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

[Anonymous]

There is strong evidence linking educational outcomes to improved school buildings. Also the DCPS building scheme helps promote well paid construction jobs in the city. The buildings are paid for over the long term by municipal bonds. Overall it’s a pretty well thought through scheme with lots of benefits absent any political bent. So there’s win wins for lots of constituencies not just the kids out of the building scheme.

[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).

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.

This. And I think there is evidence that a renovation can help a school that is already on the bubble attract more UMC students. That’s what happened with Deal, J-R, and Banneker. Parents with options will sometimes opt for a cramped facility or one without a standard feature like a gym, but they won’t opt for a decrepit facility.

[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).

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.

This. And I think there is evidence that a renovation can help a school that is already on the bubble attract more UMC students. That’s what happened with Deal, J-R, and Banneker. Parents with options will sometimes opt for a cramped facility or one without a standard feature like a gym, but they won’t opt for a decrepit facility.

One important thing I’m not seeing here is that school renovation is distinct from the DC gov group that maintains schools and other dc govt buildings. Separate budget.

[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/

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.

My kid was in a swim event at Ballou. While we were walking in on backside a full on gun battle took place just up the street. Had a clear view of it. The Ballou security guard came out and told us to hurry up and get in building. When we left a few hours later I inquired as to the result of police activity. The front desk employee told me they didn't think they police came and they didn't call because unless there's dead or hurt people it is a waste of effort.

How nice does a building have to be for parents with ANY options to get their kids away from a school that faces daily gun violence? Heavens to Betsy, Walls doesn't have a gym and BASIS doesn't have a library. So I guess Ballou is a better choice with its 14% ELA proficiency, <1% Math and <1% Science proficiency?

These discussions on DCUM are illustrative of the reason these conversations are so dumb. You aren't debating the same things or talking about the same kids or system. You think someone who is IB for Ballou who has a kid at BASIS cares there's no gym? Or that it is a primary concern? You think they lament that their kid has no theater at Walls? You think someone who live near Ballou is choosing Ballou's football field over Sidwell?

[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/

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.

My kid was in a swim event at Ballou. While we were walking in on backside a full on gun battle took place just up the street. Had a clear view of it. The Ballou security guard came out and told us to hurry up and get in building. When we left a few hours later I inquired as to the result of police activity. The front desk employee told me they didn't think they police came and they didn't call because unless there's dead or hurt people it is a waste of effort.

How nice does a building have to be for parents with ANY options to get their kids away from a school that faces daily gun violence? Heavens to Betsy, Walls doesn't have a gym and BASIS doesn't have a library. So I guess Ballou is a better choice with its 14% ELA proficiency, <1% Math and <1% Science proficiency?

These discussions on DCUM are illustrative of the reason these conversations are so dumb. You aren't debating the same things or talking about the same kids or system. You think someone who is IB for Ballou who has a kid at BASIS cares there's no gym? Or that it is a primary concern? You think they lament that their kid has no theater at Walls? You think someone who live near Ballou is choosing Ballou's football field over Sidwell?

You are the one who is saying something dumb. Obviously there are children who go to Ballou and parents who do choose it.
The point of renovation of these schools is NOT to attract families like the one you mentioned.

Basis has at at risk percentage of 9 and Ballou is 80… seriously

The point is that the schools were decrepit before renovation and had a host of issues, it would look really bad to spend 70 million on a school doing well academically and the minimum 20-30 million on SE schools.

[Anonymous]

Does DC even pay for the renovation of charter schools like BASIS? I don’t think so. This whole thread seems pointless.

[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/

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.

My kid was in a swim event at Ballou. While we were walking in on backside a full on gun battle took place just up the street. Had a clear view of it. The Ballou security guard came out and told us to hurry up and get in building. When we left a few hours later I inquired as to the result of police activity. The front desk employee told me they didn't think they police came and they didn't call because unless there's dead or hurt people it is a waste of effort.

How nice does a building have to be for parents with ANY options to get their kids away from a school that faces daily gun violence? Heavens to Betsy, Walls doesn't have a gym and BASIS doesn't have a library. So I guess Ballou is a better choice with its 14% ELA proficiency, <1% Math and <1% Science proficiency?

These discussions on DCUM are illustrative of the reason these conversations are so dumb. You aren't debating the same things or talking about the same kids or system. You think someone who is IB for Ballou who has a kid at BASIS cares there's no gym? Or that it is a primary concern? You think they lament that their kid has no theater at Walls? You think someone who live near Ballou is choosing Ballou's football field over Sidwell?

What?

BASIS is a charter school. DCPS is not in charge of their facilities. If BASIS wants a library, go get one.

You do understand there are families who live in the Ballou catchment and DCPS is required by law to provide them with a HS, right? And their old HS was falling apart so they replaced it with a new school and the new school is nice because there is no reason not to build a nice school for kids IB for Ballou. Did you expect them to cheap out because the neighborhood has a lot of poverty and crime? Oh those kids are used to crappy things so why give them a nice school?

And yes, parents and students IB for Ballou have to make the choice of whether to try to get into schools like BASIS or Walls or stay at Ballou. But even if you lottery for charters and apply for application schools, you might not get in, and then what? You go to your IB.

