Graduates from low-performing D.C. schools face tough college road

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS teachers don't have a student assistant who can read all of those 5-page assignments. So to think that a DCPS teach is going to assign a 5-page assignment to her 250 student class load is ridiculous. Considering her colleague who's not teaching AP is getting the same pay and accolades by assigning one page book reports. You know this to be true.

This is why gym teachers don't coach sports. This is why instrumental music teachers don't form marching bands. Think about it.

Joe Riener, a former AP English teacher at Wilson, did assign long essays to his students and read them on his own time. Students and parents appreciated it, but the IMPACT system did not.

[Anonymous]

I am guessing if this was the norm or widely accepted that other middle schools would do as such. Yet, since Deal is the only one doing this and it is not being continued at this so-called wonderful "Wilson" where's the disconnect. Wondering out loud here, do you think Kaya asked about her boyfriend's child AP classes at McKinley?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS teachers don't have a student assistant who can read all of those 5-page assignments. So to think that a DCPS teach is going to assign a 5-page assignment to her 250 student class load is ridiculous. Considering her colleague who's not teaching AP is getting the same pay and accolades by assigning one page book reports. You know this to be true.

This is why gym teachers don't coach sports. This is why instrumental music teachers don't form marching bands. Think about it.

I grew up in a county in Maryland with a good school system. And NONE of my teachers ever had assistants, and yet I was frequently assigned long writing assignments. In fact, 5 pages wouldn't have been considered much at all. And the teachers did read them, every page, and left comments. And I'm talking about honors classes, not AP classes.

I don't understand how he could've taken that many AP classes and not have written a 5 page paper. Even if he didn't take AP English, other AP classes require writing assignments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS teachers don't have a student assistant who can read all of those 5-page assignments. So to think that a DCPS teach is going to assign a 5-page assignment to her 250 student class load is ridiculous. Considering her colleague who's not teaching AP is getting the same pay and accolades by assigning one page book reports. You know this to be true.

This is why gym teachers don't coach sports. This is why instrumental music teachers don't form marching bands. Think about it.

At my high school the gym teacher coached football, the music teacher was in charge of the marching band and ap students wrote maybe one or two 5 to 8 page essays. Most of the english ap writing is short form response to AP prompts. I think I could write those 5 paragraph essays in my sleep.

Also isn't having a student assistant grade papers a conflict of interest?

[Anonymous]

21:09... The average coached teams here in DC are not gym teachers. I don't even want to say how the instrumental music teachers are shucking their responsibility. AP teachers a pre-occupied with the test than anything else. Principal are more concern about having AP class so that their index rating will rise in Washpo.

[Anonymous]

There's a serious disconnect all around. As a previous poster noted, not only are kids ending up woefully unprepared for college, they are ending up woefully unprepared for the job market and many other things after high school. In adult life there are many skills needed regardless of whether you go on to college or not - basic math and English proficiency for one, but also a basic sense of responsibility and self-discipline - showing up where you're supposed to be on time, being organized, following instruction, getting your stuff done on time, patience and so on. Many of the kids that do make it into college are a complete mess - they need a lot of remedial coursework to get up to speed, and don't at all have that sense of responsibility and self-discipline to keep it together and get things done - and the same goes for those who don't go to college and instead go straight into the job market. That second set of soft skills is too often overlooked and in turn adversely impacts the core academic skills.

[Anonymous]

I went to an innercity school, high poverty and ell, admitedly a tracked system, but my teachers with a hundred kids in a class all required minimum 5 page papers, usually 10-15 page. My AP classes in particular required me to write at least 50-60 pages of combined writing projects over a year. I have a kid going to Wilson in two years and if they really don't require writing, she won't be going there.

[Anonymous]

Two questions:

Would you consider going to Wilson and making your concerns about writing clear to the principal

If wilson became a charter school, would you have more confidence that good writing would be taught?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Two questions:

Would you consider going to Wilson and making your concerns about writing clear to the principal

If wilson became a charter school, would you have more confidence that good writing would be taught?

I'll answer, my kids is at Deal now going into 8th next year.

1. Yes
2. No. I do not have confidence that going charter would ensure more rigor.

My belief is that what is going on at Deal is rigorous. I don't have a fix on what is happening at Wilson, but my thought is that Wilson can't do the same old thing as kids come through - the teachers and admin better be prepared to take Deal students to the next level - otherwise I will raise hell and be on the news.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's a serious disconnect all around. As a previous poster noted, not only are kids ending up woefully unprepared for college, they are ending up woefully unprepared for the job market and many other things after high school. In adult life there are many skills needed regardless of whether you go on to college or not - basic math and English proficiency for one, but also a basic sense of responsibility and self-discipline - showing up where you're supposed to be on time, being organized, following instruction, getting your stuff done on time, patience and so on. Many of the kids that do make it into college are a complete mess - they need a lot of remedial coursework to get up to speed, and don't at all have that sense of responsibility and self-discipline to keep it together and get things done - and the same goes for those who don't go to college and instead go straight into the job market. That second set of soft skills is too often overlooked and in turn adversely impacts the core academic skills.

