DC's School Report Cards are up. Any surprises?

[Anonymous]

Look nobody on here cares about the bottom charters. They are not the ones people DCUM are even considering, just like they don’t consider the bottom DCPS schools either.

It’s pretty pointless to make a sweeping statement about how one is overall better than the other and that can also be arguable. No parent is going to be looking at that lens. Instead, families on here are looking at what is the best school for their kid. And that is school specific not a whole system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look nobody on here cares about the bottom charters. They are not the ones people DCUM are even considering, just like they don’t consider the bottom DCPS schools either.

It’s pretty pointless to make a sweeping statement about how one is overall better than the other and that can also be arguable. No parent is going to be looking at that lens. Instead, families on here are looking at what is the best school for their kid. And that is school specific not a whole system.

And some of the schools the charter hating crowd loves to bring up are *miniscule*. Roots PCS? It's total enrollment, from PK to fifth grade, is like 80 kids. Meanwhile, there's 1,000 kids on LAMB's waitlist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look nobody on here cares about the bottom charters. They are not the ones people DCUM are even considering, just like they don’t consider the bottom DCPS schools either.

It’s pretty pointless to make a sweeping statement about how one is overall better than the other and that can also be arguable. No parent is going to be looking at that lens. Instead, families on here are looking at what is the best school for their kid. And that is school specific not a whole system.

We should all care about the bottom charters because they are serving children so poorly. With public funds comes public accountability. Millions is being spent on schools that accomplish little, and are passed along by the PCSB with extensions and discretion and "flexibility" to avoid political blowback and embarrassment, until they collapse of their own accord. Those students could be educated better, or at least not worse and more cost-effectively, at the many better-performing charters and DCPS, and the system as a whole would function better if funds were not devoted to propping up failing schools.

The fundamental concept of charter schools is that sustained low performance = closure. When charter schools do well, it's a "movement". When they do poorly, it's "let's not talk about it". Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, as the saying goes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look nobody on here cares about the bottom charters. They are not the ones people DCUM are even considering, just like they don’t consider the bottom DCPS schools either.

It’s pretty pointless to make a sweeping statement about how one is overall better than the other and that can also be arguable. No parent is going to be looking at that lens. Instead, families on here are looking at what is the best school for their kid. And that is school specific not a whole system.

We should all care about the bottom charters because they are serving children so poorly. With public funds comes public accountability. Millions is being spent on schools that accomplish little, and are passed along by the PCSB with extensions and discretion and "flexibility" to avoid political blowback and embarrassment, until they collapse of their own accord. Those students could be educated better, or at least not worse and more cost-effectively, at the many better-performing charters and DCPS, and the system as a whole would function better if funds were not devoted to propping up failing schools.

The fundamental concept of charter schools is that sustained low performance = closure. When charter schools do well, it's a "movement". When they do poorly, it's "let's not talk about it". Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, as the saying goes.

Ok, but a lot of those schools are tiny. Let's talk about schools like Roosevelt High School, a school that's been around for nearly 100 years, which has 1000 students, and which the city has spend a quarter *billion* dollars renovating, and still almost no one there is at grade level on anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look nobody on here cares about the bottom charters. They are not the ones people DCUM are even considering, just like they don’t consider the bottom DCPS schools either.

It’s pretty pointless to make a sweeping statement about how one is overall better than the other and that can also be arguable. No parent is going to be looking at that lens. Instead, families on here are looking at what is the best school for their kid. And that is school specific not a whole system.

We should all care about the bottom charters because they are serving children so poorly. With public funds comes public accountability. Millions is being spent on schools that accomplish little, and are passed along by the PCSB with extensions and discretion and "flexibility" to avoid political blowback and embarrassment, until they collapse of their own accord. Those students could be educated better, or at least not worse and more cost-effectively, at the many better-performing charters and DCPS, and the system as a whole would function better if funds were not devoted to propping up failing schools.

The fundamental concept of charter schools is that sustained low performance = closure. When charter schools do well, it's a "movement". When they do poorly, it's "let's not talk about it". Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, as the saying goes.

