DCPS can't handle 'Middle Schools'? This is why Kaya Henderson needs to go

[Anonymous]

There are many reasons she should go, this is just one of them. How about we have a chancellor and mayor who do not view education as an exercise in antagonistic rhetoric?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So frustrated with Kaya Henderson right now. At yesterday's hearing she claimed that DC kids should be 'funneled' to charters for Middle School because they do Middle School so well? WTF? Yes, there are some great charters that do middle school ok...I'd say that this is a small minority. But instead of saying...we could learn from some of the charters, or that we need to really focus on this aspect of DCPS...she sounds like she wants to give up.

I have a student in a DC middle school and I'm not remotely ready to give up.

Good - maybe you can form a serious parent group against Kaya and her defeatism. I've felt for a long time - just by her actions or non-actions - that her real purpose is to oversee the dismantling of DCPS, after which she will get a cushy job in the charter system.

COuld be that her statement at the council meeting was to see how the idea of MS charters would fly. If it gets just a few negative comments on DCUM, but no action, then that's a signal that there will be no serious pushback.

Parents are the only ones with any chance of pushing back against the charter movement, but not if they remain passive or willing to send their kids all over town to attend a decent public school.

[Anonymous]

Not to continue a charter vs. neighborhood fight but I do really object to pp in any way suggesting that parents "who are willing to send kids across town for MS" are in any way at fault for failing neighborhood middle schools. Nor are the charter schools who work incredibly hard to offer a decent public alternative at fault. Please keep the blame exactly where it belongs: with a dysfunctional DCPS system and bad administration. Every parent I know in a charter school would rather use a neighborhood school if it actually offered a decent education

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not to continue a charter vs. neighborhood fight but I do really object to pp in any way suggesting that parents "who are willing to send kids across town for MS" are in any way at fault for failing neighborhood middle schools. Nor are the charter schools who work incredibly hard to offer a decent public alternative at fault. Please keep the blame exactly where it belongs: with a dysfunctional DCPS system and bad administration. Every parent I know in a charter school would rather use a neighborhood school if it actually offered a decent education

As a DCPS parent who has a kid in a private middle school I'll add that what you said goes for many parents in privates as well. There are a ton of DCPS refugees at my DC's school. I was very active in the PTA in elementary, and through that met PTA parents in other DCPS schools. I'm now meeting those parents again at my private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've felt for a long time - just by her actions or non-actions - that her real purpose is to oversee the dismantling of DCPS, after which she will get a cushy job in the charter system.

The only problem with that theory is that there's no such thing as "the charter system." Each school is it's own system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've felt for a long time - just by her actions or non-actions - that her real purpose is to oversee the dismantling of DCPS, after which she will get a cushy job in the charter system.

The only problem with that theory is that there's no such thing as "the charter system." Each school is it's own system.

OK, don't call it the charter system -- call it to movement to increase the number and influence of charter schools in DC or whatever you like -- but please don't use semantics to discount the general notion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP- completely agree. If she can't find a way to make better MS options, how can she be chancellor of the system?

She was never qualified to run DC's school system and Catania's oversight is finally pulling the veil from some people's eyes. It is time to recruit a professional cadre from some other city clear out the bloated Central Office with professionals who will live in DC and put their kids in our schools.

If they don't have skin in the game, they have no business running our schools.

Um... Kaya's two kids are in DCPS.

Kaya did not birth any kids they are her boyfriends kids. Although she may want to look out for their best interest it's not the same as having your own in the system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not to continue a charter vs. neighborhood fight but I do really object to pp in any way suggesting that parents "who are willing to send kids across town for MS" are in any way at fault for failing neighborhood middle schools. Nor are the charter schools who work incredibly hard to offer a decent public alternative at fault. Please keep the blame exactly where it belongs: with a dysfunctional DCPS system and bad administration. Every parent I know in a charter school would rather use a neighborhood school if it actually offered a decent education

9:42 here -- it was not my intention to blame parents in any way for failing schools. I understand that engaged parents will do what they can to get their kids a good education. What I'm saying is that if parents don't actively protest Henderson's attitude about charter middle schools, the DCPS option is pretty much guaranteed to shrink.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP- completely agree. If she can't find a way to make better MS options, how can she be chancellor of the system?

She was never qualified to run DC's school system and Catania's oversight is finally pulling the veil from some people's eyes. It is time to recruit a professional cadre from some other city clear out the bloated Central Office with professionals who will live in DC and put their kids in our schools.

If they don't have skin in the game, they have no business running our schools.

Um... Kaya's two kids are in DCPS.

Kaya did not birth any kids they are her boyfriends kids. Although she may want to look out for their best interest it's not the same as having your own in the system.

