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

[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.

Am i the only one who feels the renovation obssession is kind of insane? Is this just Bowser keeping real estate people happy? It's farcical how much money is spent on renovating these schools that are failing to teach kids. While the two schools with the best college outcomes in the city (Walls and BASIS) have the two worst building (proving that academic success is not related to facility quality).

[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.

Am i the only one who feels the renovation obssession is kind of insane? Is this just Bowser keeping real estate people happy? It's farcical how much money is spent on renovating these schools that are failing to teach kids. While the two schools with the best college outcomes in the city (Walls and BASIS) have the two worst building (proving that academic success is not related to facility quality).

I think the answer is more political. The DC government is run by lefties, and when it comes to schools, they will never support raising academic standards or creating G&T programs or flunking kids who don't learn. They think that's all racist. But what they can agree on is spending more money on schools, and that's how they show they are supporting schools.

[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.

Am i the only one who feels the renovation obssession is kind of insane? Is this just Bowser keeping real estate people happy? It's farcical how much money is spent on renovating these schools that are failing to teach kids. While the two schools with the best college outcomes in the city (Walls and BASIS) have the two worst building (proving that academic success is not related to facility quality).

Latin 2nd Street looks like it hasn't been touched in 30 years. The best schools are the worst schools.

[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.

Am i the only one who feels the renovation obssession is kind of insane? Is this just Bowser keeping real estate people happy? It's farcical how much money is spent on renovating these schools that are failing to teach kids. While the two schools with the best college outcomes in the city (Walls and BASIS) have the two worst building (proving that academic success is not related to facility quality).

Do you mean worst HS buildings in the city? Because Walls is still nicer than schools that haven’t been renovated and are falling apart.

[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.

Am i the only one who feels the renovation obssession is kind of insane? Is this just Bowser keeping real estate people happy? It's farcical how much money is spent on renovating these schools that are failing to teach kids. While the two schools with the best college outcomes in the city (Walls and BASIS) have the two worst building (proving that academic success is not related to facility quality).

I think the answer is more political. The DC government is run by lefties, and when it comes to schools, they will never support raising academic standards or creating G&T programs or flunking kids who don't learn. They think that's all racist. But what they can agree on is spending more money on schools, and that's how they show they are supporting schools.

+1. It’s sad really because not only does DCPS not have high standards but actually continues to lower standards.

I mean just look at the new ELA and science curriculum - both considered terrible by actual DCPS teachers and parents. More kids coming out knowing much less.

The achievement gap will just be much wider between DCPS and the popular charters discussed on here especially for middle school and up.

[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.

Am i the only one who feels the renovation obssession is kind of insane? Is this just Bowser keeping real estate people happy? It's farcical how much money is spent on renovating these schools that are failing to teach kids. While the two schools with the best college outcomes in the city (Walls and BASIS) have the two worst building (proving that academic success is not related to facility quality).

You have not been to SE schools, some of them are very bad. And of course some in other areas. Walls is nothing.

[Anonymous]

Walls is nicer looking and in better repair than some schools. It is not crumbling. But rest assured it is that it is still bad.

It has too few classrooms and no other space -- no auditorium, no gym, NO athletic facilities of any kind.

The HVAC system doesn't work. The principal has sent more emails this year about HVAC repairs than all other topics combined.

Wifi doesn't work at all in parts of the building, including for some computer courses.

For the bigger question, yes, the fancy renovations are a grift and a Bowser gift to developers.

Then they quickly! fall into disrepair due to DGS, undermining the efforts put into renovations.

First up for renovation should be DGS.

[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.

Am i the only one who feels the renovation obssession is kind of insane? Is this just Bowser keeping real estate people happy? It's farcical how much money is spent on renovating these schools that are failing to teach kids. While the two schools with the best college outcomes in the city (Walls and BASIS) have the two worst building (proving that academic success is not related to facility quality).

You have not been to SE schools, some of them are very bad. And of course some in other areas. Walls is nothing.

I guess my point isn't that Walls has the worst building.

It's that since Walls and BASIS have such good outcomes, it's proof that *building quality and academic outcomes are not related.*

And DCPS should fix the crumbling buildings. Some of them are inhumane (we've been at a school with mice, mold and HVAC issues that DGS never fixed). But DCPS should not try to convince anyone that their luxury renovations are actually leading to better academics and student outcomes.

[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.

Am i the only one who feels the renovation obssession is kind of insane? Is this just Bowser keeping real estate people happy? It's farcical how much money is spent on renovating these schools that are failing to teach kids. While the two schools with the best college outcomes in the city (Walls and BASIS) have the two worst building (proving that academic success is not related to facility quality).

You have not been to SE schools, some of them are very bad. And of course some in other areas. Walls is nothing.