Ok, but a lot of those schools are tiny. Let's talk about schools like Roosevelt High School, a school that's been around for nearly 100 years, which has 1000 students, and which the city has spend a quarter *billion* dollars renovating, and still almost no one there is at grade level on anything.

KIPP DC College Preparatory (charter) has just as many kids and also isn’t showing results.

The things is you mistakenly believe it’s about hating charters as a whole. It is the systemic issues they cause. Whether you want to believe it or not charters can find ways to kick students out after count day of course and do.

DCPS can never refuse kids not really ever kick them out.

And you have to be a fool to think renovations will cause a school to be successful. But this still doesn’t mean that these schools don’t deserve it, you obviously have never seen the horrible mice, roach, and cooling/heating issues -as well as an overall decrepit environment some of these SE schools especially have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look nobody on here cares about the bottom charters. They are not the ones people DCUM are even considering, just like they don’t consider the bottom DCPS schools either.

It’s pretty pointless to make a sweeping statement about how one is overall better than the other and that can also be arguable. No parent is going to be looking at that lens. Instead, families on here are looking at what is the best school for their kid. And that is school specific not a whole system.

We should all care about the bottom charters because they are serving children so poorly. With public funds comes public accountability. Millions is being spent on schools that accomplish little, and are passed along by the PCSB with extensions and discretion and "flexibility" to avoid political blowback and embarrassment, until they collapse of their own accord. Those students could be educated better, or at least not worse and more cost-effectively, at the many better-performing charters and DCPS, and the system as a whole would function better if funds were not devoted to propping up failing schools.

The fundamental concept of charter schools is that sustained low performance = closure. When charter schools do well, it's a "movement". When they do poorly, it's "let's not talk about it". Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, as the saying goes.

Ok, but a lot of those schools are tiny. Let's talk about schools like Roosevelt High School, a school that's been around for nearly 100 years, which has 1000 students, and which the city has spend a quarter *billion* dollars renovating, and still almost no one there is at grade level on anything.

Ok, but a lot of tiny low performing schools add up. Roots 83, SSMA 197, Girls Global 197. Not counting Capital Village because they already announced closure.

Then you have mid-size schools such as Rocketship, which is failing to serve 800+ kids across three buildings. 324 at Cap City lower school. 231 at Two Rivers Middle. 608 at Meridian. 340 at Bethune. 418 at KIPP Heights, 332 at KIPP Inspire, 396 at Quest, 351 at Valor. 358 at IDEA. 356 at Stokes East End. 376 at Chavez. 324 at Cap City lower school. We have to care about the smaller schools because it's a lot of kids total.

Now, DCPS has a lot of low stats too. Nobody is asserting that Roosevelt is a great school. But DCPS can't just up and close schools and wash their hands of it, tell the families to find something else like charter schools do. DCPS does replace leadership, sometimes bring in outside management-- they try any number of things but they can't just give up and lock the door like Eagle Academy did. DCPS is legally obligated to give a seat to every kid who wants it, at all times, forever into the future, and shuffling those same kids around won't necessarily fix anything-- and it might overcrowd nearby schools beyond legal and safe capacity. DCPS does sometimes close schools. It also sometimes absorbs failed charters. But it's a different system with a different set of obligations to students now and in the future. Obligations that charter schools generally resist sharing. Saying "DCPS sucks too" or that DCPS schools should be closed isn't the winning argument you think it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look nobody on here cares about the bottom charters. They are not the ones people DCUM are even considering, just like they don’t consider the bottom DCPS schools either.

It’s pretty pointless to make a sweeping statement about how one is overall better than the other and that can also be arguable. No parent is going to be looking at that lens. Instead, families on here are looking at what is the best school for their kid. And that is school specific not a whole system.

We should all care about the bottom charters because they are serving children so poorly. With public funds comes public accountability. Millions is being spent on schools that accomplish little, and are passed along by the PCSB with extensions and discretion and "flexibility" to avoid political blowback and embarrassment, until they collapse of their own accord. Those students could be educated better, or at least not worse and more cost-effectively, at the many better-performing charters and DCPS, and the system as a whole would function better if funds were not devoted to propping up failing schools.

