Explain to Me How You Fund and Staff a Deal for All-in-Development

[Anonymous]

OP, you are ignoring the political aspect of this. The optics would be terrible and you know it. Everything else is beside the point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:16:19 again. As an added benefit, I suspect the students in the advanced category could handle slightly higher student:teacher ratios, which might allow lower student:teacher ratios in the classrooms where students are struggling to reach proficiency.

Oh honey. There would not be more advanced students, at least not for a long time. Instead of three sections of mixed ability, you would end up with one very small advanced class, and one remedial class that needs a low ratio to succeed. The remaining kids in the middle level would be two many for one class so you would need two, for a total of four instead of three. That is why it is so expensive.

Are you saying the school has three math teachers for three math classes? Or is the school set up like early elementary with one teacher teaching all subjects to one class?

Why can't one math teacher teach the remedial class one period and the advanced class in a different period? The other two teachers teach the mixed ability classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are ignoring the political aspect of this. The optics would be terrible and you know it. Everything else is beside the point.

total cop out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:16:19 again. As an added benefit, I suspect the students in the advanced category could handle slightly higher student:teacher ratios, which might allow lower student:teacher ratios in the classrooms where students are struggling to reach proficiency.

Oh honey. There would not be more advanced students, at least not for a long time. Instead of three sections of mixed ability, you would end up with one very small advanced class, and one remedial class that needs a low ratio to succeed. The remaining kids in the middle level would be two many for one class so you would need two, for a total of four instead of three. That is why it is so expensive.

Are you saying the school has three math teachers for three math classes? Or is the school set up like early elementary with one teacher teaching all subjects to one class?

Why can't one math teacher teach the remedial class one period and the advanced class in a different period? The other two teachers teach the mixed ability classes.

In a school of 400 6th to 8th grade students who each take math there meed to be ~20 math classes covered a day (assuming 20 kids in a class). Each of the 3-4 math teachers are already teaching ~5-6 math classes a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:16:19 again. As an added benefit, I suspect the students in the advanced category could handle slightly higher student:teacher ratios, which might allow lower student:teacher ratios in the classrooms where students are struggling to reach proficiency.

Oh honey. There would not be more advanced students, at least not for a long time. Instead of three sections of mixed ability, you would end up with one very small advanced class, and one remedial class that needs a low ratio to succeed. The remaining kids in the middle level would be two many for one class so you would need two, for a total of four instead of three. That is why it is so expensive.

Are you saying the school has three math teachers for three math classes? Or is the school set up like early elementary with one teacher teaching all subjects to one class?

Why can't one math teacher teach the remedial class one period and the advanced class in a different period? The other two teachers teach the mixed ability classes.

You can, but it is still four classes instead of three. Those teachers aren't just sitting around waiting to be assigned, they are teaching something else during that time, and if you move them, that creates a gap that would need to be filled. Apply this reasoning to all grades in all subjects and it adds up fast. TL;DR: small class sizes are expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are ignoring the political aspect of this. The optics would be terrible and you know it. Everything else is beside the point.

total cop out.

Please, tell us your genius plan to make this politically successful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are ignoring the political aspect of this. The optics would be terrible and you know it. Everything else is beside the point.

I don't get that. The achievement gap is there, and not going away so soon. For minorities in DC that qualify for advanced programs, I think that would help them succeed better. For white kids, it might mean more stay in DC rather than move to the suburbs, but that wouldn't affect the achievement gap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:16:19 again. As an added benefit, I suspect the students in the advanced category could handle slightly higher student:teacher ratios, which might allow lower student:teacher ratios in the classrooms where students are struggling to reach proficiency.

Oh honey. There would not be more advanced students, at least not for a long time. Instead of three sections of mixed ability, you would end up with one very small advanced class, and one remedial class that needs a low ratio to succeed. The remaining kids in the middle level would be two many for one class so you would need two, for a total of four instead of three. That is why it is so expensive.

