Wilson High -- Principal Selection Meeting/Anyone Go?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How could DPCS think a new principal can close the gap when they can't even figure it out themselves.......

I think an important thing to look at is where the students are when they come in and where they are when they leave- do they improve at Wilson?

I do think there is a big push for students of all levels to take AP classes- think of the ridiculous Jay Matthews rankings.

Despite what

The gap was already closing under Cahall -- but apparently DCPS thinks someone else can close it even faster? How's a new principal supposed to do that?

I don't think the gap was closing under Cahall -- but the actual facts can be shown by someone with the real numbers -- that's what we need, without any manipulating or misrepresentation.

As for students improving once they got to Wilson, why would they? and why would this be a reflection on the principal or the teachers at Wilson and not on past schools and the kids and the parents themselves?

Not to say the parents are doing something "wrong" but if they can't provide the type of enrichment (educational travel, 2nd language, tutors, music lessons) that some kids get at home, their kids' scores are not going to be as high. It is a fact that college board scores reflect SES. Why wouldn't hs scores? Why would a hs principal be expected to change this?

So we give up on trying to figure out how to make greater gains in closing the achievement gap? Look I think we all know that the reasons for the achievement gap are complicated and extend far beyond what parents do. I've read that even when you compare scores of white students of high SES with black/Latino students of similar economic backgrounds, the gap still exists and persists.

I think it is an important issue for the Wilson community and the new prinicipal to work on. The challenge is making sure the next principal is set up for success.

Who said "give up?" What if part of the answer is that high school is too late to try to close the gap? should we still have the principal and the wilson community "work on it" and then be punished if they "fail."

For instance, let's say a new goal was to increase 2nd language fluency, and ALL the evidence shows that the earlier you start the better and best of all is learning it first at home as a toddler from an educated native speaker. Would we punish hs principals for not bringing 2nd language fluency up to native levels?

What if the principal increased the number of students studying a 2nd language in hs, but still the fluency levels didn't go up -- is it the principal's fault?

What if there happens to be a large number of native speakers of a certain language at the school and they ace the AP courses in that language -- does the principal get the credit?

DCPS has a MIDDLE SCHOOL problem. Many don't offer a second language to every child every day. Until the achievement gap is worked on in middle school, when outside pressures really start to influence school performance, you can forget about decent comprehensive high schools.

[Anonymous]

I don't think AP test data is the deciding factor here, but for those who said the data wasn't available, it is on the Wilson website going back to 2004-05:

http://www.wilsonhs.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=121679&type=d&pREC_ID=431900&hideMenu=1

I see that the number of students taking AP tests rose about 50% between 2008-09 and 2013-14 while the number with scores of 3 or more stayed roughly the same, about 47%, which would seem to indicate that the increase in test takers weren't disproportionately unprepared. Of course, this data doesn't tell you about the demographics of the test takers.

And from the Wilson scorecard on the DCPS website, 60% of 11th and 12th graders took at least one AP test in 2013-2014 look (under unique indicators).

[Anonymous]

Agree with 17:38 -- let's back track to middle school, please. Fire the principal who graduates an 8th grader into HS who is not prepared. Back track further, fire the Primary grades principal who graduated the children to 6th. On another vein, let's backtrack to the empty valor of Rhee/Kaya when they stormed into town --They talked and talked about cutting the "fat" from DCPS central and putting $$$ into one of the only viable solutions to improve the achievement gap -- "wraparound services". Oh, yeah. Our pal Rhee and her deputy Kaya were going to ensure those critical hours between 3:30 and 6 were catching up the kids who do not have financial advantages at home, and it was going to be even across town. Hmmm….At Oyster-Adams Rhee's buddy Monica Aguirre (wife of former DPR head Jesus who magically has made it to Superintendent of State for DC) allowed a 2-tier after care program to run for years, one that sucked and was free and one that didn't suck that certain parts of the Oyster population could afford. Hmmm. How are the after care programs in all wards these days? There's the critical hours, folks. 3:30 to 6, primary school, and DCPS central must have just made up all that when they rode in on their horses.

[Anonymous]

PP again -- just think -- if they really did move on their campaign talk about those critical 3:30 to 6 hours, these kids would be entering high school about now much better prepared -- and I'm talking about the multiple primary and middle schools that surely have had neglectful after care programming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 17:38 -- let's back track to middle school, please. Fire the principal who graduates an 8th grader into HS who is not prepared. Back track further, fire the Primary grades principal who graduated the children to 6th. On another vein, let's backtrack to the empty valor of Rhee/Kaya when they stormed into town --They talked and talked about cutting the "fat" from DCPS central and putting $$$ into one of the only viable solutions to improve the achievement gap -- "wraparound services". Oh, yeah. Our pal Rhee and her deputy Kaya were going to ensure those critical hours between 3:30 and 6 were catching up the kids who do not have financial advantages at home, and it was going to be even across town. Hmmm….At Oyster-Adams Rhee's buddy Monica Aguirre (wife of former DPR head Jesus who magically has made it to Superintendent of State for DC) allowed a 2-tier after care program to run for years, one that sucked and was free and one that didn't suck that certain parts of the Oyster population could afford. Hmmm. How are the after care programs in all wards these days? There's the critical hours, folks. 3:30 to 6, primary school, and DCPS central must have just made up all that when they rode in on their horses.