The fundamental concept of charter schools is that sustained low performance = closure. When charter schools do well, it's a "movement". When they do poorly, it's "let's not talk about it". Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, as the saying goes.

Ok, but a lot of those schools are tiny. Let's talk about schools like Roosevelt High School, a school that's been around for nearly 100 years, which has 1000 students, and which the city has spend a quarter *billion* dollars renovating, and still almost no one there is at grade level on anything.

KIPP DC College Preparatory (charter) has just as many kids and also isn’t showing results.

The things is you mistakenly believe it’s about hating charters as a whole. It is the systemic issues they cause. Whether you want to believe it or not charters can find ways to kick students out after count day of course and do.

DCPS can never refuse kids not really ever kick them out.

And you have to be a fool to think renovations will cause a school to be successful. But this still doesn’t mean that these schools don’t deserve it, you obviously have never seen the horrible mice, roach, and cooling/heating issues -as well as an overall decrepit environment some of these SE schools especially have.

DCPS can expel kids, and it can also place them in special programs it operates, and private special needs schools. Just FYI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look nobody on here cares about the bottom charters. They are not the ones people DCUM are even considering, just like they don’t consider the bottom DCPS schools either.

It’s pretty pointless to make a sweeping statement about how one is overall better than the other and that can also be arguable. No parent is going to be looking at that lens. Instead, families on here are looking at what is the best school for their kid. And that is school specific not a whole system.

We should all care about the bottom charters because they are serving children so poorly. With public funds comes public accountability. Millions is being spent on schools that accomplish little, and are passed along by the PCSB with extensions and discretion and "flexibility" to avoid political blowback and embarrassment, until they collapse of their own accord. Those students could be educated better, or at least not worse and more cost-effectively, at the many better-performing charters and DCPS, and the system as a whole would function better if funds were not devoted to propping up failing schools.

The fundamental concept of charter schools is that sustained low performance = closure. When charter schools do well, it's a "movement". When they do poorly, it's "let's not talk about it". Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, as the saying goes.

Ok, but a lot of those schools are tiny. Let's talk about schools like Roosevelt High School, a school that's been around for nearly 100 years, which has 1000 students, and which the city has spend a quarter *billion* dollars renovating, and still almost no one there is at grade level on anything.

Ok, but a lot of tiny low performing schools add up. Roots 83, SSMA 197, Girls Global 197. Not counting Capital Village because they already announced closure.

Then you have mid-size schools such as Rocketship, which is failing to serve 800+ kids across three buildings. 324 at Cap City lower school. 231 at Two Rivers Middle. 608 at Meridian. 340 at Bethune. 418 at KIPP Heights, 332 at KIPP Inspire, 396 at Quest, 351 at Valor. 358 at IDEA. 356 at Stokes East End. 376 at Chavez. 324 at Cap City lower school. We have to care about the smaller schools because it's a lot of kids total.

Now, DCPS has a lot of low stats too. Nobody is asserting that Roosevelt is a great school. But DCPS can't just up and close schools and wash their hands of it, tell the families to find something else like charter schools do. DCPS does replace leadership, sometimes bring in outside management-- they try any number of things but they can't just give up and lock the door like Eagle Academy did. DCPS is legally obligated to give a seat to every kid who wants it, at all times, forever into the future, and shuffling those same kids around won't necessarily fix anything-- and it might overcrowd nearby schools beyond legal and safe capacity. DCPS does sometimes close schools. It also sometimes absorbs failed charters. But it's a different system with a different set of obligations to students now and in the future. Obligations that charter schools generally resist sharing. Saying "DCPS sucks too" or that DCPS schools should be closed isn't the winning argument you think it is.

The fundamental problem with DCPS is that it has extremely low academic standards. It doesn't care if the kids come to school, and it doesn't care if they don't learn anything when they do show up. Everyone will be promoted to the next grade regardless. Go stand outside Roosevelt in the middle the day. Why are all these kids who are supposed to be in class standing around smoking pot?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look nobody on here cares about the bottom charters. They are not the ones people DCUM are even considering, just like they don’t consider the bottom DCPS schools either.

