster than the normal CK sequence progression and have them work well ahead. |
Anonymous
Have you actually looked at the CK Sequence? |
Anonymous
| Sure, they could be in medical school by the time they're 12. |
Anonymous
Thank you for asking my opinion. I am not a teacher (although my MIL was for 30 years in the NYC public schools system, including at the end a high school pull out program for troubled kids), and I am trained as a lawyer, but my dh is pretty smart and we have been talking and thinking a lot about this, especially because of the election when Matthew Frumin came out and said his goal was 1/3 charter, 2/3 DCPS, which, since 43% of DCPS kids are now in charters would effectively be declaring a moratorium on charters. Thankfully, he lost, but Anita Bonds won, and the way I understand it she is just a part of the AA political machine here, which still, BTW, includes Marion Barry. Frumin stated these numbers publicly during his campaign, and had the balls to say that he was a DCPS family having sent his kids to Deal and Wilson, where it seems like everyone wants to go. As one person said, there is Janney (and other elementary feeders), Deal, Wilson, and then everything else in this city. But charters also offer boarding schools to kids with troubled families, like SEEDS, schools like KIPP where kids need discipline in addition to academics, language immersion programs otherwise only accessible to people who could afford Washington International School (private), St. Coletta's which is for really disabled (both physically and mentally) kids, and the oldest charter school in DC profiled in the WAPO this week or last where at risk kids are taught a trade like cutting hair or becoming manicurists. Not everyone is college material. We need more vocational schools, more realistic options for at risk kids to become productive members of society. And it is the Charter Schools that are doing this, at least in this dysfunctional city. Well, first off, in a still (barely) majority AA city, where most AA's go to public school, and even Deal and Wilson and School Without Walls are majority AA (pretty sure), the idea that ANY program to get some of these kids ahead is racist is ridiculous. We have an AA mayor, I assume Kaya Henderson is AA, and I just do not see how any tracking, testing, G&T, test in, or charter programs or schools can fairly at this point be called racist. Nonetheless, Two Rivers (a charter school) was apparently sued for racism a few years ago (case was dismissed, does not mean people did not have to spend money), and BASIS undoubtedly will be sued when it becomes less than 50% AA, which it will (and we are an AA family). Please come cry on my shoulder when there actually is a DCPS all white middle school. For now, be quiet, and realize that ANY improvements are better than nothing. Heck, even teachers and schools that are trying to improve and failing are better than these whiners. I have obviously thought a lot about this, given dh's experience where he tested into a NYC Public School G&T program in 2nd grade and it basically changed the entire course of his life. NOT an understatement. Long story, but true. Ironically (at least to me, but I may be missing something basic), that G&T program was targeting minority kids even though it was in the South Bronx and I'm pretty sure that he was not in school with any white kids. He will not even take me and our kids to visit some of the neighborhoods and housing projects he lived in growing up there because he does not think it is safe. But testing, as long as it is fluid (as a pp pointed out, kids can change academically pretty dramatically between K and grade 5), where kids can retest to qualify and get bumped out if it turns out that they were not able to handle the program, in some ways does not seem that bad to me. OTOH, I have out of morbid curiosity been following the threads on kids trying to test in to AAP (I think in VA, their version of G&T that seems to start in 3rd grade), and it does sound like a bunch of white folks gaming the system - people are being told to take the WISC if they had not before and reapply, the names of certain people who administer the tests are being repeated over and over again, and those tests are expensive and if the school system does not pay for them there is a problem from the get go. Furthermore, people are posting their kids scores and grades and accepted or rejected, and it seems very arbitrary, even to those parents whose kids got accepted. I know a lot of people do exaggerate on DCUM, having just been called a fake poster, but these parents who post high scores and good grades and then "rejected" where other parents commiserate, just don't seem to have much reason to lie. When we moved for dh's job we looked seriously at Maryland and Va, and to be honest we have looked seriously since then. The "dream" Montgomery County elementary school that fed into Pyle and Whitman lost our vote when on the tour my dh asked the new principal if they tracked in math and the response was that "studies show that it does not make a difference." My MIL, the former NYCPS teacher, also did not like him, and she has been one of our litmus tests for years. Ok, no MoCo for us...Also, since we are people of color the fact that Pyle and Whitman are lily white did not sit right with us. We thought about Fairfax and TJ for our math and science (and also creative writing, musical) kids, but the admissions rate was 16% at the time, and