RHEE-form, Kaya-Form, BS

[Anonymous]

DC Public School kids will never have a chance if the real issue is not addressed: before 8:45 when school begins and after 3:15 when school ends. All of this continued bitching about teachers (by DCPS, the mayor, etc) and the need for yet more "professional development" is disgusting -- it's excuses to continue blaming teachers for families' failures because our culture doesn't want to address the real problems. Take the money out of Rhee/Bloomberg/Rapist Kevin Johnston et al's backers and apply it to the "wrap around services" Rhee touted she'd address back in 2007-8 andPUT IT THERE. Test scores will never go up across the board until we keep focusing on making our testing companies rich. What a miserable failure our culture is as a whole.

[Anonymous]

...of course I meant until we "STOP" making blah blah blah rich

[Anonymous]

I think if they cut the teacher "training" (if that really happens, or if it is an admin day -never hear about what they "learn") they should really invest in before and after care with REAL tutors for kids. I see 1 caregiver to 20 kids at my daughters school in the DCPS aftercare program. No way they can learn anything.

Also - SATURDAY school!

[Anonymous]

My yearly teacher training at DCPS (one size fits all) was pretty awful. As a current private school teacher I can choose a few high quality trainings/conferences a year that I really need, and I am given the gift of time to attend them. Many are over the summer, in the area, and quite affordable. I leave with methods that I can immediately apply in the classroom. I leave with loyalty to my employer for supporting me as a professional. When I was in DCPS I saw some duds of course. I also saw many fine teachers given a daily whipping, little support ("everything ain't for everyone..." anybody?)--and indeed held accountable at times for wrap-around issues that could be better addressed by a system that acknowledged them than by an over-extended teacher being hung out to dry. Rhee-form is BS. Well put.

[Anonymous]

Plus they lack evidence that their reforms are working by their own measure -- data.

[Anonymous]

"Plus they lack evidence that their reforms are working by their own measure -- data."


And no one on or near the top is held "accountable." Double standard.

[Anonymous]

I've spoken with numerous teachers over the last few years and the ones that dare speak the truth say the "professional development" is terrible, terrible!! But again, it's all part of a large financial web and special interests that really don't want to see poor inner city kids of color compete on a level playing field as them. For example, how did the once scrappy and bright Fenty allow Rhee to ruin his political career. He may have been an ass but he wasn't that stupid. If anyone else on his staff continued to embarrass him publicly and not do their job well they would have been fired. why the constant cover for Rhee? ...someone else was pulling the strings, likely related to his admiration of all things Bloomberg, this style of education reaches into California and New Orleans and many other cities. And it's this movement calling itself "reform" that is screwing up DCPS.

[Anonymous]

good points, 10:53 - maybe whoever influenced Fenty is the same person who ate Gray' brains when he became mayor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've spoken with numerous teachers over the last few years and the ones that dare speak the truth say the "professional development" is terrible, terrible!! But again, it's all part of a large financial web and special interests that really don't want to see poor inner city kids of color compete on a level playing field as them. For example, how did the once scrappy and bright Fenty allow Rhee to ruin his political career. He may have been an ass but he wasn't that stupid. If anyone else on his staff continued to embarrass him publicly and not do their job well they would have been fired. why the constant cover for Rhee? ...someone else was pulling the strings, likely related to his admiration of all things Bloomberg, this style of education reaches into California and New Orleans and many other cities. And it's this movement calling itself "reform" that is screwing up DCPS.

I would agree that this new "reform" is a problem--however, the schools were not doing so well before hand here and across the US. Bottom line, as a nation, we need to deal with poverty first and develop a culture that respects educators and education for schools to significantly improve.

