Failing Schools Almost Impossible to "Turnaround"

[Anonymous]

DC was racially segregated and that is why we have more school buildings we ever needed. True this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would assume the issues facing most "failing schools" have more to do with poverty than the actual system. There is an ugly culture that is often associated with it. You can hire the best teachers in the world but little will change if students come from homes that do not value education. Until we can change that than those schools will continue to fail.

This.

In another decade or two, the poverty rate in DC will be roughly the same as the rest of the region. And the schools will be some of the best in the country. Gentrification works.

DC spends more money per student than any other district in the nation - throwing more money at the school system is not going to yield further results. The issues that remain are community and cultural issues that need to be addressed outside of the school system.

I think you're missing the PP's point. S/he isn't saying that more $ is the answer; instead s/he's saying that higher SES kids will change the culture of schools for the better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC was racially segregated and that is why we have more school buildings we ever needed. True this.

With DC having been 80% African American for decades, this is a very curious comment. Evidently we are supposed to believe that the many schools were to segregate blacks from other blacks. Logic fail.

[Anonymous]

No. This is true about the segregation. You would need to go back before DC was " chocolate city" following white flight. Used to be a larger percentage of white families in DC and they used the segregated public schools. It is fascinating to look at some of the old class photos over the last century and see the changes that are apparantly vis-a-vis race.

[Anonymous]

The multitude of schools "due to segregation" were not relevant for decades when DC and its' school district was majority AA population and majority AA run. So why have we still been stuck on status quo assumptions that expired years and years ago?

[Anonymous]

That's why DCPS reform movement of TFA/DCTF and blame the teachers is a failed policy. Time will tell!!! Gentrification and a change in school population will do more to change test scores than these policies ever would. It's all been a big waste of time, and keep reading the news about the new Charter's coming to town. Just like real estate "follow the money" - none of this is for the children!!!

[Anonymous]

Ok DC was segregated but back then there was Armstrong and Dunbar who primarily served AA. You had and Eastern, Central and Western high schools. It was not until 1972 that a high-school was built with afro-centric theme. Again all new schools in this system was built with the premise to diverse but it doesn't work.

[Anonymous]

Ask anyone who knows the history of segregation and they will tell you that DC had two sets of school buildings. We now have extra buildings because of that fact as well as the enrollment dip.

[Anonymous]

DCPS has another problem, the data we are using to make decisions is flawed. Cheating was never really investigated, teachers are failed and receive low scores for not being able to make the gains that the children never really made in previous years. It's all a big hot mess, unless DCPS (Chancellor's office) tells the truth it is all just a big game with the children constantly the losers with an ever churning stream of teachers in the schools where the help is needed the most.

[Anonymous]

There are many problems with this magical thinking of the solution being to simply get more high-SES students into those schools. A.) high-SES families do not want to put their children in those schools because of uncontrolled bad behavior and social problems, B.) high-SES families do not want to put their children in those schools because of perceived failings in classroom management, teaching methods, and problems with how they are run - given these schools' poor performance overall, and C.) even if high-SES students did start attending, it wouldn't magically transform the problems with the teachers, administration and the rest of the student body..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would assume the issues facing most "failing schools" have more to do with poverty than the actual system. There is an ugly culture that is often associated with it. You can hire the best teachers in the world but little will change if students come from homes that do not value education. Until we can change that than those schools will continue to fail.

This.

In another decade or two, the poverty rate in DC will be roughly the same as the rest of the region. And the schools will be some of the best in the country. Gentrification works.

Only if you define "best" by how students score on standardized tests. These same schools may not be very good if judged by the quality of educational opportunities offered.

If you believe that the best regional public schools in FCPS and MCPS are currently "not very good if judged by the quality of educational opportunities offered" then I'd like to hear the argument. Because in a decade or two, the public school system in DC will be as good as in FCPS or MCPS.

The dysfunction in DCPS is a pure function of the poverty rate. Period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are many problems with this magical thinking of the solution being to simply get more high-SES students into those schools. A.) high-SES families do not want to put their children in those schools because of uncontrolled bad behavior and social problems, B.) high-SES families do not want to put their children in those schools because of perceived failings in classroom management, teaching methods, and problems with how they are run - given these schools' poor performance overall, and C.) even if high-SES students did start attending, it wouldn't magically transform the problems with the teachers, administration and the rest of the student body..

It has nothing to do with "magical thinking." In 10-20 years, high-SES families won't have a problem putting their kids in DCPS schools because there just won't be that many low-SES children in the city. The affordable housing programs in DC are pretty much a fig-leaf. We're eliminating affordable housing at a remarkable clip. There won't be a "rest of the student body".

The bloviating about "classroom management" and "teaching methods", etc... are just mistaking the causes for the symptoms. Those are problems *because* we have a failing public school system. We have a failing public school system because 80% of the students come from deep poverty. End of story.

[Anonymous]

That's nonsense. 80% of DC is not in deep poverty. And even so, poverty does not have to automatically correlate with poor school performance - take for example latinos and immigrants who arrive as refugees from horrible conditions and deep poverty - typically they close the performance and income gap within a single generation.

As for affordable housing, what is forcing poor families to stay in DC? It's obviously not for work. And if we are supposed to consider that it's for family or community, consider that family and community is the biggest part of what is contributing to poor performance and continued poverty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's nonsense. 80% of DC is not in deep poverty. And even so, poverty does not have to automatically correlate with poor school performance - take for example latinos and immigrants who arrive as refugees from horrible conditions and deep poverty - typically they close the performance and income gap within a single generation.

As for affordable housing, what is forcing poor families to stay in DC? It's obviously not for work. And if we are supposed to consider that it's for family or community, consider that family and community is the biggest part of what is contributing to poor performance and continued poverty.

If you don't get it you don't get it. As the previous poster noted, poverty "in general" is closely related to a number of factors. Lack of education, absent parents, lack of resources, hunger, lack of healthcare (illness and poor nutrition cause frequent absences and lack of healthcare in elementary grades often lead to undiagnosed health/SpEd issues). Children of immigrants cannot be compared to low SES children because many immigrants are not low SES, they maybe in their new adopted country but at the school where my child goes many of them had middle-class jobs in their country. There are many African children whose parents are driving cabs that were teachers and professors in their country, they also came here so their children could have the opportunity for a better education. There are huge differences in educational success between the children of refugees that come from countries of high literacy and those that don't, overall the children from El Salvador that had intermittent education are not doing well. Many of their parents are illiterate, we even have children who are not highly literate in Spanish. Many Americans lump all immigrant, refugees and ELLs together but statistics show that family literacy and poverty play a huge role. Additionally, many families in NW who are low income live with multiple generations and relatives to afford the rents or have moved to Maryland. There are many domestics in my school, do you really think they can afford the astronomical rents in DC? If the parents are absent, often traveling as far as Baltimore to clean - who do you think is looking after the children and making sure they do their homework. If they themselves don't speak English, how can they help? Of course, they want a better life for their children and support their child's education but poverty plays a huge role in many ways as it does for all low-SES children native or otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Here we go round and round and round.

poor test scores = failing schools
failing schools = bad teachers, or poverty, or whatever

Isn't it time to start evaluating schools based on the quality of educational benefits that are offered rather than student test scores?