What should high schools be doing to instill this basic sense of responsibility & self-discipline? Hold them back a year? Make them repeat classes? Not give second chances to make up missed work or failed tests?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's a serious disconnect all around. As a previous poster noted, not only are kids ending up woefully unprepared for college, they are ending up woefully unprepared for the job market and many other things after high school. In adult life there are many skills needed regardless of whether you go on to college or not - basic math and English proficiency for one, but also a basic sense of responsibility and self-discipline - showing up where you're supposed to be on time, being organized, following instruction, getting your stuff done on time, patience and so on. Many of the kids that do make it into college are a complete mess - they need a lot of remedial coursework to get up to speed, and don't at all have that sense of responsibility and self-discipline to keep it together and get things done - and the same goes for those who don't go to college and instead go straight into the job market. That second set of soft skills is too often overlooked and in turn adversely impacts the core academic skills.

What should high schools be doing to instill this basic sense of responsibility & self-discipline? Hold them back a year? Make them repeat classes? Not give second chances to make up missed work or failed tests?

Poster who wrote about the unprepared high school student here. I think it has to start much younger and involve whole families. Mandatory pre-k and more Head Start like programs that involve parents. More anti-poverty programs focused on getting and keeping the parents in the work force. Educating the parents so that they're better at educating the kids in the basic skills of life.

The kid I work with has a sense of responsibility - although she does some typically bone-headed teen stuff now and then but not any worse than what my dd did in high school. She was also held back a year in elementary school. But according to the reading specialist I have working with her now, she never learned the basic skills of reading so she has spent a lot of time guessing at words. And as I noted before, she has a hard time coming up with an independent thought because it basically hasn't been required of her by the school.

But here's the thing - her parents, while having made many mistakes at various times in their lives, have always insisted she go to school and she go to tutoring. But they're not going to go to the school and demand that they give her the help she needs. They don't have that sense of entitlement that comes with being an upper middle class professional and they also are not really in a position to help the kid find work after she graduates from high school.

Think about the things you teach your own kids - for example, we talked to dd a lot about what kinds of research she should do on colleges before making a decision and what was important to emphasize in applying to college. We talk to her about what she needs to do in order to find a summer job. BTW it's also clear that she has an edge getting a summer job because she's an upper middle class educated white kid in DC. We also emphasize the importance of thinking independently, evaluating evidence, making an argument and supporting that argument with specific facts - skills that are highly valued in the professional classes.

But poor and working class kids are not often getting that from their families or from their schools - so even the kids who follow all the rules, do their homework, and don't make waves have a hard time competing when they get to college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two questions:

Would you consider going to Wilson and making your concerns about writing clear to the principal

If wilson became a charter school, would you have more confidence that good writing would be taught?

I'll answer, my kids is at Deal now going into 8th next year.

1. Yes
2. No. I do not have confidence that going charter would ensure more rigor.

My belief is that what is going on at Deal is rigorous. I don't have a fix on what is happening at Wilson, but my thought is that Wilson can't do the same old thing as kids come through - the teachers and admin better be prepared to take Deal students to the next level - otherwise I will raise hell and be on the news.

regarding #2 -- what if the charter system grew so much in other parts of town that DCPS central office couldn't continue to support a staff that served the remaining "good" schools, like Deal, Wilson and JKLM?

[Anonymous]

1) This isn't new news people!
2) I absolutely don't believe the story about the Wilson kid. I know too many kids - children of educated professionals who have gone on to graduate from well-regarded colleges - who have gone through Wilson and, while I've never asked about the length of their papers, I've never heard any complaint about the lack of preparedness from Wilson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two questions:

Would you consider going to Wilson and making your concerns about writing clear to the principal

If wilson became a charter school, would you have more confidence that good writing would be taught?

I'll answer, my kids is at Deal now going into 8th next year.

1. Yes
2. No. I do not have confidence that going charter would ensure more rigor.

My belief is that what is going on at Deal is rigorous. I don't have a fix on what is happening at Wilson, but my thought is that Wilson can't do the same old thing as kids come through - the teachers and admin better be prepared to take Deal students to the next level - otherwise I will raise hell and be on the news.

regarding #2 -- what if the charter system grew so much in other parts of town that DCPS central office couldn't continue to support a staff that served the remaining "good" schools, like Deal, Wilson and JKLM?

Student funding in DCPS follows the student through a per-pupil allocation. As long as demand is high for JKLMs, Deal and Wilson, there will be enough money to sustain the schools. However, if for programmatic reasons people decide to leave these DCPS schools for charters, then they could be placed at risk. Currently, that scenario seems unlikely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Student funding in DCPS follows the student through a per-pupil allocation. As long as demand is high for JKLMs, Deal and Wilson, there will be enough money to sustain the schools. However, if for programmatic reasons people decide to leave these DCPS schools for charters, then they could be placed at risk. Currently, that scenario seems unlikely.

Demand for ward 3 schools could remain high, but if the system gets smaller and smaller because schools in other parts of town are going Charter, then it seems like there would come a point where it wouldn't be feasible to have a central administration to oversee just a few schools.