[Anonymous]

I've often read that the #1 indicator of a child who will do well in school is an involved parent. Obviously, issues like poverty mean that some parents can't/won't be as involved as more affluent parents. But maybe focusing on the parents is the key here. Maybe teacher training and the like really is b.s. Maybe there is a way to engage the parents -- literacy training, show them what the opportunities exist for their kids if those kids are educated. Hard, yes, but maybe something along these lines might work. All the rest seems like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic -- lots of talk and "reform" and lots of kids who just aren't learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC Public School kids will never have a chance if the real issue is not addressed: before 8:45 when school begins and after 3:15 when school ends. All of this continued bitching about teachers (by DCPS, the mayor, etc) and the need for yet more "professional development" is disgusting -- it's excuses to continue blaming teachers for families' failures because our culture doesn't want to address the real problems. Take the money out of Rhee/Bloomberg/Rapist Kevin Johnston et al's backers and apply it to the "wrap around services" Rhee touted she'd address back in 2007-8 andPUT IT THERE. Test scores will never go up across the board until we keep focusing on making our testing companies rich. What a miserable failure our culture is as a whole.

Get a grip, woman! You want to see miserable failure? Have a look at the immigrant slums which surround the major European cities (Paris is the worst, but Frankfurt is pretty bad). Have a look at anything outside the 1st world. Our culture is not a miserable failure. DCPS is.

Here's just one example: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/world/europe/11iht-paris.html?pagewanted=all

Instead of bitching about DCPS, pull your child out and get him a real education. The fact that you haven't is more of a personal failure than a reasonable indictment of American culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've often read that the #1 indicator of a child who will do well in school is an involved parent. Obviously, issues like poverty mean that some parents can't/won't be as involved as more affluent parents. But maybe focusing on the parents is the key here. Maybe teacher training and the like really is b.s. Maybe there is a way to engage the parents -- literacy training, show them what the opportunities exist for their kids if those kids are educated. Hard, yes, but maybe something along these lines might work. All the rest seems like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic -- lots of talk and "reform" and lots of kids who just aren't learning.

You're talking common-sense and factual information. DCPS is talking doctrine and hiring and firing teachers because it's all they know. Neither the old nor the reformed DCPS addressed the real issue of the effects of poverty and parental involvement.

Now it's so much easier to blame teachers than to address the real problems and there's money in teacher turn-over for the reformers. There's nothing in it for the kids though.

[Anonymous]

i work in public health and face similar issues. it's crystal clear to me that most public health programs are really solving problems of poverty, at base, and not health. the same is true for education and schools. for a long time, i thought like the OP. i became very disillusioned with public health because i felt like our programs were not as effective as they could be, mostly due to the underlying poverty issue. as the years have gone by, i've just readjusted my thinking about disciplines like education and public health. i now think of them as part of an anti-poverty movement. the gates foundation is a great example--billions of dollars directed nominally toward education and health. the reality is that those monies are really supporting anti-poverty campaigns under the banner of "education" and "public health."

i do wish our culture could just find its way toward dealing with poverty head on. the programs would therefore be more effective and, ideally, the effects would set in before you need major public health interventions like the ones i work on. but we can't. we haven't. what we DO have are funding streams in education and health and some other places. while it isn't the field i thought i was getting into, i am proud and professionally content trying to solve the problems of poverty.

[Anonymous]

12:58: who says I'm a woman? That assumption aside, my point that our culture is failing may have been too broad a stretch. You are of course right that many countries suffer far worse than our own. But you give it away when you say just pull your children out of DCPS for a "real education" -our local culture IS failing if we don't want to take the momentum and money involved to date in this national so-called reform and align it in a healthy way toward what our society needs. We need less attention and dollars spent on rote training and fatter bureacracies (how many DCPS principals are now assistant superintendents??) and more funding on high standards after-school. This is a miserable failure year after year after year, and the rhee/kaya/fenty/gray teams know this is the big obstacle. So who IS sucking out the brains of Fenty and Gray? Why DON'T we do what makes good common sense? BTW, my kids don't attend DCPS any longer and I'm pissed off that we have to pay high taxes while the city ignores the needs of my kids' former classmates and the divide grows and grows. On purpose.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps the federal city council are the brain suckers?

Perhaps they gave up on poor black kids long ago and are just using "reform" that they know won't work to flush them out, along with unionized teachers and traditional public schools.