It might be the kids' biological mother who made the schooling decision,and/or perhaps the kids are in "good" DCPS schools that any engaged parents would approve of.

Besides, Kaya's kids aren't the issue here -- it's the aggregate DC kids that she is responsible for -- and it looks like she's ready to turn them over to charters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to continue a charter vs. neighborhood fight but I do really object to pp in any way suggesting that parents "who are willing to send kids across town for MS" are in any way at fault for failing neighborhood middle schools. Nor are the charter schools who work incredibly hard to offer a decent public alternative at fault. Please keep the blame exactly where it belongs: with a dysfunctional DCPS system and bad administration. Every parent I know in a charter school would rather use a neighborhood school if it actually offered a decent education

9:42 here -- it was not my intention to blame parents in any way for failing schools. I understand that engaged parents will do what they can to get their kids a good education. What I'm saying is that if parents don't actively protest Henderson's attitude about charter middle schools, the DCPS option is pretty much guaranteed to shrink.

I get that. But here is where there is a problem. The message has to be "fix the DCPS middle schools" not "don't feed to charter schools" because if DCPS truly does not know how to do middle schools ( as they seem to be saying ) them charters should take over rather than leave another generation of kids in awful schools.

[Anonymous]

We don't want Kaya and we don't want to take over DCPS. We just want to do our thing for whomever is interested in our unique model. Each of us is its own island but willing to get along and play nicely. We're not trying to build a nation. Love, charter schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to continue a charter vs. neighborhood fight but I do really object to pp in any way suggesting that parents "who are willing to send kids across town for MS" are in any way at fault for failing neighborhood middle schools. Nor are the charter schools who work incredibly hard to offer a decent public alternative at fault. Please keep the blame exactly where it belongs: with a dysfunctional DCPS system and bad administration. Every parent I know in a charter school would rather use a neighborhood school if it actually offered a decent education

9:42 here -- it was not my intention to blame parents in any way for failing schools. I understand that engaged parents will do what they can to get their kids a good education. What I'm saying is that if parents don't actively protest Henderson's attitude about charter middle schools, the DCPS option is pretty much guaranteed to shrink.

I get that. But here is where there is a problem. The message has to be "fix the DCPS middle schools" not "don't feed to charter schools" because if DCPS truly does not know how to do middle schools ( as they seem to be saying ) them charters should take over rather than leave another generation of kids in awful schools.

I get that, and as long as DCPS can't/doesn't want to fix middle schools, and parents don't rise up in some effective way, then parents and kids will have fewer neighborhood options. I'm suggesting that this is exactly what DCPS leadership is trying to make happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don't want Kaya and we don't want to take over DCPS. We just want to do our thing for whomever is interested in our unique model. Each of us is its own island but willing to get along and play nicely. We're not trying to build a nation. Love, charter schools.

Dear charter schools,

Too bad about what you want. This thing is bigger than both of us.

Love DCPS

[Anonymous]

I think Kaya Henderson was expressing frustration with the things she can't control in DCPS but that Charters don't have to struggle with. She already said a while ago that she wished DCPS could start their own charters. It's unfair to expect her or anyone to perform miracle turn-arounds in schools where union rules favor the status quo, and where school boundaries maintain racial and economic segregation. There can be no hiring of subject-matter experts without teaching credentials, no asking additional after-school hours of the teachers, none of the things that the KIPPs and the Latins and the BasisDCs can do that are especially important during the watershed middle-school years. I think she is facing an impossible task and coming to a logical conclusion. I also think that it is not so terrible for DC. Everyone is worried about the disappearance of public education, but Charters are public. When finally there are enough Charters for everyone who wants to attend them, people will start sending their kids to the one in their neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think Kaya Henderson was expressing frustration with the things she can't control in DCPS but that Charters don't have to struggle with. She already said a while ago that she wished DCPS could start their own charters. It's unfair to expect her or anyone to perform miracle turn-arounds in schools where union rules favor the status quo, and where school boundaries maintain racial and economic segregation. There can be no hiring of subject-matter experts without teaching credentials, no asking additional after-school hours of the teachers, none of the things that the KIPPs and the Latins and the BasisDCs can do that are especially important during the watershed middle-school years. I think she is facing an impossible task and coming to a logical conclusion. I also think that it is not so terrible for DC. Everyone is worried about the disappearance of public education, but Charters are public. When finally there are enough Charters for everyone who wants to attend them, people will start sending their kids to the one in their neighborhood.

If she was frustrated, she could have said it -- anyone would understand that. Instead she suggested sending ms kids away from her schools to charter schools.

And regarding miracle turn-arounds -- if was Henderson and her buddy Rhee who promised the miracles and now are strangely quiet when all their "reforms" (including weakening the union) haven't worked.