It's like you can't conceptualize that not everyone has the same choices as you because you don't understand that not everyone has your resources. Where did you go to school? Because they didn't do a good job and you missed some key information about the world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does DC even pay for the renovation of charter schools like BASIS? I don’t think so. This whole thread seems pointless.

Obviously not. And BASIS likely wouldn't renovate, they'd just move. Since charters are not required to be within certain geographic boundaries, they are much more likely to just look for a new facility and retrofit it, and sell the old one (if they even own it) rather than renovate in place, as DCPS schools are often required to do.

There are a bunch of weird posts in this thread including people who keep referring to "public v. charter" which is weird because charters are public schools, they just aren't run by the district.

I increasingly don't think people understand the charter system in DC. It's not even that hard, it takes 2-3 minutes to understand how it works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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/

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.

My kid was in a swim event at Ballou. While we were walking in on backside a full on gun battle took place just up the street. Had a clear view of it. The Ballou security guard came out and told us to hurry up and get in building. When we left a few hours later I inquired as to the result of police activity. The front desk employee told me they didn't think they police came and they didn't call because unless there's dead or hurt people it is a waste of effort.

How nice does a building have to be for parents with ANY options to get their kids away from a school that faces daily gun violence? Heavens to Betsy, Walls doesn't have a gym and BASIS doesn't have a library. So I guess Ballou is a better choice with its 14% ELA proficiency, <1% Math and <1% Science proficiency?

These discussions on DCUM are illustrative of the reason these conversations are so dumb. You aren't debating the same things or talking about the same kids or system. You think someone who is IB for Ballou who has a kid at BASIS cares there's no gym? Or that it is a primary concern? You think they lament that their kid has no theater at Walls? You think someone who live near Ballou is choosing Ballou's football field over Sidwell?

What?

BASIS is a charter school. DCPS is not in charge of their facilities. If BASIS wants a library, go get one.

You do understand there are families who live in the Ballou catchment and DCPS is required by law to provide them with a HS, right? And their old HS was falling apart so they replaced it with a new school and the new school is nice because there is no reason not to build a nice school for kids IB for Ballou. Did you expect them to cheap out because the neighborhood has a lot of poverty and crime? Oh those kids are used to crappy things so why give them a nice school?

And yes, parents and students IB for Ballou have to make the choice of whether to try to get into schools like BASIS or Walls or stay at Ballou. But even if you lottery for charters and apply for application schools, you might not get in, and then what? You go to your IB.

It's like you can't conceptualize that not everyone has the same choices as you because you don't understand that not everyone has your resources. Where did you go to school? Because they didn't do a good job and you missed some key information about the world.

+1000

[Anonymous]

DCPS should close every chronically underenrolled school, full stop. Baillou should have been closed, not renovated. Or, they should have merged another high school into Baillou. Renovating a school hoping more than 200 kids show up is a massive waste of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS should close every chronically underenrolled school, full stop. Baillou should have been closed, not renovated. Or, they should have merged another high school into Baillou. Renovating a school hoping more than 200 kids show up is a massive waste of money.

Nobody cares what you think because you can't even spell it right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS should close every chronically underenrolled school, full stop. Baillou should have been closed, not renovated. Or, they should have merged another high school into Baillou. Renovating a school hoping more than 200 kids show up is a massive waste of money.

Nobody cares what you think because you can't even spell it right.

For those who don’t know, baillou has a 500 enrollment, of whom 94% are chronically truant. 200 students on a given day is not an exaggeration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS should close every chronically underenrolled school, full stop. Baillou should have been closed, not renovated. Or, they should have merged another high school into Baillou. Renovating a school hoping more than 200 kids show up is a massive waste of money.

Nobody cares what you think because you can't even spell it right.

For those who don’t know, baillou has a 500 enrollment, of whom 94% are chronically truant. 200 students on a given day is not an exaggeration.

Ballou. Not Baillou. Ballou. Get it right before you start spewing your opinions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS should close every chronically underenrolled school, full stop. Baillou should have been closed, not renovated. Or, they should have merged another high school into Baillou. Renovating a school hoping more than 200 kids show up is a massive waste of money.

Nobody cares what you think because you can't even spell it right.

For those who don’t know, baillou has a 500 enrollment, of whom 94% are chronically truant. 200 students on a given day is not an exaggeration.

Ballou. Not Baillou. Ballou. Get it right before you start spewing your opinions.

Bulloo probably should have been closed and merged with Anacostia over a decade ago (enrollment <300).

It’s a fair question to ask why they’re spending hundreds of millions on schools that have less than 100 kids show up in a given day. That’s a misallocation of resources.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS should close every chronically underenrolled school, full stop. Baillou should have been closed, not renovated. Or, they should have merged another high school into Baillou. Renovating a school hoping more than 200 kids show up is a massive waste of money.

Nobody cares what you think because you can't even spell it right.

For those who don’t know, baillou has a 500 enrollment, of whom 94% are chronically truant. 200 students on a given day is not an exaggeration.

Ballou. Not Baillou. Ballou. Get it right before you start spewing your opinions.

Bulloo probably should have been closed and merged with Anacostia over a decade ago (enrollment <300).

It’s a fair question to ask why they’re spending hundreds of millions on schools that have less than 100 kids show up in a given day. That’s a misallocation of resources.

Now you are just being obnoxious.

Ballou stays open because DCPS provides a by right high school within a certain distance of every address in the city. Merging with Anacostia would not achieve that.