Deal kid is floundering in private high school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:former Deal teacher:

• the ELA curriculum is pathetic, not just at Deal, but across DCPS

• there's no incentive for students to complete the reading or the written assignments because teachers are penalized on IMPACT if they give low grades

• the majority of writing lessons are geared toward teaching students how to answer constructed response items on PARRC

• high-achieving students make the honor roll with little or no effort, which does nothing to prepare them for high school or college

Teachers are not penalized on IMPACT for giving low grades. Some categories of teachers are penalized if their students don’t show adequate growth from beginning of year to end of year testing.

You are not acquainted with CSC rubric

Uh please enlighten me where low grades = bad csc. I could see not offering some sort of remediation for students with low grades but there’s no way you’re penalized at deal for low grades

[Anonymous]

Each principal develops his or her CSC rubric. Each year the rubric at Deal gets progressively more onerous. For two years in a row there was an item about the percentage of students who could get low or failing grades. Another DCPS middle school where I worked had a similar rubric. The stakes are so high that teachers feel tremendous pressure not to fail any students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid left Deal and is at a top private high school (Sidwell/NCS/STA/Potomac).
He/she was a top student at Deal: As every quarter in every class grades 6-8, top math track (Algebra 2), 5's on every PARCC since 3rd grade. 99% on the 6th grade Deal PARCC in both ELA and math.

Started private high school and it is an absolute SH$%T show. Currently getting Ds. My kid doesn't know how to study, how to read and annotate dense text in rapid fashion. He/she gets dozens of pages
a night to read and process (across history, ELA, science). Homework in every subject each evening. Has already written 5 essays and 2 lab lengthy reports. Has frequent pop quizzes. One class has one every single day.
Has a sequence of exams in every class this week.

It just f-ing frustrates me how little my kid learned at Deal. How he never learned to think critically or write well. So much wasted time in the pandemic. No Wednesdays, 45 minute classes twice a week. The chicken has come home to roost because my
kid is now having his/her ass kicked. And it all counts for college grades. Things will get better but we're quitting activities, hiring tutors and trying to right the course.

Not sure what the point of my post is except---if you have a kid in DCPS. Supplement like a mad person. We did but not enough. His/her classmates who are at Wilson report that they haven't done any
homework yet in most classes because with the 4x4 schedule, many teachers are only teaching for half of it and little or no homework is given (and what is given is done in class). So if you're at Wilson
(I have another kid likely headed there) continue to supplement.

I'm just so frustrated. I'm sure it is somewhat better in typical times but the pandemic learning was just a mess. Those of us who have left DCPS are seeing clearly just how bad it was.

We’re one month into school. C’mon.

Many “big 3” kids also struggled during the pandemic. And many parents at the big 3 are also still supplementing. The impact of most homework is questionable by all the studies done.

Yes help your kid. And people need to support their kids’ issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do realize Team Obama is from Obama, Japan, right? All teams are world cities, some not so known as others. Wagga Wagga, Puerto Alegre, Brisbane, Chan Chan, Meroe, and Best are some of this year’s. Last year was the first and only time there was a team Obama, Japan.

Oh please. Obama is a city of 30,000 in Japan. There are 13 cities in Japan with over a million people and another almost 200 with over 100,000. No way if there hasn’t been President Obama would they have named a team Obama.

All the other cities have cultural or historic significance like a World Heritage site or have large populations.

They said they picked it because of the name Obama was the same as our former President, so we don't have to guess. In and of itself it's not a huge deal, but taken in context with the constant brain washing and it's a problem. I wish DCPS would teach kids how to think instead of what to think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do realize Team Obama is from Obama, Japan, right? All teams are world cities, some not so known as others. Wagga Wagga, Puerto Alegre, Brisbane, Chan Chan, Meroe, and Best are some of this year’s. Last year was the first and only time there was a team Obama, Japan.

Oh please. Obama is a city of 30,000 in Japan. There are 13 cities in Japan with over a million people and another almost 200 with over 100,000. No way if there hasn’t been President Obama would they have named a team Obama.

All the other cities have cultural or historic significance like a World Heritage site or have large populations.

They said they picked it because of the name Obama was the same as our former President, so we don't have to guess. In and of itself it's not a huge deal, but taken in context with the constant brain washing and it's a problem. I wish DCPS would teach kids how to think instead of what to think.

Who is "they"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do realize Team Obama is from Obama, Japan, right? All teams are world cities, some not so known as others. Wagga Wagga, Puerto Alegre, Brisbane, Chan Chan, Meroe, and Best are some of this year’s. Last year was the first and only time there was a team Obama, Japan.

Oh please. Obama is a city of 30,000 in Japan. There are 13 cities in Japan with over a million people and another almost 200 with over 100,000. No way if there hasn’t been President Obama would they have named a team Obama.