that HAS to be somewhat arbitrary purely from the numbers, so we thought the odds of getting all of our kids (more than 3) into TJ were slim to none. Interestingly, according to dh, TJ has recently been successfully sued by activists for racism under a disparate impact theory - that the mere fact that so few black students were being admitted proved that the admissions process was racist. Of course, the school was majority Asian, so the families who really got screwed there were members of another minority group, but there will inevitably be some dumbing down of TJ in the near future and we are keeping an eye on their test scores etc even though our kids will never go there. Once my dh gets interested in something, he keeps abreast of the developments. I have been shocked by our rude introduction to the facts of life in DC, including on DCUM, where when the discussion of what language to take got a response from a white woman that her child certainly was not taking Spanish because the only reason to learn Spanish is to talk to maids and gardeners. That may be an urban legend, but doubt it. News to DC and the 21st century - it is not all about black and white anymore. By 2050 (or maybe earlier), America will be more than 50% Latino/Hispanic. And a lot of people are mixing. My dh is a bit of a racial mix, Sally Hemmings children have been proven by DNA to be descendants of Thomas Jefferson, and there are black Puerto Ricans as well as Puerto Ricans who look absolutely caucasian. And by the way, they are US citizens by birth, which is why you do not need a passport to go to or come from Puerto Rico. The world is going to become more about shades and colors than pure races, and culture is most important in most families, be they AA, Venezuelan (like our pediatrician at Georgetown), or Jewish. So get with the program folks. And for many in the Chinese and Latin American community one of the most important aspects of culture is language, and it would be nice if everyone in this country spoke more than one language anyway. But meet their needs. Speaking Chinese can give your kid a leg up career wise whether he is Chinese or not... This teacher who has been posting on this thread who has been very articulate about differentiated reading programs sounds wonderful - wish my kids had her, but unless she is at a Charter (and it sounds like she is at DCPS), most kids who don't have Deal as an option for middle school have already left their DCPS to go to the really good charter schools that start in 5th grade - Washington Latin or BASIS DC. So her teaching, wherever she is, is not something my kids are going to ever be able to benefit from. Also, by 5th grade kids in general are more well behaved so they can learn better and more calmly/less disruptively. And the complete lack of tracking in math in Washington DC should be fundamentally disturbing to every parent in the system. It certainly upsets my husband, who is a scientist in a tech field where math is an absolute prerequisite. Our kids are all going to BASIS DC, in no small part because of the tracking in math, the tracking in English that starts in 7th grade, the diversity of the school and course offerings, and just because after looking very carefully at their track record in Arizona and already having dc1 at Washington Latin, we thought it was our best bet. And in spite of the sometimes painful growing pains this year at BASIS, we do not think we have made the wrong decision given the alternatives we had. While it is possible all our kids could have gotten scholarships to BIG 3 or 5 privates, we honestly believe that BASIS will offer a better education. Strategically, whether we are competing just against other charters for the DC slots allotted for each really good college (we think there are at least 20 really good colleges, maybe 30, but don't want our kids going to the west coast for undergrad), or all DCPS, our odds of getting our kids into the colleges of their choice are better at BASIS than coming from private schools. Our oldest just had their first year there and while it was a challenge, it was a great experience, MUCH better than the upper grades at our JKLM (which honestly are not all that intellectually challenging, and people who can are peeling off to privates earlier and earlier), and better than Washington Latin where they could not offer the level of math and science dc was capable of doing. I would say that by 3rd grade if I could have found a more intellectually challenging school for our kids without going bankrupt, we would have done so. Now we were at a JKLM, and are complaining about the quality of THAT education after 2nd grade. If you look at and hear the desperation of concerned parents who have a crappy IB ES alternative who are all scrambling in lotteries for OOB or charters for their very young kids, you start to appreciate just how hard a motivated parent has to work and sometimes how lucky they have to be just to get their child a good public education in this city. One report said that being admitted to PS4? at one charter school was more competitive and the odds were less likely than for those children applying to Harvard. And some people here want to put a moratorium on charter schools? Or "strengthen neighborhood schools" which seems code for waging war on charters and OOB since Frumin is part of this new organization of "concerned parents." They also, including the mayor and possibly Catania (not positive) want to add a neighborhood