It’s pretty pointless to make a sweeping statement about how one is overall better than the other and that can also be arguable. No parent is going to be looking at that lens. Instead, families on here are looking at what is the best school for their kid. And that is school specific not a whole system.

We should all care about the bottom charters because they are serving children so poorly. With public funds comes public accountability. Millions is being spent on schools that accomplish little, and are passed along by the PCSB with extensions and discretion and "flexibility" to avoid political blowback and embarrassment, until they collapse of their own accord. Those students could be educated better, or at least not worse and more cost-effectively, at the many better-performing charters and DCPS, and the system as a whole would function better if funds were not devoted to propping up failing schools.

The fundamental concept of charter schools is that sustained low performance = closure. When charter schools do well, it's a "movement". When they do poorly, it's "let's not talk about it". Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, as the saying goes.

Ok, but a lot of those schools are tiny. Let's talk about schools like Roosevelt High School, a school that's been around for nearly 100 years, which has 1000 students, and which the city has spend a quarter *billion* dollars renovating, and still almost no one there is at grade level on anything.

KIPP DC College Preparatory (charter) has just as many kids and also isn’t showing results.

The things is you mistakenly believe it’s about hating charters as a whole. It is the systemic issues they cause. Whether you want to believe it or not charters can find ways to kick students out after count day of course and do.

DCPS can never refuse kids not really ever kick them out.

And you have to be a fool to think renovations will cause a school to be successful. But this still doesn’t mean that these schools don’t deserve it, you obviously have never seen the horrible mice, roach, and cooling/heating issues -as well as an overall decrepit environment some of these SE schools especially have.

DCPS does kick kids out of schools -- they just kick them back to their home schools or to special placements. Choice isn't just in the charters. Many DCPS families are choosing DCPS campuses they feel are better -- and their kids can and do get kicked out of those schools. Those aren't stats that anyone wants to talk about though.

What systemic issues are charters causing? If you live in Ward 7 and 8 and are zoned for a city school that has NEVER been successful in the way most on this board defines success, charters AND DCPS's out of boundary program are solving a systemic issue. Furthermore, even if you are not in those wards, if you want Montessori, language immersion, advanced curricula, you are most likely to get those opportunities in charters. DCPS could offer more of these but it hasn't yet.

Let's stop faulting parents for needing options and charters for giving options. Persistently low performing charters should close -- and they do. I'm not suggesting that the same should be true for DCPS but comparing the two groups and giving either a pass for persistent low performance is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look nobody on here cares about the bottom charters. They are not the ones people DCUM are even considering, just like they don’t consider the bottom DCPS schools either.

It’s pretty pointless to make a sweeping statement about how one is overall better than the other and that can also be arguable. No parent is going to be looking at that lens. Instead, families on here are looking at what is the best school for their kid. And that is school specific not a whole system.

We should all care about the bottom charters because they are serving children so poorly. With public funds comes public accountability. Millions is being spent on schools that accomplish little, and are passed along by the PCSB with extensions and discretion and "flexibility" to avoid political blowback and embarrassment, until they collapse of their own accord. Those students could be educated better, or at least not worse and more cost-effectively, at the many better-performing charters and DCPS, and the system as a whole would function better if funds were not devoted to propping up failing schools.

The fundamental concept of charter schools is that sustained low performance = closure. When charter schools do well, it's a "movement". When they do poorly, it's "let's not talk about it". Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, as the saying goes.

Ok, but a lot of those schools are tiny. Let's talk about schools like Roosevelt High School, a school that's been around for nearly 100 years, which has 1000 students, and which the city has spend a quarter *billion* dollars renovating, and still almost no one there is at grade level on anything.

KIPP DC College Preparatory (charter) has just as many kids and also isn’t showing results.

The things is you mistakenly believe it’s about hating charters as a whole. It is the systemic issues they cause. Whether you want to believe it or not charters can find ways to kick students out after count day of course and do.

DCPS can never refuse kids not really ever kick them out.