All the other cities have cultural or historic significance like a World Heritage site or have large populations.

They said they picked it because of the name Obama was the same as our former President, so we don't have to guess. In and of itself it's not a huge deal, but taken in context with the constant brain washing and it's a problem. I wish DCPS would teach kids how to think instead of what to think.

How is naming something after a President of the United States brainwashing? We live in Washignton, is that brainwashing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do realize Team Obama is from Obama, Japan, right? All teams are world cities, some not so known as others. Wagga Wagga, Puerto Alegre, Brisbane, Chan Chan, Meroe, and Best are some of this year’s. Last year was the first and only time there was a team Obama, Japan.

Oh please. Obama is a city of 30,000 in Japan. There are 13 cities in Japan with over a million people and another almost 200 with over 100,000. No way if there hasn’t been President Obama would they have named a team Obama.

All the other cities have cultural or historic significance like a World Heritage site or have large populations.

They said they picked it because of the name Obama was the same as our former President, so we don't have to guess. In and of itself it's not a huge deal, but taken in context with the constant brain washing and it's a problem. I wish DCPS would teach kids how to think instead of what to think.

How is naming something after a President of the United States brainwashing? We live in Washignton, is that brainwashing?

Obama is a living political figure who has spent his retirement trying to get members of one political party elected. Naming a public school team after him by cloaking it with an obscure Japanese city is definitely not cute, in fact it’s probably illegal. The fact that this did not raise any red flags to the principal shows just how little self awareness DCPS staff has.

https://barackobama.medium.com/first-wave-of-2020-endorsements-43b2b0c667f6

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do realize Team Obama is from Obama, Japan, right? All teams are world cities, some not so known as others. Wagga Wagga, Puerto Alegre, Brisbane, Chan Chan, Meroe, and Best are some of this year’s. Last year was the first and only time there was a team Obama, Japan.

Oh please. Obama is a city of 30,000 in Japan. There are 13 cities in Japan with over a million people and another almost 200 with over 100,000. No way if there hasn’t been President Obama would they have named a team Obama.

All the other cities have cultural or historic significance like a World Heritage site or have large populations.

They said they picked it because of the name Obama was the same as our former President, so we don't have to guess. In and of itself it's not a huge deal, but taken in context with the constant brain washing and it's a problem. I wish DCPS would teach kids how to think instead of what to think.

How is naming something after a President of the United States brainwashing? We live in Washignton, is that brainwashing?

Obama is a living political figure who has spent his retirement trying to get members of one political party elected. Naming a public school team after him by cloaking it with an obscure Japanese city is definitely not cute, in fact it’s probably illegal. The fact that this did not raise any red flags to the principal shows just how little self awareness DCPS staff has.

https://barackobama.medium.com/first-wave-of-2020-endorsements-43b2b0c667f6

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do realize Team Obama is from Obama, Japan, right? All teams are world cities, some not so known as others. Wagga Wagga, Puerto Alegre, Brisbane, Chan Chan, Meroe, and Best are some of this year’s. Last year was the first and only time there was a team Obama, Japan.

Oh please. Obama is a city of 30,000 in Japan. There are 13 cities in Japan with over a million people and another almost 200 with over 100,000. No way if there hasn’t been President Obama would they have named a team Obama.

All the other cities have cultural or historic significance like a World Heritage site or have large populations.

They said they picked it because of the name Obama was the same as our former President, so we don't have to guess. In and of itself it's not a huge deal, but taken in context with the constant brain washing and it's a problem. I wish DCPS would teach kids how to think instead of what to think.

How is naming something after a President of the United States brainwashing? We live in Washignton, is that brainwashing?

Obama is a living political figure who has spent his retirement trying to get members of one political party elected. Naming a public school team after him by cloaking it with an obscure Japanese city is definitely not cute, in fact it’s probably illegal. The fact that this did not raise any red flags to the principal shows just how little self awareness DCPS staff has.

https://barackobama.medium.com/first-wave-of-2020-endorsements-43b2b0c667f6

+1

Students of color have had to go to a school named after Woodrow Wilson’s racist self for generations. I promise your kid will not turn into a woke person by being on a team named after a city in Japan that shares a name with the first Black president.

Also, there are consistently teams named after smaller foreign cities. This isn’t a new phenomenon

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not pp, but with fake school last year it should have been painfully obvious how little they were doing. If they were staying in DCPS, you could probably ignore it, but if they’re were going to a high school that drew heavily from kids doing real school in 8th grade you should have seen this coming. If you can afford a big 3, you can afford a few novels or a history book. Buy them and assign a few essays

Exactly, should have seen it coming. We figured out how to download e-books from DC Public Library early in the pandemic. We found great book lists/curricular for 8th grade ELA on-line easily enough, and offered him incentives to read as many of the books as possible. We also hired a fine on-line writing tutor (in India) who ran us $25/hr. Kid liked the incentives and mostly cooperated.