preference to the charter schools that now exist, which would do a number on the charter system and at least for academic schools like Latin and Basis, potentially really undermine their academic success. Actually BASIS DC is close to China Town, so maybe we could get some hard working first generation Asian kids... but I digress. And I am being sarcastic and racially and culturally insensitive. But honestly, I am really frustrated, and as this thread shows, so are a lot of other parents. The other appalling thing to me, having kids who always have scored 100% on all parts of the DC-CAS, although not all of the subtests each time, is that under Rhee ((who IMO was a disaster and I am really worried that Teach for America (which some of my friends did right after college) is now holding up Rhee as a shining example of school reform)), where teachers and principals were getting bonuses for good DC-CAS scores is this erasure scandal. The idea that the kids scored so badly on what must be such an easy test (because I do not believe my kids are gifted, just smart and hard working) that the powers that be had to change their answers to get more cash is awful for 2 reasons - 1) these people mostly have never been investigated or fired, the principal of Ludlow Taylor comes to mind from a recent LT thread and 2) how could our kids be so badly educated that they had to have their answers changed? Are you kidding me? So as for changes 1) keep the charters that work going the way they are, do not give an IB preference and destroy them 2) continue to approve GOOD charters (One World clearly was not an example of a good charter proposal) a) allow more of the GOOD brand chain charters in like KIPP and BASIS, b) look carefully at language immersion proposals in this very international city where everyone ought to try to be bilingual, AND PLEASE CONSIDER DCI (this idea of melding YY, some of the Spanish Immersion charters like Oyster and Lamb or Mundo Verde (forget which) into a multilingual charter high school that might resemble Washington International School, particularly appropriate in DC c) approve more vocational/trade like charters like the ones where people learn how to be barbers - computer technicians come to mind immediately d) either have a pull out program for troubled kids or give them their own charter, don't let them destroy our schools 3) do more differentiation in not only reading but Math, people, Math, which we all need to survive 4) fire bad teachers and bad principals - on merit, not on politics (again, the principal of LT comes to mind immediately) 5) try to end or at least minimize the rampant social promotion - someone posted part of the DC handbook on a thread here that says that a child can only be made to repeat one grade, and only in certain grades - so if the child repeats third grade at the request of a school, social promotion becomes MANDATORY unless the parent requests it again 6) and I know this will get me flamed, BUT a)504s are mostly for kids with physical disabilities, not intellectual ones, and all of those kids should have the right to attend almost any school - maybe not a charter that tried to create NBA stars, but really b) IEPs can be for a lot of different things, and I only just learned this, so bear with me but 1) if a child has an IEP due to behavioral problems (and I am not talking a non disruptive kid on the autism spectrum, I am talking about kids who disrupt or have emotional/psychological problems that make them dangerous), they may just not belong at some schools, charter or otherwise, but BASIS and Latin come immediately to mind, and any kid who is SO emotionally disturbed that they make threats about getting guns to kill other students needs to be pulled out of that school, IEP or NOT 2) someone recently explained to me, and apparently there has been a lot of press about this, that if a kid falls too far behind and they cannot figure out why they may just give them an IEP. Those kids, who say in sixth grade still cannot read, CANNOT be in BASIS and have BASIS be told that somehow they have to find a way to make physics and chemistry accessible to a 7th grader reading at a 3rd grade level - this is an academic school, people. These kids are not prepared for that kind of curriculum, nor are they prepared for Washington Latin, and a kid who has a learning disability that makes it impossible for them to learn a foreign language cannot graduate from Oyster without learning Spanish and does not belong there Obviously, I would not have the first idea about how to implement most of these proposals but somebody must - what are the people at the central office and Kaya for, after all. As my great grandma always used to say: If it ain't broke, don't fix it - please do not mess with our functioning charter schools, and please approve more of them that look like they are reasonable proposals, including starting a second KIPP or BASIS school if eventually there is a demand for it. If it is so broke, it cannot be fixed. Some of these dysfunctional, underenrolled schools need to be closed but the decision-making process should be more transparent, and less political. Get the cheating PG county parents to pull their kids out of LT/DCPS or PAY tuition. Stop suing at the drop of a hat. I met a man who had taught at Deal for years who said they used to track for English and Math at Deal "until we got sued." Don't sue Two Rivers, don't sue BASIS (although in terms of compliance with some 504s/IEPs