Ludlow-Taylor getting a new a new Principal
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Anonymous
Right, forget about all that silly research. Let's assume that L-T is indeed the model school you describe, with great discipline and first-rate instruction. Let's also assume that "personal dislike" of Cobbs has been the major impediment to in-boundary participation. So we are to expect in-boundary parents of all colors and classes to flood every elementary grade six weeks hence? Last summer, when I asked Cobbs if she'd be willing to ask her upper grades teachers to organize pullout groups for advanced kids her reply amounted to "no way in hell." She explained in all seriousness that L-T would "never need" pullout groups because her teachers were "world class." You and she are mired in relativism. I vote for "majority in-boundary" as our working metric for "doing well." |
Anonymous
43% proficient in reading and math is not "doing a great job." |
Anonymous
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http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Ludlow-Taylor+Elementary+School
Your numbers are wrong. Math: 32% advanced 32% proficient ELA: 25% advanced 44% proficient It would also be helpful to get a definition for each of the DC CAS levels, but can't that type of document right now. |
Anonymous
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Your inspiring sounding percentages are pretty much irrelevant to most parents on the Hill these days.
Lafayette, in Upper NW, is 2-3% FARMS and had a 92% DC-CAS pass rate in 2014. The tests are so easy that when upper middle-income kids taken them in droves, you see pass rates in the high 80s and low 90s. I'd be thrilled about L-T serving low SES AA kids as well as it does if those kids were the majority in our Stanton Park neighborhood. Far from it. |
Anonymous
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'Best practices' ?
The point was that some children might need more than just 'best practices'. Like for example, free laundry service at school if you live in a shelter and your mum can not get you clean clothes as needed. No wonder there is resistance to pull-outs...it's like asking for cosmetic surgery at the ER. |
Anonymous
Lafayette Reading: 63% proficient 27% advanced Math: 39% proficient 53% advanced |
Anonymous
No way, pull-outs are more like asking for an ER treating specific problems that crop up all the time, precisely the ones you need for your children to heal. Without pull-outs in a diverse school, many upper grades high SES kids aren't going to be challenged. I can't count the number of neighborhood families I've talked to over the years who've left Watkins, and DCPS, mainly for lack of pull-out groups and other forms of ability grouping (e.g. grouping the kids who score advanced on the DC-CAS in the same classes, which DCPS almost never does) in grades 3-5. The fact that poor kids need more than "best practices" schools can provide is neither here nor there on the issue of pull-outs. I that hope a new generation of L-T neighborhood parents in the lower grades works with the principal to plan ahead for pull-outs. If they have to raise money to hire a math tutor to provide advanced instruction from 3rd grade, like the Brent parents did, they should get going ASAP. |
Anonymous
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One problem is that ib Cluster parents have spoiled DCPS on the neighborhood buy-in issue for years. They've put up with not having consistent access to pull-out groups. Now that the language immersion charters and a few others that are especially middle-class friendly, e.g. 2 Rivers and IT, are providing competition, Watkins can no longer avoid the subject. A new generation of gentrifiers is pickier than the traditional Cluster parents and won't accept no for an answer on ability grouping in the upper grades.
The new LT principal is about to learn this. What fun for her! |
Anonymous
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Watkins was asked to have pull-outs or some kind of G & T program, and the answer to that was "hell no" and we already handle different levels in the same classroom (differentiating). The problem is that when you have extremes, those in the middle or on the upper end get disregarded because the teacher is trying to keep order and assist those on the bottom. DCPS believes in catering to the bottom. That's why charters will ultimately take over.
Maybe if your new principal actually wants to try pull-outs, you'll actually be able to try it. But then you'd have a hell of a good principal trying to make it all work. |
Anonymous
| I wonder if the PTA parents involved in the choice of the principal asked her about her interest in having pull-outs.., does anyone know? |
Anonymous
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I'm not sure why parents are so obsessed with pull outs. If the teacher is capable of giving children differentiated materials inside the classroom does it matter if the kid is doing appropriately challenging materials in their classroom or down the hall? I swear I think it is a status thing than anything else
Another school in Virginia has a system where they pair two teachers together with a reading specialist, special education teacher or ESOL teacher (depends on the classroom) so that way they have a more robust group of students to group by ability. So if there was only two advanced students in the class they might go across the hall for part of their reading time to work with similarly advanced peers. |
Anonymous
You don't have a kid in the upper grades at a Hill public school, do you? Giving children differentiated materials inside the classroom isn't nearly enough for "advanced" kids at diverse schools like Watkins, where students who haven't acquired basic skills in failing DCPS schools lottery into the upper grades. DCPS isn't in the habit of providing the staff support to help teachers differentiate effectively; they definitely don't have a system of pairing teachers together. It's all hit and miss with what a school principal will do for upper grades advanced learners. |
Anonymous
| my DC was at Watkins for 4th & 5th. Two classrooms of "diverse" students were recombined for academic subjects so there was an upper and lower group. At SH for 6th, 1 of 5 classes was "honors" so that top 20% were together. Just finished 6th in 2013-14 year, I believe the first year of an honors section at SH. |
Anonymous
Not true at all. Watkins departmentalizes so the kids switch for reading and math, but we do not track kids. I wish we did, but we don't. Each year teachers make class lists that have to be have the entire range of learners in the classroom. |
Anonymous
Except that hill parents would not be comparing Ludlow to Lafayette but to watkins, maury, payne, etc. Or to charters |