What incentives did you use?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do realize Team Obama is from Obama, Japan, right? All teams are world cities, some not so known as others. Wagga Wagga, Puerto Alegre, Brisbane, Chan Chan, Meroe, and Best are some of this year’s. Last year was the first and only time there was a team Obama, Japan.

Oh please. Obama is a city of 30,000 in Japan. There are 13 cities in Japan with over a million people and another almost 200 with over 100,000. No way if there hasn’t been President Obama would they have named a team Obama.

All the other cities have cultural or historic significance like a World Heritage site or have large populations.

They said they picked it because of the name Obama was the same as our former President, so we don't have to guess. In and of itself it's not a huge deal, but taken in context with the constant brain washing and it's a problem. I wish DCPS would teach kids how to think instead of what to think.

How is naming something after a President of the United States brainwashing? We live in Washignton, is that brainwashing?

Obama is a living political figure who has spent his retirement trying to get members of one political party elected. Naming a public school team after him by cloaking it with an obscure Japanese city is definitely not cute, in fact it’s probably illegal. The fact that this did not raise any red flags to the principal shows just how little self awareness DCPS staff has.

https://barackobama.medium.com/first-wave-of-2020-endorsements-43b2b0c667f6

Illegal? Get a grip.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is just more work at a private school than a public, it doesn't mean your child isn't able to do it--they just need to get used to the volume. I do think that the volume of work prepares them more for college, but it does take a lot of fun out of the high school experience.

. Come on, such BS. Other US cities offer far more HS rigor in the public system than DC. My alma mater, Boston Latin,is the HS sending the most grads to Ivies on a per capita basis, not a Top DC (or NYC) private. Spare us your misplaced snobbery, PP.

This thread is local.

But the point is a good one. Tony private schools aren't magic bullets. Coddled kids in cocoon environments, with no more than token poor and lower middle-class peers on scholarships, don't necessarily put nose to the grindstone, hustle to get ahead, or appreciate their opportunities to learn like public students might. This is true matter how terrific the teachers and curriculum.

After almost a decade in DCPS, we learned not to rely on school inputs to provide serious humanities challenge long ago. We enroll our children in a variety of on-line workshops and classes each school year to beef up and round out the education on offer at our neighborhood MS. We started hiring a tough writing tutor with another DCPS family last year.

We require our kids to read at least one challenging novel weekly, mainly classics we discuss with them, on top of what's being assigned at school. We shut off the Internet in the afternoons, to promote reading. We have them earn "reading points" they can cash in for adventures of their own choosing, e.g. horse-riding lessons and zip lines. We opt out of PARCC, which we consider a waste of time, in favor of having them read during testing hours. In the summers, we send our children to several weeks of academic sleep-away camps. We spend 8-10K per kid per school year to supplement, a bargain compared to Sidwell, GDS etc.

You don't understand what OP is describing. None of what you write is remotely close. We did all of that and more while in DCPS. It isn't the same at all.

NP. We do understand. We moved on from DCPS to a high-powered private HS (parochial actually) this school year ourselves, after the distance learning mess at Deal. Like the PP above, we effectively homeschooled our kid in humanities subjects in DCPS. Our kid has not been overwhelmed by HS workload. He has hit the ground running.

Get a clue, DCPS parents. When Deal assigns 3 books in 8th grade, ensure that your kid reads at least five times that many. Hire tutors, tutor yourself. Covid or not Covid, you don't have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for private school to ensure that a kid gets a good middle school education, not in this city.

NP here. None of the Catholic high schools in DC are as rigorous as a big three. So, your kid is not having the same transition as ops kid is because her kid is at a harder, more rigorous school than yours is.

What we’re seeing at SJCHS is a ton of review work and emphasis on social-emotional bonding. The administration told the parents that since none of our kids were in school 5x week, they need to catch everyone up. My kid was at a K-8 and is a bit bored right now, but we agree with the approach the school is taking. I’ve talked to others with kids at Big 3, and they say these schools are also taking it slower this year. Should pick up after first semester.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do realize Team Obama is from Obama, Japan, right? All teams are world cities, some not so known as others. Wagga Wagga, Puerto Alegre, Brisbane, Chan Chan, Meroe, and Best are some of this year’s. Last year was the first and only time there was a team Obama, Japan.

Oh please. Obama is a city of 30,000 in Japan. There are 13 cities in Japan with over a million people and another almost 200 with over 100,000. No way if there hasn’t been President Obama would they have named a team Obama.

All the other cities have cultural or historic significance like a World Heritage site or have large populations.