if they do not shape up, which I expect they will with the new SPED coordinator, then by all means sue if your kid with a hearing aid does not get to sit at the front of the class, or your child who has joint problems is not allowed to take the elevator, but don't sue because your kid cannot read and failed out of the 7th grade and has an IEP and cry racism at the same time). In my opinion, suing TJ and winning may have just destroyed TJ. We all seem to have the same goal for our kids - a good education, but it has to be reasonable - the kid has to be able to perform in whatever kind of school you are trying to put him in. Finally, the most ridiculous DC story I have heard recently, first hand from a mom. Her fairly frail kid with some learning disabilities got in this year to both Washington Latin (amazing!) and the Lab School. She, like many others, has been suing DCPS to get them to pay for the Lab School for years because they cannot offer him an acceptable alternative (and this, I believe - I know quite a few parents with one kid at Lab and another at BASIS where they sued DCPS for their Lab School kid). The DCPS lawyer told her that if she puts her child in Latin, then he is technically no longer in DCPS, and she would have to give up her law suit. This, as a lawyer, IMO is a crock of you know what - if she took her kid out of DCPS and put him in the Lab School and continued to sue them for back tuition, they would not have a leg to stand on, seems to me the same should happen here. BTW, Latin has a great record on accommodating intelligent hardworking kids with disabilities of all kinds. But DC has been losing money for years because they have to pay the Lab School private tuition for numerous kids whose needs they cannot serve. How about a Charter School that looks like the Lab School? Just an idea. We pay more per pupil (and less to charters) than almost anywhere and we have the worst public school system except for Detroit I think. Someone has got to do something before we lose a whole nother generation of kids - to the streets, to drugs, to jail, or to Md or Va, because then DC won't have the property school taxes to pay the tuition for the Lab School. This situation is ridiculous but it is also so so so so so so sad.... for absolutely everyone, that someone has got to do something and lots of people are doing things, from that 5th grade teacher who is doing a good job of differentiation to BASIS DC. But our kids deserve more. I have probably made numerous mistakes in these proposals and omitted some good ones - feel free to add more, and try not to bash me too much. This whole long diatribe came from some nasty person calling me a "fake poster" and then a nice one asking me what I would do if I were queen for a day, or Kaya.... |
Anonymous
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PP here. Thanks to the obnoxious troll who baited me into responding about how many kids I have and what schools they are in and how I seem to know so much just having one child in pre-k. Despite my feeling that I did not identify our family or anyone else's, my husband feels like I have "outed" my family and is going to cut me off from DCUMs - no, I don't have a very egalitarian marriage. But that is true of many minority couples. So I am hoping he can make it read only because I feel like I have actually contributed to discussions, and I have certainly learned a lot from you all. He sometimes comes out with opinions based on facts that he does not admit he read first here - I guess I will have to guess more from now on. But since I still don't think I identified our ES, our family, the gender of any of my children, the total number of kids in my family, and any schools other than Washington Latin and Basis, and did not even say the gender or the grade that dc1 was in, I hope that he is wrong and that I did not do anything really wrong that could lead to my family being identified and somehow retaliated against... Oh well. It would help me feel better if before he comes home at least one person could post that they don't know who I am and could care less, because sometimes when you don't give the evidence - your personal experience - to back up your opinions, you get trashed. Oh woops! I gave a lot of evidence and got trashed anyway, but also supported. Again, thank you to this community
Signed, apparently irresponsible AA mother of 3 or more kids..... in some undisclosed JKLM school with dc1 at BASIS and very happy with dc1's education........... |
Anonymous
Yes. And, you're asking this why? Do you think it's already rigorous and accelerated? Bear in mind for example that BASIS DC already has some of its 5th and 6th graders already taking Algebra I as opposed to Algebra I in 8th per CK Sequence (and many other traditional curricula do) in addition to 9 hours of science a week starting in 6th, along with strong language arts and a full complement of the classics, history, humanities, latin and other traditional coursework found in a strong liberal arts education. Washington Latin isn't quite as aggressive but they are likewise accelerated more than CK Sequence is. And neither of them are G&T programs. |
Anonymous
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New Poster. Hey, lady. You have many good ideas. Why don't you team up with Frumin and talk? Run for a DC Board of Ed seat, or even a city council seat? You're AA, female, very smart and thoughtful, committed to public schools. You'd get votes in 2014.
