What are the odds of them eliminating neighborhood elementary schools in favor of controlled choice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree that the scenarios are all pretty tolerable for the Janney, Lafayette, Murch families that remain in boundary for those schools. I think, however that it is silly to make them controlled choice and mix up the families going to them given that they are doing so well now. They don't need a specialized program at one of those schools. Put those resources elsewhere.

I also think the NW boundary changes make senses and all the schools that the boundaries are moving homes between are very good schools and will continue to get better.

Further I support making slots at these schools available to children serves by low performing schools. That said, unless there is an income weight I fear that the majority of those set aside seats will go to high SES families zoned for low performing schools that have the resources to get their kids across town daily. This will not do much to close the achievement gap.

This aspect of the DCPS "plan" would amount to turning a percentage of neighborhood schools into Charter schools. That is, those OOB kids are going to be the same kids that go to Charters now. IF the intent of the policy is to help low-SES kids with a better educational environment, then the families would have to submit tax/income information along with their lottery application.

Submitting relevant income information is unlikely to happen. So, you have see the policy for what it is: from the perspective of IBB, a give-away of resources; from the perspective of OBB, new access to charter-like resources.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Controlled choice" is an Orwellian term. It is not choice if someone else controls it. Imagine having stretched and spent bongo-bucks for a tiny pre-WW II center hall brick colonial in AU Park so that your kids can attend Janney. Then someone in control says, because of the 20% OOB set aside, your choice will be to to Southeast and choose between Marion Barry Educational Center and Michael Brown Elementary School. Congratulations.

That's just not happening on the elementary level. All the proposals call for neighborhood elementary schools so you can just simmer down now.

I call BS on this. Under the 80-20 rule, 20% of even overcrowded all-in bounds schools will be reserved for students from outside school boundaries. So, yes, you could live in AU Park and be told, sorry, you're out of luck for Janney.

[Anonymous]

Yes, the schools in upper NW are uniformly good. Some, however, are stellar. (The DME documents have an internal ranking of
Janney (97)
Key (95)
Mann (94)
Lafayette (93)
Stoddert (91)
Eaton=Murch (85)
Hyde (81)
Hearst (72)
(numbers pulled from final column of Policy Example A documents).)
So a move from Janney to Hearst is not insignificant (based upon DME's numbers).

As for the move from Key to Hyde, that could pose a commute nightmare.

More importantly, what's the point of shuffling students among {Janney, Lafayette, Murch} or {Key, Mann, Stoddert}?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Controlled choice" is an Orwellian term. It is not choice if someone else controls it. Imagine having stretched and spent bongo-bucks for a tiny pre-WW II center hall brick colonial in AU Park so that your kids can attend Janney. Then someone in control says, because of the 20% OOB set aside, your choice will be to to Southeast and choose between Marion Barry Educational Center and Michael Brown Elementary School. Congratulations.

Wow. I sympathize with the predicament but the way it is expressed is beyond racism.

Beyond racism?! It would be just like DC to name schools after two politicians who have or are serving time in the slammer. Marion Barry's name still adorns the Frank Reeves Center on 14th St. (in bigger letters than Rives name). Barry's name was removed once, and then put back up.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Controlled choice" is an Orwellian term. It is not choice if someone else controls it. Imagine having stretched and spent bongo-bucks for a tiny pre-WW II center hall brick colonial in AU Park so that your kids can attend Janney. Then someone in control says, because of the 20% OOB set aside, your choice will be to to Southeast and choose between Marion Barry Educational Center and Michael Brown Elementary School. Congratulations.

That's just not happening on the elementary level. All the proposals call for neighborhood elementary schools so you can just simmer down now.

I call BS on this. Under the 80-20 rule, 20% of even overcrowded all-in bounds schools will be reserved for students from outside school boundaries. So, yes, you could live in AU Park and be told, sorry, you're out of luck for Janney.

I call BS on your calling BS. There is no "80-20 rule" for elementary schools. It is 90-10. But, to address the scenario you suggest, boundaries would be reduced and Janney families moved to a neighboring school -- probably Hearst. So, technically, no Janney families would be told they couldn't go to Janney because they would be Hearst families at that point.

[Anonymous]

There would not be an overcrowding issue in DCPS would simply fill all its schools with teachers who want to teach as a career, not do it for one year. Filling schools with Teach for America teachers and creating a CHEAP, easy-to-control, revolving-door teacher program is what makes so many other school underperform. If DCPS were to give those classrooms in wards 7 and 8 a better student teacher ratios, better overall funding, so that there would be a human being there to pull out the many disruptive kids or help support the classroom...we'd have great schools all over the city, all kids would be walking to their neighborhood schools and we would not be talking about boundaries or choice. Equity needs to come from DCPS, only when they fully fund and place career teachers in underperforming schools will these schools get better and overcrowding would not be an issue....the issue is that DCPS only hires leaders whom they can 'control', not a good basis to go by in picking principals and administrators, in turn, these principals and admins also do the same thing, they hire YES MAM teachers instead of who is RIGHT for the job. The whole system is built on the backs of insecure leaders making decisions based on fear and not on who is the BEST person for the job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There would not be an overcrowding issue in DCPS would simply fill all its schools with teachers who want to teach as a career, not do it for one year. Filling schools with Teach for America teachers and creating a CHEAP, easy-to-control, revolving-door teacher program is what makes so many other school underperform. If DCPS were to give those classrooms in wards 7 and 8 a better student teacher ratios, better overall funding, so that there would be a human being there to pull out the many disruptive kids or help support the classroom...we'd have great schools all over the city, all kids would be walking to their neighborhood schools and we would not be talking about boundaries or choice. Equity needs to come from DCPS, only when they fully fund and place career teachers in underperforming schools will these schools get better and overcrowding would not be an issue....the issue is that DCPS only hires leaders whom they can 'control', not a good basis to go by in picking principals and administrators, in turn, these principals and admins also do the same thing, they hire YES MAM teachers instead of who is RIGHT for the job. The whole system is built on the backs of insecure leaders making decisions based on fear and not on who is the BEST person for the job.