And you have to be a fool to think renovations will cause a school to be successful. But this still doesn’t mean that these schools don’t deserve it, you obviously have never seen the horrible mice, roach, and cooling/heating issues -as well as an overall decrepit environment some of these SE schools especially have.

DCPS does kick kids out of schools -- they just kick them back to their home schools or to special placements. Choice isn't just in the charters. Many DCPS families are choosing DCPS campuses they feel are better -- and their kids can and do get kicked out of those schools. Those aren't stats that anyone wants to talk about though.

What systemic issues are charters causing? If you live in Ward 7 and 8 and are zoned for a city school that has NEVER been successful in the way most on this board defines success, charters AND DCPS's out of boundary program are solving a systemic issue. Furthermore, even if you are not in those wards, if you want Montessori, language immersion, advanced curricula, you are most likely to get those opportunities in charters. DCPS could offer more of these but it hasn't yet.

Let's stop faulting parents for needing options and charters for giving options. Persistently low performing charters should close -- and they do. I'm not suggesting that the same should be true for DCPS but comparing the two groups and giving either a pass for persistent low performance is ridiculous.

One charter-only systemic issue is sudden closures and DCPS having to absorb large numbers of kids who have been poorly served by failing charters. Such as the collapse of Eagle Academy last August. It put a sudden strain on all receiving schools, DCPS and charter. DCPS is ultimately responsible for all the kids, but has little control or warning over when this is going to happen. Similarly, although with such egregiously short notice, the failures of Hope Tolson, I Dream, and Capital Village are or soon will have a similar effect. Looking back, DCPS assumed operation of Excel and of Dorothy Height after the Amos scandal, and taking in all the kids from WMST after their financial failure. This happens regularly enough to be described as a systemic issue.

Now, in the long run it's not necessarily a bad thing for DCPS to add a school to its portfolio, and not all kids abandoned by a charter end up in DCPS anyway. But still, it's a problem. The PCSB has finally made some efforts to align closures with the lottery cycle and been embarrassed into upping their financial oversight, so I hope it improves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look nobody on here cares about the bottom charters. They are not the ones people DCUM are even considering, just like they don’t consider the bottom DCPS schools either.

It’s pretty pointless to make a sweeping statement about how one is overall better than the other and that can also be arguable. No parent is going to be looking at that lens. Instead, families on here are looking at what is the best school for their kid. And that is school specific not a whole system.

We should all care about the bottom charters because they are serving children so poorly. With public funds comes public accountability. Millions is being spent on schools that accomplish little, and are passed along by the PCSB with extensions and discretion and "flexibility" to avoid political blowback and embarrassment, until they collapse of their own accord. Those students could be educated better, or at least not worse and more cost-effectively, at the many better-performing charters and DCPS, and the system as a whole would function better if funds were not devoted to propping up failing schools.

The fundamental concept of charter schools is that sustained low performance = closure. When charter schools do well, it's a "movement". When they do poorly, it's "let's not talk about it". Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, as the saying goes.

Ok, but a lot of those schools are tiny. Let's talk about schools like Roosevelt High School, a school that's been around for nearly 100 years, which has 1000 students, and which the city has spend a quarter *billion* dollars renovating, and still almost no one there is at grade level on anything.

KIPP DC College Preparatory (charter) has just as many kids and also isn’t showing results.

The things is you mistakenly believe it’s about hating charters as a whole. It is the systemic issues they cause. Whether you want to believe it or not charters can find ways to kick students out after count day of course and do.

DCPS can never refuse kids not really ever kick them out.

And you have to be a fool to think renovations will cause a school to be successful. But this still doesn’t mean that these schools don’t deserve it, you obviously have never seen the horrible mice, roach, and cooling/heating issues -as well as an overall decrepit environment some of these SE schools especially have.

DCPS can expel kids, and it can also place them in special programs it operates, and private special needs schools. Just FYI.

Take a look at the rates of expulsion, I believe it was zero last year.

Self-contained is not a great solution and certainly not one for all kids.

There are no private DCPS schools lol. Those are charters. Unless you mean River Terrace, the horrible special education school.