I'd consider BASIS for my kid if it had a gym, a stage, a decent art program, any sort of music program, any outdoor space. The barebones facilities aren't reasonable. |
Anonymous
| BASIS does have art and music, not sure why you'd think they don't... As for a stage and other facilities, they have started getting access to use some better facilities outside of their building. Bear in mind that DC real estate is not cheap and DC has not particularly been helpful to charters in the facilities department - one can only conclude they'd spitefully prefer to have their extra facilities sit shuttered than let kids benefit from them. |
Anonymous
What I don't understand is that if you're so sure this kid out of boundaries yet has no family to contact then who is getting this kid to school every day? Unless they live really close to the boundaries to magic JKLMM fairlyland someone is helping this kid get to school. And someone is re-enrolling the kid so they can stay in magic JKLMM fairlyland. Something doesn't add up when you say there's no way to get in contact with the kids legal guardian. I'd also point out that many schools have 8-10 kids like this in every classroom. Maybe even more. |
Anonymous
Music and art looked weak to me. They aren't offering the sort of enrichment programs I had access to in middle and high school, although my family struggled financially, e.g. a real orchestra, band, school musicals, ceramics workshops etc. I've been on a couple tours. I'm not exactly blaming BASIS. It's more the politicians fault, or perhaps the voters fault, that extra facilities remain shuttered. But I'm not sure that I like the narrow emphasis on STEM work either, and I'm an MIT grad near the top of the Federal pay scale. As a teenager, I would have done nothing but math and sci if I'd been encouraged to (not to my benefit). |
Anonymous
CK is not about acceleration. The Sequence doesn't address math. It's about offering a balance of history (both U.S. and World), geography, literature, and science from K-8. But some would consider introducing Medieval History in 4th grade to be accelerated. What history and literature are BASIS students offered in 5th grade? |
Anonymous
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5th grade at Latin offers a comprehensive geography class that goes region by region around the globe. Students memorize country locations and Capitals and learn a bit about the culture and history of the region. They also learn about current events and issues in the region and discuss things like human trafficking, oil reserves, global warming, industrialization, conservation and biodiversity. They tackle many of these issues in a Socratic method, becoming familiar with the multiple perspectives and learning to form their own opinions and have arguments and evidence to back it up.
In English/literature they tackle multiple genres including Agatha Christie short stories, science fiction and classics like The Giver. They learn to annotate in the margins to note the exposition, main characters, foreshadowing, conflict, resolution. Many writing assignments based on the reading. There are mini lessons in grammar and usage. |
Anonymous
| So sorry. I posted the Latin info and then noted that pp asked for what BASIS offers in 5th, not Latin. Misread that. |
Anonymous
Thank you, was interested in WL curriculum as well. I think the CK sequence is richer for 5th grade -- integrated units on Pre-Columbian Civilizations, Renaissance in Europe, Reformation, English Civil War, Early Russia, Feudal Japan, American West, US Civil War/Reconstruction. The literature includes Shakespeare and Cervantes (abridged), Frederick Douglass, Tom Sawyer, lots of poetry with integrated music and art history. Imagine how strong the K-8 curriculum would be if DCPS supplemented the current standards with CK. |
Anonymous
| 6/10 17:54 Longest post ever award. Too bad, mighta had some substance to it, but most people on here don't have time to read book length rants. |