They said they picked it because of the name Obama was the same as our former President, so we don't have to guess. In and of itself it's not a huge deal, but taken in context with the constant brain washing and it's a problem. I wish DCPS would teach kids how to think instead of what to think.

How is naming something after a President of the United States brainwashing? We live in Washignton, is that brainwashing?

Obama is a living political figure who has spent his retirement trying to get members of one political party elected. Naming a public school team after him by cloaking it with an obscure Japanese city is definitely not cute, in fact it’s probably illegal. The fact that this did not raise any red flags to the principal shows just how little self awareness DCPS staff has.

https://barackobama.medium.com/first-wave-of-2020-endorsements-43b2b0c667f6

HeLp mY cHiLd SaW tHe wOrD oBaMa aNd NoW hE Is A lIbErAl

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do realize Team Obama is from Obama, Japan, right? All teams are world cities, some not so known as others. Wagga Wagga, Puerto Alegre, Brisbane, Chan Chan, Meroe, and Best are some of this year’s. Last year was the first and only time there was a team Obama, Japan.

Oh please. Obama is a city of 30,000 in Japan. There are 13 cities in Japan with over a million people and another almost 200 with over 100,000. No way if there hasn’t been President Obama would they have named a team Obama.

All the other cities have cultural or historic significance like a World Heritage site or have large populations.

They said they picked it because of the name Obama was the same as our former President, so we don't have to guess. In and of itself it's not a huge deal, but taken in context with the constant brain washing and it's a problem. I wish DCPS would teach kids how to think instead of what to think.

How is naming something after a President of the United States brainwashing? We live in Washignton, is that brainwashing?

Obama is a living political figure who has spent his retirement trying to get members of one political party elected. Naming a public school team after him by cloaking it with an obscure Japanese city is definitely not cute, in fact it’s probably illegal. The fact that this did not raise any red flags to the principal shows just how little self awareness DCPS staff has.

https://barackobama.medium.com/first-wave-of-2020-endorsements-43b2b0c667f6

+1

Students of color have had to go to a school named after Woodrow Wilson’s racist self for generations. I promise your kid will not turn into a woke person by being on a team named after a city in Japan that shares a name with the first Black president.

Also, there are consistently teams named after smaller foreign cities. This isn’t a new phenomenon

If you believe that any Wilson student pre-2015, white or black, knew anything about Woodrow Wilson, then you probably also believe that Team Obama was named after an insignificant Japanese city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is just more work at a private school than a public, it doesn't mean your child isn't able to do it--they just need to get used to the volume. I do think that the volume of work prepares them more for college, but it does take a lot of fun out of the high school experience.

. Come on, such BS. Other US cities offer far more HS rigor in the public system than DC. My alma mater, Boston Latin,is the HS sending the most grads to Ivies on a per capita basis, not a Top DC (or NYC) private. Spare us your misplaced snobbery, PP.

This thread is local.

But the point is a good one. Tony private schools aren't magic bullets. Coddled kids in cocoon environments, with no more than token poor and lower middle-class peers on scholarships, don't necessarily put nose to the grindstone, hustle to get ahead, or appreciate their opportunities to learn like public students might. This is true matter how terrific the teachers and curriculum.

After almost a decade in DCPS, we learned not to rely on school inputs to provide serious humanities challenge long ago. We enroll our children in a variety of on-line workshops and classes each school year to beef up and round out the education on offer at our neighborhood MS. We started hiring a tough writing tutor with another DCPS family last year.

We require our kids to read at least one challenging novel weekly, mainly classics we discuss with them, on top of what's being assigned at school. We shut off the Internet in the afternoons, to promote reading. We have them earn "reading points" they can cash in for adventures of their own choosing, e.g. horse-riding lessons and zip lines. We opt out of PARCC, which we consider a waste of time, in favor of having them read during testing hours. In the summers, we send our children to several weeks of academic sleep-away camps. We spend 8-10K per kid per school year to supplement, a bargain compared to Sidwell, GDS etc.

You don't understand what OP is describing. None of what you write is remotely close. We did all of that and more while in DCPS. It isn't the same at all.

NP. We do understand. We moved on from DCPS to a high-powered private HS (parochial actually) this school year ourselves, after the distance learning mess at Deal. Like the PP above, we effectively homeschooled our kid in humanities subjects in DCPS. Our kid has not been overwhelmed by HS workload. He has hit the ground running.

Get a clue, DCPS parents. When Deal assigns 3 books in 8th grade, ensure that your kid reads at least five times that many. Hire tutors, tutor yourself. Covid or not Covid, you don't have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for private school to ensure that a kid gets a good middle school education, not in this city.

NP here. None of the Catholic high schools in DC are as rigorous as a big three. So, your kid is not having the same transition as ops kid is because her kid is at a harder, more rigorous school than yours is.

St. Anselm's