I apologize, because I must not be explaining myself clearly. Imagine a school with 100 6th graders, currently split randomly into 4 classrooms of 25 students each. All I'm saying is that the school use some basis (grade? PARCC scores?) to divide those classrooms roughly by ability. There would still be a spread of abilities in each classroom, but the spread would not be as big as in a random mix.

If you want to throw extra resources at the underperforming students, then split it like this:

Classroom 1: 30 top-performing students
Classroom 2: next 25 students
Classroom 3: next 25 students
Classroom 4: 20 lowest performing students

I apologize for not making it more clear. I'm definitely not suggesting that the top handful of students would get some private classroom with an extra teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are ignoring the political aspect of this. The optics would be terrible and you know it. Everything else is beside the point.

total cop out.

Please, tell us your genius plan to make this politically successful.

Use math, facts, and logic. Just kidding. Our politicians aren't going to do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are ignoring the political aspect of this. The optics would be terrible and you know it. Everything else is beside the point.

I don't get that. The achievement gap is there, and not going away so soon. For minorities in DC that qualify for advanced programs, I think that would help them succeed better. For white kids, it might mean more stay in DC rather than move to the suburbs, but that wouldn't affect the achievement gap.

It doesn't matter if you get it! Other people do, and they will not support this.

[Anonymous]

How many teachers per grade?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:16:19 again. As an added benefit, I suspect the students in the advanced category could handle slightly higher student:teacher ratios, which might allow lower student:teacher ratios in the classrooms where students are struggling to reach proficiency.

Oh honey. There would not be more advanced students, at least not for a long time. Instead of three sections of mixed ability, you would end up with one very small advanced class, and one remedial class that needs a low ratio to succeed. The remaining kids in the middle level would be two many for one class so you would need two, for a total of four instead of three. That is why it is so expensive.

I apologize, because I must not be explaining myself clearly. Imagine a school with 100 6th graders, currently split randomly into 4 classrooms of 25 students each. All I'm saying is that the school use some basis (grade? PARCC scores?) to divide those classrooms roughly by ability. There would still be a spread of abilities in each classroom, but the spread would not be as big as in a random mix.

If you want to throw extra resources at the underperforming students, then split it like this:

Classroom 1: 30 top-performing students
Classroom 2: next 25 students
Classroom 3: next 25 students
Classroom 4: 20 lowest performing students

I apologize for not making it more clear. I'm definitely not suggesting that the top handful of students would get some private classroom with an extra teacher.

Because in order for it to be really gifted, and really effective remedial, you need smaller class sizes than that. It just isn't the case that 30% are advanced. And 20 is way too big for real remediation (while managing behavior). A real split would be more like 17, 22, 22, 22, 17.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are ignoring the political aspect of this. The optics would be terrible and you know it. Everything else is beside the point.

total cop out.

Please, tell us your genius plan to make this politically successful.

Use math, facts, and logic. Just kidding. Our politicians aren't going to do that.

They are already doing it (teaching kids based on their abilities) in other schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because in order for it to be really gifted, and really effective remedial, you need smaller class sizes than that. It just isn't the case that 30% are advanced. And 20 is way too big for real remediation (while managing behavior). A real split would be more like 17, 22, 22, 22, 17.

15:19 replying. I see where we're missing each other: I'm NOT trying to identify a "gifted" population or a "remedial" population. I'm just suggesting the schools try using differentiation to reduce the spread of abilities in any single classroom. Look at all those overpriced private schools as an example; most of them seem to use differentiated classrooms. Plenty of other public school systems also use differentiated classrooms. Why can't DCPS try it at one middle school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are ignoring the political aspect of this. The optics would be terrible and you know it. Everything else is beside the point.

I'm 15:19, but I'm not OP.

Are you basically just saying no one at DCPS will allow differentiation by student ability because it would mean mostly white and Asian kids in some classrooms together, and mostly black and Hispanic kids in other classrooms together? Is that what you mean by "optics would be terrible"?