DCPS also cannot pay to send every sped kid to private, that is only after a decade or more of litigation or the like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look nobody on here cares about the bottom charters. They are not the ones people DCUM are even considering, just like they don’t consider the bottom DCPS schools either.

It’s pretty pointless to make a sweeping statement about how one is overall better than the other and that can also be arguable. No parent is going to be looking at that lens. Instead, families on here are looking at what is the best school for their kid. And that is school specific not a whole system.

We should all care about the bottom charters because they are serving children so poorly. With public funds comes public accountability. Millions is being spent on schools that accomplish little, and are passed along by the PCSB with extensions and discretion and "flexibility" to avoid political blowback and embarrassment, until they collapse of their own accord. Those students could be educated better, or at least not worse and more cost-effectively, at the many better-performing charters and DCPS, and the system as a whole would function better if funds were not devoted to propping up failing schools.

The fundamental concept of charter schools is that sustained low performance = closure. When charter schools do well, it's a "movement". When they do poorly, it's "let's not talk about it". Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, as the saying goes.

Ok, but a lot of those schools are tiny. Let's talk about schools like Roosevelt High School, a school that's been around for nearly 100 years, which has 1000 students, and which the city has spend a quarter *billion* dollars renovating, and still almost no one there is at grade level on anything.

KIPP DC College Preparatory (charter) has just as many kids and also isn’t showing results.

The things is you mistakenly believe it’s about hating charters as a whole. It is the systemic issues they cause. Whether you want to believe it or not charters can find ways to kick students out after count day of course and do.

DCPS can never refuse kids not really ever kick them out.

And you have to be a fool to think renovations will cause a school to be successful. But this still doesn’t mean that these schools don’t deserve it, you obviously have never seen the horrible mice, roach, and cooling/heating issues -as well as an overall decrepit environment some of these SE schools especially have.

DCPS does kick kids out of schools -- they just kick them back to their home schools or to special placements. Choice isn't just in the charters. Many DCPS families are choosing DCPS campuses they feel are better -- and their kids can and do get kicked out of those schools. Those aren't stats that anyone wants to talk about though.

What systemic issues are charters causing? If you live in Ward 7 and 8 and are zoned for a city school that has NEVER been successful in the way most on this board defines success, charters AND DCPS's out of boundary program are solving a systemic issue. Furthermore, even if you are not in those wards, if you want Montessori, language immersion, advanced curricula, you are most likely to get those opportunities in charters. DCPS could offer more of these but it hasn't yet.

Let's stop faulting parents for needing options and charters for giving options. Persistently low performing charters should close -- and they do. I'm not suggesting that the same should be true for DCPS but comparing the two groups and giving either a pass for persistent low performance is ridiculous.

DCPS almost never expels kids, go look at the data. No school can kick out a student like a charter (who can create more specific rules) can.

Ah the old ‘what about W7/8’ (like you’ve ever taught or lived there). Yea, like the charters there are doing well. YES, they are doing better than the majority of the decrepit DCPS schools there. However, it’s sadly not that simple.

And who’s faulting parents? Just the city and its poor officials. I cannot expect all of us (parents) to advocate or do anything at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look nobody on here cares about the bottom charters. They are not the ones people DCUM are even considering, just like they don’t consider the bottom DCPS schools either.

It’s pretty pointless to make a sweeping statement about how one is overall better than the other and that can also be arguable. No parent is going to be looking at that lens. Instead, families on here are looking at what is the best school for their kid. And that is school specific not a whole system.

We should all care about the bottom charters because they are serving children so poorly. With public funds comes public accountability. Millions is being spent on schools that accomplish little, and are passed along by the PCSB with extensions and discretion and "flexibility" to avoid political blowback and embarrassment, until they collapse of their own accord. Those students could be educated better, or at least not worse and more cost-effectively, at the many better-performing charters and DCPS, and the system as a whole would function better if funds were not devoted to propping up failing schools.

The fundamental concept of charter schools is that sustained low performance = closure. When charter schools do well, it's a "movement". When they do poorly, it's "let's not talk about it". Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, as the saying goes.

