Achievement Gap

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really? I thought Natalie was spot on. The view from 2011 still stinks, despite all the time, money and drama pumped into the present system.

Seems like there are a similar number of "idiots" (your word, not mine) attempting to run charters.

Right, but those idiots are running one school that parents can opt out of and there is some oversight.

The ones in DCPS are running an entire system and if Natalie had her way, parents would be stuck with their neighborhood school. No way out. How is that right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really? I thought Natalie was spot on. The view from 2011 still stinks, despite all the time, money and drama pumped into the present system.

Seems like there are a similar number of "idiots" (your word, not mine) attempting to run charters.

Right, but those idiots are running one school that parents can opt out of and there is some oversight.

The ones in DCPS are running an entire system and if Natalie had her way, parents would be stuck with their neighborhood school. No way out. How is that right?

Obviously, it's time to get the idiots currently running DCPS out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

As an aside, Natalie made a real fool of herself with this op Ed. Ok Natalie, lets close all the Charters, you and all your friends will not go to your local school, you will go private or move, neighborhood schools will remain under enrolled, population of dc will plummet again and idiots will remain in charge of DCPS. It will look just like 1998 again. Good idea.

I completely agree. She identifies problems with the way it was before and claims that the options available in the current situation do not fix all the problems, so her only suggestion is that we go back to the way it was before. Terrible logic. Where is the proposal to actually fix the problem?

[Anonymous]

There is no proposal to fix because none of us have the ablity to address the SES problem. Or at least there is insufficient data and political will interms of really how to reverse this dynamic.

[Anonymous]

To the PP who asked where the upper middle class AA's send their kids to private school, the answer is to a variety of schools. Among my friends, family, and neighbors, our kids go to St. Albans, NCS, St. John's, Maret, Landon, Sidwell, Sheridan, GDS, Gonzaga, Holton, Beauvoir, Potomac, and Edmund Burke.

[Anonymous]

How about SES integration on a grand scale? Let's merge with Montgomery County and make sure no single school has a majority of low SES students.

OR, let's create really super magnet programs/charter schools within DCPS to draw middle/upper class families back to the public school system. If we can get the proportion of poor families lower and the overall performance higher, everyone will be better served.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OR, let's create really super magnet programs/charter schools within DCPS to draw middle/upper class families back to the public school system. If we can get the proportion of poor families lower and the overall performance higher, everyone will be better served.

YES. YES. YES!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

I think PP was speaking statistically. Of course there are middle-class black parents in DC. It's just that their numbers are dwarfed by poor black parents. If you removed all the poor people from DC, it would have the same demographic profile as any other upper-middle class neighborhood, say, PG County.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

As an aside, Natalie made a real fool of herself with this op Ed. Ok Natalie, lets close all the Charters, you and all your friends will not go to your local school, you will go private or move, neighborhood schools will remain under enrolled, population of dc will plummet again and idiots will remain in charge of DCPS. It will look just like 1998 again. Good idea.

I completely agree. She identifies problems with the way it was before and claims that the options available in the current situation do not fix all the problems, so her only suggestion is that we go back to the way it was before. Terrible logic. Where is the proposal to actually fix the problem?

Poverty is the problem. So all we need to do is convince the nation at large to triple the amount of money we spend on the poor and radically expanding the social safety net. Easy peasy!

In other words, there is absolutely nothing we can do, so we won't do anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no proposal to fix because none of us have the ablity to address the SES problem. Or at least there is insufficient data and political will interms of really how to reverse this dynamic.

Time and gentrification.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OR, let's create really super magnet programs/charter schools within DCPS to draw middle/upper class families back to the public school system. If we can get the proportion of poor families lower and the overall performance higher, everyone will be better served.

YES. YES. YES!!!!!!!

Or we can just watch the accelerating pace of gentrification cause a rise in low SES families in the suburbs, and a fall in the proportion in the city. Same difference. No heavy political lifting required, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OR, let's create really super magnet programs/charter schools within DCPS to draw middle/upper class families back to the public school system. If we can get the proportion of poor families lower and the overall performance higher, everyone will be better served.

YES. YES. YES!!!!!!!

Or we can just watch the accelerating pace of gentrification cause a rise in low SES families in the suburbs, and a fall in the proportion in the city. Same difference. No heavy political lifting required, though.

good luck. the pcsb will NEVER let magnets exist in charters--only dcps gets to do this. and besides, when you try to do this (like YY) then everyone calls you elitist and beats you up on dcum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OR, let's create really super magnet programs/charter schools within DCPS to draw middle/upper class families back to the public school system. If we can get the proportion of poor families lower and the overall performance higher, everyone will be better served.

YES. YES. YES!!!!!!!

Or we can just watch the accelerating pace of gentrification cause a rise in low SES families in the suburbs, and a fall in the proportion in the city. Same difference. No heavy political lifting required, though.

good luck. the pcsb will NEVER let magnets exist in charters--only dcps gets to do this. and besides, when you try to do this (like YY) then everyone calls you elitist and beats you up on dcum.

Exactly. In DC "upper/middle class families" are disproportionately white. That means the super magnet would be serving a disproportionate number of white students. That's a non-starter in the current political environment. Already "experts" are talking about how schools that serve predominately middle-class students need to be defunded so that we can pour the lion's share of resources into failing schools with super-high poverty numbers. The answer to this stuff is the same as it is for our jobs and housing crises in DC: end the concentration of poverty. It's the only way out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OR, let's create really super magnet programs/charter schools within DCPS to draw middle/upper class families back to the public school system. If we can get the proportion of poor families lower and the overall performance higher, everyone will be better served.

YES. YES. YES!!!!!!!

Or we can just watch the accelerating pace of gentrification cause a rise in low SES families in the suburbs, and a fall in the proportion in the city. Same difference. No heavy political lifting required, though.

good luck. the pcsb will NEVER let magnets exist in charters--only dcps gets to do this. and besides, when you try to do this (like YY) then everyone calls you elitist and beats you up on dcum.

Not to quibble, but a charter is, by definition, a magnet school ( no specific boundary, pulling city wide). All a magnet school is is a school that families choose for some reason, rather than being assigned there. Some magnets have entry requirements ( I.e., Banneker ) others don't ( I.e. Logan Montessori and every Charter School )

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OR, let's create really super magnet programs/charter schools within DCPS to draw middle/upper class families back to the public school system. If we can get the proportion of poor families lower and the overall performance higher, everyone will be better served.

YES. YES. YES!!!!!!!

Or we can just watch the accelerating pace of gentrification cause a rise in low SES families in the suburbs, and a fall in the proportion in the city. Same difference. No heavy political lifting required, though.

good luck. the pcsb will NEVER let magnets exist in charters--only dcps gets to do this. and besides, when you try to do this (like YY) then everyone calls you elitist and beats you up on dcum.

Not to quibble, but a charter is, by definition, a magnet school ( no specific boundary, pulling city wide). All a magnet school is is a school that families choose for some reason, rather than being assigned there. Some magnets have entry requirements ( I.e., Banneker ) others don't ( I.e. Logan Montessori and every Charter School )

True, though I think it's clear that the PP who wrote " If we can get the proportion of poor families lower and the overall performance higher, everyone will be better served" was speaking directly to magnet schools with an academic entry requirement. Which in DC would obviously be a de facto class preference. Which would, by proxy, be a weighted towards racial preference as well.