Oh you mean like Ballou High School? Which is so off-the-charts fancy that it's featured on an engineering web site? And yet somehow is one of the very worst schools in the city?

https://skaengineers.com/projects/ballou-senior-high-school/

[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.

Am i the only one who feels the renovation obssession is kind of insane? Is this just Bowser keeping real estate people happy? It's farcical how much money is spent on renovating these schools that are failing to teach kids. While the two schools with the best college outcomes in the city (Walls and BASIS) have the two worst building (proving that academic success is not related to facility quality).

You have not been to SE schools, some of them are very bad. And of course some in other areas. Walls is nothing.

Oh you mean like Ballou High School? Which is so off-the-charts fancy that it's featured on an engineering web site? And yet somehow is one of the very worst schools in the city?

https://skaengineers.com/projects/ballou-senior-high-school/

If you don’t think poor black kids should have a nice school, just say that.

[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.

Am i the only one who feels the renovation obssession is kind of insane? Is this just Bowser keeping real estate people happy? It's farcical how much money is spent on renovating these schools that are failing to teach kids. While the two schools with the best college outcomes in the city (Walls and BASIS) have the two worst building (proving that academic success is not related to facility quality).

You have not been to SE schools, some of them are very bad. And of course some in other areas. Walls is nothing.

Oh you mean like Ballou High School? Which is so off-the-charts fancy that it's featured on an engineering web site? And yet somehow is one of the very worst schools in the city?

https://skaengineers.com/projects/ballou-senior-high-school/

NP but it’s not about claiming a nice building magically makes test scores drastically improve. A nice building doesn’t undo the complex things going on in neighborhoods and in kids’ homes. But kids deserve to not go to a school that feels like a prison (which some HSs did feel like before renovation), has mold/lead/mice, and has up to date resources and technology. Did you ever step foot in Dunbar before the renovation? It was an awful building.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Am i the only one who feels the renovation obssession is kind of insane? Is this just Bowser keeping real estate people happy? It's farcical how much money is spent on renovating these schools that are failing to teach kids. While the two schools with the best college outcomes in the city (Walls and BASIS) have the two worst building (proving that academic success is not related to facility quality).

You have not been to SE schools, some of them are very bad. And of course some in other areas. Walls is nothing.

Oh you mean like Ballou High School? Which is so off-the-charts fancy that it's featured on an engineering web site? And yet somehow is one of the very worst schools in the city?

https://skaengineers.com/projects/ballou-senior-high-school/

If you don’t think poor black kids should have a nice school, just say that.

Uh, well, we've been told since forever that the problem with schools is funding. Can we agree now that the problem isn't funding? That the problem is incredibly low standards and the fact that DCPS doesn't care if kids show up for school, let alone learn anything? The best schools in this city, like BASIS and Latin and School Without Walls, are garbage heaps compared to Ballou.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Am i the only one who feels the renovation obssession is kind of insane? Is this just Bowser keeping real estate people happy? It's farcical how much money is spent on renovating these schools that are failing to teach kids. While the two schools with the best college outcomes in the city (Walls and BASIS) have the two worst building (proving that academic success is not related to facility quality).

You have not been to SE schools, some of them are very bad. And of course some in other areas. Walls is nothing.

Oh you mean like Ballou High School? Which is so off-the-charts fancy that it's featured on an engineering web site? And yet somehow is one of the very worst schools in the city?

https://skaengineers.com/projects/ballou-senior-high-school/

If you don’t think poor black kids should have a nice school, just say that.

Uh, well, we've been told since forever that the problem with schools is funding. Can we agree now that the problem isn't funding? That the problem is incredibly low standards and the fact that DCPS doesn't care if kids show up for school, let alone learn anything? The best schools in this city, like BASIS and Latin and School Without Walls, are garbage heaps compared to Ballou.

Two of those three schools aren’t DCPS, so no they don’t get renovated in DCPS budget. You want schools that aren’t beholden to dcps? You got them, but they don’t get the same resources.

[Anonymous]

Also, the glue trap ban from city council has been terrible for schools. Schools are scared of using snap traps for kid safety.

[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.

Am i the only one who feels the renovation obssession is kind of insane? Is this just Bowser keeping real estate people happy? It's farcical how much money is spent on renovating these schools that are failing to teach kids. While the two schools with the best college outcomes in the city (Walls and BASIS) have the two worst building (proving that academic success is not related to facility quality).

Sure, DCPS could spend money on hurt things as well, but if they didn’t renovate buildings you would have parents complaining about leaking ceilings, mold, AC/heat issues, overcrowded classrooms and/or kids using converted copy rooms, etc as classroom. Renovations don’t directly increase outcomes, nobody claims they do. But it’s where our kids spend 8 hours/day and they deserve to have decent conditions.
Yes Walls and Basis aren’t great buildings, but they are physically in good shape.