Ok, but a lot of those schools are tiny. Let's talk about schools like Roosevelt High School, a school that's been around for nearly 100 years, which has 1000 students, and which the city has spend a quarter *billion* dollars renovating, and still almost no one there is at grade level on anything.

KIPP DC College Preparatory (charter) has just as many kids and also isn’t showing results.

The things is you mistakenly believe it’s about hating charters as a whole. It is the systemic issues they cause. Whether you want to believe it or not charters can find ways to kick students out after count day of course and do.

DCPS can never refuse kids not really ever kick them out.

And you have to be a fool to think renovations will cause a school to be successful. But this still doesn’t mean that these schools don’t deserve it, you obviously have never seen the horrible mice, roach, and cooling/heating issues -as well as an overall decrepit environment some of these SE schools especially have.

DCPS does kick kids out of schools -- they just kick them back to their home schools or to special placements. Choice isn't just in the charters. Many DCPS families are choosing DCPS campuses they feel are better -- and their kids can and do get kicked out of those schools. Those aren't stats that anyone wants to talk about though.

What systemic issues are charters causing? If you live in Ward 7 and 8 and are zoned for a city school that has NEVER been successful in the way most on this board defines success, charters AND DCPS's out of boundary program are solving a systemic issue. Furthermore, even if you are not in those wards, if you want Montessori, language immersion, advanced curricula, you are most likely to get those opportunities in charters. DCPS could offer more of these but it hasn't yet.

Let's stop faulting parents for needing options and charters for giving options. Persistently low performing charters should close -- and they do. I'm not suggesting that the same should be true for DCPS but comparing the two groups and giving either a pass for persistent low performance is ridiculous.

DCPS almost never expels kids, go look at the data. No school can kick out a student like a charter (who can create more specific rules) can.

Ah the old ‘what about W7/8’ (like you’ve ever taught or lived there). Yea, like the charters there are doing well. YES, they are doing better than the majority of the decrepit DCPS schools there. However, it’s sadly not that simple.

And who’s faulting parents? Just the city and its poor officials. I cannot expect all of us (parents) to advocate or do anything at all.

Is there a truly successful Ward 7/8 charter? My impression is that most charters there are pretty weak, and only better than the DCPS because they are able to do things to specifically attract higher income families. So like the Lee and Stokes EE schools might have slightly better test scores than nearby DCPS, but that's because they are attracting many of the higher income families in Wards 7/8 plus also getting some higher income families from elsewhere in the city who will take spots at these schools if they really want immersion or Montessori and got locked out of closer options.

It's just not a 1:1 comparison. If these charters were required to take the students who live within a high-poverty zone, they would have the same outcomes as the DCPS schools in Wards 7/8. Potentially worse because a lot of kids living in poverty or with very high needs will simply not be able to participate in an immersion curriculum or a Montessori classroom in a meaningful way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look nobody on here cares about the bottom charters. They are not the ones people DCUM are even considering, just like they don’t consider the bottom DCPS schools either.

It’s pretty pointless to make a sweeping statement about how one is overall better than the other and that can also be arguable. No parent is going to be looking at that lens. Instead, families on here are looking at what is the best school for their kid. And that is school specific not a whole system.

We should all care about the bottom charters because they are serving children so poorly. With public funds comes public accountability. Millions is being spent on schools that accomplish little, and are passed along by the PCSB with extensions and discretion and "flexibility" to avoid political blowback and embarrassment, until they collapse of their own accord. Those students could be educated better, or at least not worse and more cost-effectively, at the many better-performing charters and DCPS, and the system as a whole would function better if funds were not devoted to propping up failing schools.

The fundamental concept of charter schools is that sustained low performance = closure. When charter schools do well, it's a "movement". When they do poorly, it's "let's not talk about it". Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, as the saying goes.

Ok, but a lot of those schools are tiny. Let's talk about schools like Roosevelt High School, a school that's been around for nearly 100 years, which has 1000 students, and which the city has spend a quarter *billion* dollars renovating, and still almost no one there is at grade level on anything.

