Achievement Gap

[Anonymous]

Here’s a piece from the Post about the achievement gap. It makes me wonder just how difficult it must be to be Chancellor and deal with the immense demands placed on her to satisfy the needs of divergent populations and parental expectations, and all within the volatile context of race relations in DC . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/dc-schools-have-largest-black-white-achievement-gap-in-federal-study/2011/12/06/gIQArNnMcO_print.html

D.C. schools have largest black-white achievement gap in federal study
By Lyndsey Layton, Updated: Wednesday, December 7, 10:00 AM

D.C. public schools have the largest achievement gap between black and white students among the nation’s major urban school systems, a distinction laid bare in a federal study released Wednesday.


[ Edited to comply with copyright laws. ]

[Anonymous]

I'm sure this is due to the HUGE economic gap that exists in DC. You have the poor blacks and the rich whites and almost no middle class of either. Most other cities do-- (Baltimore has a middle class, Philadelphia does, etc.)

Also, many wealthy blacks attend private school (at least most I know do and there have been a few posts about this on the private school forum).

[Anonymous]

Wow. Whites in the District of Columbia scored the highest in the nation in math in both 4th and 8th grade.

Without obtusely trying to miss OP's point, I think this fact above should be repeated every single time a clueless, yet happy and smug, poster who just bought in Arlington/Rockville/FCPS says: Dear God! Do NOT buy a house in the District because You Have A Schools Problem.

It's not so simple as that.

[Anonymous]

Whites in the District are invariably from elsewhere and are almost all highly educated professionals with graduate degrees. Not surprising their kids score high on standardized tests.

[Anonymous]

I'm sure this is due to the HUGE economic gap that exists in DC. You have the poor blacks and the rich whites and almost no middle class of either. Most other cities do-- (Baltimore has a middle class, Philadelphia does, etc.)

Well, that's why we win-lose with the #1 slot. We lack a large middle class in the District.

However in the cities you cite and other cities with a middle class (Chicago has an enormous black middle class, for example), the problem is the same. From the study, verbatim:

"All 21 cities in the study displayed a difference in performance between whites and blacks and between whites and Hispanics."

So while I agree with the point you made about HHI, there's most definitely a CULTURAL component here that is persistent and pervasive.

[Anonymous]

12:27 PP again. Here is an example of what I'm talking about, from the "Would you live in Ward3 if $ wasn't an object?" thread:


""No way. Won't touch DC and the messed up political 'leadership' / schools with a 10 ft pole. I'll stay in NOVA.""


You've got 1) happy where they recently bought + (2) smug + (3) completely clueless at how well a certain subset of kids does in "those DC schools."

[Anonymous]

Visiting with one of DC's best friends from DCPS, who is AA, I see her friend has an enormous extended family and gets lots of love, attention and support. They have a nice rowhouse in upper NW. Both parents work. But there was literally not one book in the house. No shelf anywhere for children's books. A Wii in the slightly older brother's room but no bookshelf.

[Anonymous]

How many whites are in the 4th and 8th grade? Just a couple of years ago it wasn't enough to make a blip on the radar. All of sudden they are enough whites in the testing grades contributing to the federal study. It must be a slow news day for the Washpo.

Now let's see an Asian Chancellor couldn't close the achievement gap. Here we are currently with an African-American Chancellor who can't do it. Eureka!!! I must say give the white person a chance to run the majority AA school system. Well, at least we can be assured that the white contingent is fully cognizant of what is needed for the federal study.

[Anonymous]

I don't want to really defend the arrogance of the poster on the other thread...BUT as someone living in Ward 3, I was initially troubled by the idea of sending my child to a DCPS because it always ranks so low nationally. It isn't until you scratch the surface and see individual school performance that you begin to understand that there is a big difference between schools. If you dont live in DC, you dont always understand. I am now looking forward to sending my child to our local DCPS ES. It is deeply troubling that other schools in DCPS are struggling. I wish there was a singular problem with an easy solution for the other schools.

[Anonymous]

as a middle-class AA parent i find this thread completely ridiculous. no middle-class black parents in DC? this is because you don't know them or aren't friends with them. just because they don't exist for you doesn't mean that they're not here. i see them among my diverse set of friends in the charters and yes even in DCPS. they're parents like natalie hopkinson, who was just in the NYT with this commentary on school choice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/opinion/why-school-choice-fails.html?scp=1&sq=natalie%20hopkinson&st=cse

among AA parents the discussion is about class, not race. if you took out color, many of the lowest-achieving students are low-income. that's why so many charters like KIPP, DC Prep and Achievement Prep Academy started--they wanted to get rid of the low-income factor as an automatic barrier to achievement.

[Anonymous]

I'm black and live in NW. I guess we're upper middle class. I don't know of a single black friend or family member who sends their child to DCPS; we all went private. There isn't just an achievement gap; there's also an expectations gap.

[Anonymous]

That would be highly impossible for such a statement to be accurate that the middle-class AA send their children to private. Case in point, there are probably only a few schools that have 100% FARM and those who don't have such a high percentage also have large percentage of AA in their school. There are only 7% of white children in DCPS, therefore that would mean that 93% of the entire school population were less than middle-class.

I don't care how hard many are trying we are not going from a Metropolitan city to a town-setting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many whites are in the 4th and 8th grade? Just a couple of years ago it wasn't enough to make a blip on the radar. All of sudden they are enough whites in the testing grades contributing to the federal study. It must be a slow news day for the Washpo.

Now let's see an Asian Chancellor couldn't close the achievement gap. Here we are currently with an African-American Chancellor who can't do it. Eureka!!! I must say give the white person a chance to run the majority AA school system. Well, at least we can be assured that the white contingent is fully cognizant of what is needed for the federal study.

Whites have always been included in the NAEP results -- just as they are in the DC-CAS results. It's not a slow news day at the Post -- it's an embarrassing day for the former and current chancellors who made closing the achievement gap in dc a top priority.

[Anonymous]

Whites have always been included in the NAEP results -- just as they are in the DC-CAS results. It's not a slow news day at the Post -- it's an embarrassing day for the former and current chancellors who made closing the achievement gap in dc a top priority.

Collectively 4th and 8th are showing or sharing results but at one point there was only a 1% representation at the 8th grade and DCPS didn't even bother with the data.

[Anonymous]

I am curious about what private schools AA parents are choosing for their kids. I don't know much about the private and parochial schools, other than the high profile ones, because I have assumed we couldn't afford it. But obviously not every upper middle class AA kid gets into or even wants to go to Sidwell. Where else are they going?
I am the parent who said they would send their white kid to Banneker if DC felt welcome. Not knowing all the future holds, I would like DC's peers in middle and HS to be mostly "nerds" and college bound high achievers.