+1

Michelle Rhee use to crow about how education should not be about jobs for adults, but that's just what TFA is - temporary teaching jobs for top notch college grads who didn't study teaching and don't intend to stay in it and just use it as a resume filler for better opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There would not be an overcrowding issue in DCPS would simply fill all its schools with teachers who want to teach as a career, not do it for one year. Filling schools with Teach for America teachers and creating a CHEAP, easy-to-control, revolving-door teacher program is what makes so many other school underperform. If DCPS were to give those classrooms in wards 7 and 8 a better student teacher ratios, better overall funding, so that there would be a human being there to pull out the many disruptive kids or help support the classroom...we'd have great schools all over the city, all kids would be walking to their neighborhood schools and we would not be talking about boundaries or choice. Equity needs to come from DCPS, only when they fully fund and place career teachers in underperforming schools will these schools get better and overcrowding would not be an issue....the issue is that DCPS only hires leaders whom they can 'control', not a good basis to go by in picking principals and administrators, in turn, these principals and admins also do the same thing, they hire YES MAM teachers instead of who is RIGHT for the job. The whole system is built on the backs of insecure leaders making decisions based on fear and not on who is the BEST person for the job.

+1

Michelle Rhee use to crow about how education should not be about jobs for adults, but that's just what TFA is - temporary teaching jobs for top notch college grads who didn't study teaching and don't intend to stay in it and just use it as a resume filler for better opportunities.

As much as I dislike TFA, I don't think we can blame low test scores on this one program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There would not be an overcrowding issue in DCPS would simply fill all its schools with teachers who want to teach as a career, not do it for one year. Filling schools with Teach for America teachers and creating a CHEAP, easy-to-control, revolving-door teacher program is what makes so many other school underperform. If DCPS were to give those classrooms in wards 7 and 8 a better student teacher ratios, better overall funding, so that there would be a human being there to pull out the many disruptive kids or help support the classroom...we'd have great schools all over the city, all kids would be walking to their neighborhood schools and we would not be talking about boundaries or choice. Equity needs to come from DCPS, only when they fully fund and place career teachers in underperforming schools will these schools get better and overcrowding would not be an issue....the issue is that DCPS only hires leaders whom they can 'control', not a good basis to go by in picking principals and administrators, in turn, these principals and admins also do the same thing, they hire YES MAM teachers instead of who is RIGHT for the job. The whole system is built on the backs of insecure leaders making decisions based on fear and not on who is the BEST person for the job.

+1

Michelle Rhee use to crow about how education should not be about jobs for adults, but that's just what TFA is - temporary teaching jobs for top notch college grads who didn't study teaching and don't intend to stay in it and just use it as a resume filler for better opportunities.

As much as I dislike TFA, I don't think we can blame low test scores on this one program.

Please note there is no mention of test scores Above

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There would not be an overcrowding issue in DCPS would simply fill all its schools with teachers who want to teach as a career, not do it for one year. Filling schools with Teach for America teachers and creating a CHEAP, easy-to-control, revolving-door teacher program is what makes so many other school underperform. If DCPS were to give those classrooms in wards 7 and 8 a better student teacher ratios, better overall funding, so that there would be a human being there to pull out the many disruptive kids or help support the classroom...we'd have great schools all over the city, all kids would be walking to their neighborhood schools and we would not be talking about boundaries or choice. Equity needs to come from DCPS, only when they fully fund and place career teachers in underperforming schools will these schools get better and overcrowding would not be an issue....the issue is that DCPS only hires leaders whom they can 'control', not a good basis to go by in picking principals and administrators, in turn, these principals and admins also do the same thing, they hire YES MAM teachers instead of who is RIGHT for the job. The whole system is built on the backs of insecure leaders making decisions based on fear and not on who is the BEST person for the job.

+1

Michelle Rhee use to crow about how education should not be about jobs for adults, but that's just what TFA is - temporary teaching jobs for top notch college grads who didn't study teaching and don't intend to stay in it and just use it as a resume filler for better opportunities.

As much as I dislike TFA, I don't think we can blame low test scores on this one program.

Please note there is no mention of test scores Above

Test scores and IMPACT are the instruments used to fire experienced teachers, replace them with TFA, and bully principals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, the schools in upper NW are uniformly good. Some, however, are stellar. (The DME documents have an internal ranking of
Janney (97)
Key (95)
Mann (94)
Lafayette (93)
Stoddert (91)
Eaton=Murch (85)
Hyde (81)
Hearst (72)
(numbers pulled from final column of Policy Example A documents).)
So a move from Janney to Hearst is not insignificant (based upon DME's numbers).

As for the move from Key to Hyde, that could pose a commute nightmare.

More importantly, what's the point of shuffling students among {Janney, Lafayette, Murch} or {Key, Mann, Stoddert}?

Best to look at the internal racial/ethnic/FARMS numbers in each case. Are there significant differences there, or is it the ratio of of ethnicities that makes the difference. This statistical information is available for every public school in DC (and across the country) thanks to NCLB. Let's look at real numbers and see what's happening.