Ok, but a lot of tiny low performing schools add up. Roots 83, SSMA 197, Girls Global 197. Not counting Capital Village because they already announced closure.

Then you have mid-size schools such as Rocketship, which is failing to serve 800+ kids across three buildings. 324 at Cap City lower school. 231 at Two Rivers Middle. 608 at Meridian. 340 at Bethune. 418 at KIPP Heights, 332 at KIPP Inspire, 396 at Quest, 351 at Valor. 358 at IDEA. 356 at Stokes East End. 376 at Chavez. 324 at Cap City lower school. We have to care about the smaller schools because it's a lot of kids total.

Now, DCPS has a lot of low stats too. Nobody is asserting that Roosevelt is a great school. But DCPS can't just up and close schools and wash their hands of it, tell the families to find something else like charter schools do. DCPS does replace leadership, sometimes bring in outside management-- they try any number of things but they can't just give up and lock the door like Eagle Academy did. DCPS is legally obligated to give a seat to every kid who wants it, at all times, forever into the future, and shuffling those same kids around won't necessarily fix anything-- and it might overcrowd nearby schools beyond legal and safe capacity. DCPS does sometimes close schools. It also sometimes absorbs failed charters. But it's a different system with a different set of obligations to students now and in the future. Obligations that charter schools generally resist sharing. Saying "DCPS sucks too" or that DCPS schools should be closed isn't the winning argument you think it is.

The fundamental problem with DCPS is that it has extremely low academic standards. It doesn't care if the kids come to school, and it doesn't care if they don't learn anything when they do show up. Everyone will be promoted to the next grade regardless. Go stand outside Roosevelt in the middle the day. Why are all these kids who are supposed to be in class standing around smoking pot?

Fairly certain that my middle school charter kid is required to read more than seniors at any DCPS high school in the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look nobody on here cares about the bottom charters. They are not the ones people DCUM are even considering, just like they don’t consider the bottom DCPS schools either.

It’s pretty pointless to make a sweeping statement about how one is overall better than the other and that can also be arguable. No parent is going to be looking at that lens. Instead, families on here are looking at what is the best school for their kid. And that is school specific not a whole system.

We should all care about the bottom charters because they are serving children so poorly. With public funds comes public accountability. Millions is being spent on schools that accomplish little, and are passed along by the PCSB with extensions and discretion and "flexibility" to avoid political blowback and embarrassment, until they collapse of their own accord. Those students could be educated better, or at least not worse and more cost-effectively, at the many better-performing charters and DCPS, and the system as a whole would function better if funds were not devoted to propping up failing schools.

The fundamental concept of charter schools is that sustained low performance = closure. When charter schools do well, it's a "movement". When they do poorly, it's "let's not talk about it". Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, as the saying goes.

Ok, but a lot of those schools are tiny. Let's talk about schools like Roosevelt High School, a school that's been around for nearly 100 years, which has 1000 students, and which the city has spend a quarter *billion* dollars renovating, and still almost no one there is at grade level on anything.

KIPP DC College Preparatory (charter) has just as many kids and also isn’t showing results.

The things is you mistakenly believe it’s about hating charters as a whole. It is the systemic issues they cause. Whether you want to believe it or not charters can find ways to kick students out after count day of course and do.

DCPS can never refuse kids not really ever kick them out.

And you have to be a fool to think renovations will cause a school to be successful. But this still doesn’t mean that these schools don’t deserve it, you obviously have never seen the horrible mice, roach, and cooling/heating issues -as well as an overall decrepit environment some of these SE schools especially have.

DCPS can expel kids, and it can also place them in special programs it operates, and private special needs schools. Just FYI.

Take a look at the rates of expulsion, I believe it was zero last year.

Self-contained is not a great solution and certainly not one for all kids.

There are no private DCPS schools lol. Those are charters. Unless you mean River Terrace, the horrible special education school.

DCPS also cannot pay to send every sped kid to private, that is only after a decade or more of litigation or the like.

If you look at the OSSE enrollment data you can see that many nonpublic placements are listed, and what LEA they originate from.