NO, Fire the administrator who makes the rule that principals have to promote kids who aren't prepared without noting it or providing remedial work - or wrap-around services. Fire the administrator who spends millions on a dubious evaluation system, then fires teachers based on it, hires untested teachers in their place and blows it off when the scores don't rise.

Fire the administrator who demands principals raise the scores by an unrealistic percentage then don't consider that they cheated when the scores soar in just one year.
Then when the scores dive the following year, the administrators fire teachers, but do nothing for the kids who still can't read and were just used as pawns to make the administrators look good.

Fire the administrator who set up a bonus system for highly effective teachers that winds up giving bonuses to teachers of the kids who are easiest to teach, because they don't have chaotic home lives, and provide no bonus to teachers who struggle with the neediest kids who don't score very well on standardized tests.

I could go on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP again -- just think -- if they really did move on their campaign talk about those critical 3:30 to 6 hours, these kids would be entering high school about now much better prepared -- and I'm talking about the multiple primary and middle schools that surely have had neglectful after care programming.

Shhh -- this is just one thing that they could have done better in the 7 years they've been here. It hurts their fragile egos to think of how they could have actually harmed the very kids they came here to help -- the kids who were going to prove to the world just how worthy the reformers' methods were.

[Anonymous]

20:12 -- you replied to my post on firing principals. YOU ARE CORRECT!! In re-reading, it is the administrators where the buck stops, isn't it. As for their neglect of the 3:30 to 6 pm "critical hours", this is one area that if they put their money where their mouths were starting with Rhee's first year on board, the kids struggling in high school could have very well been much better prepared. No new principal will be able to close that gap!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why wouldn't a school head have the authority to make changes on the senior school leadership team? That's daft.

to preserve the LGBT mafia, why else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:20:12 -- you replied to my post on firing principals. YOU ARE CORRECT!! In re-reading, it is the administrators where the buck stops, isn't it. As for their neglect of the 3:30 to 6 pm "critical hours", this is one area that if they put their money where their mouths were starting with Rhee's first year on board, the kids struggling in high school could have very well been much better prepared. No new principal will be able to close that gap!

Thank you --- And after the school administrators, the buck stops with the mayor, who has had control of the schools in DC since 2007. But all the mayors since that time have supported the chancellor, despite their many failures. Why is that??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why wouldn't a school head have the authority to make changes on the senior school leadership team? That's daft.

to preserve the LGBT mafia, why else?

Better an LGBT cabal than a pedophile ring. No one has proved the latter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why wouldn't a school head have the authority to make changes on the senior school leadership team? That's daft.

to preserve the LGBT mafia, why else?

Better an LGBT cabal than a pedophile ring. No one has proved the latter.

You're right. Cahall could have been recruiting a cabal of Fifth Column insurrectionists to take over the city; or or better yet evil Leprechauns. Best to put a stop to that before disaster happens.

[Anonymous]

The joke among all the other schools is that Wilson is not diverse it is divided. There's a white Wilson and black Wilson and everyone is idiots if they don't think it is happening...it is a plain as the nose on your face.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:The joke among all the other schools is that Wilson is not diverse it is divided. There's a white Wilson and black Wilson and everyone is idiots if they don't think it is happening...it is a plain as the nose on your face.

One might respond to this by saying the joke at Wilson is all the other schools.

Seriously though, the Yale/jail divide is hardly a new topic of discussion when it comes to Wilson. Your transforming it into a racial division, however, is insulting to high-performing black students that you don't seem to know -- or care -- exist. The achievement gap is real and black students largely make up the lower-performing end of the gap. However, the black students on the upper end of that gap are probably the most overlooked group in the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The joke among all the other schools is that Wilson is not diverse it is divided. There's a white Wilson and black Wilson and everyone is idiots if they don't think it is happening...it is a plain as the nose on your face.

I don't think anyone is denying it.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The joke among all the other schools is that Wilson is not diverse it is divided. There's a white Wilson and black Wilson and everyone is idiots if they don't think it is happening...it is a plain as the nose on your face.

One might respond to this by saying the joke at Wilson is all the other schools.

Seriously though, the Yale/jail divide is hardly a new topic of discussion when it comes to Wilson. Your transforming it into a racial division, however, is insulting to high-performing black students that you don't seem to know -- or care -- exist. The achievement gap is real and black students largely make up the lower-performing end of the gap. However, the black students on the upper end of that gap are probably the most overlooked group in the city.

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