To the parents in "good schools"

[Anonymous]

I am an Asian-American parent. I always knew that mediocre teachers cruise in good schools. Why? Because I have kids in all four kinds of school - the title 1 school, affluent school, magnet school and private school. The affluent schools and the magnet school are basically substandard in middle school level. Unfortunately, I had even worse experience in private schools. The teacher quality was not better but everything was wrapped in a bow, if you know what I mean. A lot of pomp and circumstances but very few quality students, teachers or administrators. Parents had a lot more money but a lot less time. Kids were entitled and grades were inflated.

Poorer schools had many dedicated teachers but the constant need of a poor and neglected peer group made learning difficult. We found magnet programs better because of very high achieving peer group, but no guarantees of good teachers. Magnet peer group, coupled with teaching my kids at home, we managed to give my children an adequate education. However, did not realize how very poor the quality of all K-12 education in US is.

[Anonymous]

Very well said. The key takeaway is one can't rely only the school, regardless how highly ranked, it doesn't guarantee your kid is learning optimally. The best education can be had at home for the lucky kids who have parents that are able and willing to spend time teaching them.

[Anonymous]

I have a similar story to OPs except my experience is slightly different. I’ve worked with mediocre teachers and exceptional teachers in both environments. I found that some teachers gave less when I was in the school with high poverty and less parent involvement. It was like they gave up and felt nothing would make a difference. They didn’t stay after school because they knew most students would not come and parents would not return calls or emails. They taught to the minimum SOL standards.

For the past 5 years I’ve been at a school with high parent involvement and high achieving students. Teachers will often show up early, stay hours after and are always meeting to discuss remediation and enrichment. The SOLs are not a concern but they are always discussing new ways to teach the content.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am an Asian-American parent. I always knew that mediocre teachers cruise in good schools. Why? Because I have kids in all four kinds of school - the title 1 school, affluent school, magnet school and private school. The affluent schools and the magnet school are basically substandard in middle school level. Unfortunately, I had even worse experience in private schools. The teacher quality was not better but everything was wrapped in a bow, if you know what I mean. A lot of pomp and circumstances but very few quality students, teachers or administrators. Parents had a lot more money but a lot less time. Kids were entitled and grades were inflated.

Poorer schools had many dedicated teachers but the constant need of a poor and neglected peer group made learning difficult. We found magnet programs better because of very high achieving peer group, but no guarantees of good teachers. Magnet peer group, coupled with teaching my kids at home, we managed to give my children an adequate education. However, did not realize how very poor the quality of all K-12 education in US is.

DC or Maryland schools?

[Anonymous]

Yes, I think the lack of good teaching programs and a strong curriculum are at the heart of many teaching issues in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I think the lack of good teaching programs and a strong curriculum are at the heart of many teaching issues in the US.

That's BS. OP made it clear that it's the hiding behind test scores that allows schools to just cruise. Her coworkers in a Title I school go to the same kinds of teaching programs, fwiw. It's just that they are held to a higher standard because the scores are lower than her wealthy one. Let's drop this whole teachers are dumb thing or there's bad curriculum. It's not the issue. FCPS is the same everywhere. It's what they are asking the teachers to do. -teacher in a Project Momentum school.

[Anonymous]

An equitable distribution of poverty whenever possible will ensure nobody will be able to coast all year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:True, but how much time then in a Title 1 school should I reasonably expect my 2nd grader to get from the teacher (either individually or small group) during the LA segment per week (for a near the top reader)?

Good point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I think the lack of good teaching programs and a strong curriculum are at the heart of many teaching issues in the US.

That's BS. OP made it clear that it's the hiding behind test scores that allows schools to just cruise. Her coworkers in a Title I school go to the same kinds of teaching programs, fwiw. It's just that they are held to a higher standard because the scores are lower than her wealthy one. Let's drop this whole teachers are dumb thing or there's bad curriculum. It's not the issue. FCPS is the same everywhere. It's what they are asking the teachers to do. -teacher in a Project Momentum school.

Ok. Although OP said the good teachers take more training and she said that they are more willing to use different curriculum materials to make sure kids learn. You are right though that it is implementation that is a huge issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a similar story to OPs except my experience is slightly different. I’ve worked with mediocre teachers and exceptional teachers in both environments. I found that some teachers gave less when I was in the school with high poverty and less parent involvement. It was like they gave up and felt nothing would make a difference. They didn’t stay after school because they knew most students would not come and parents would not return calls or emails. They taught to the minimum SOL standards.

For the past 5 years I’ve been at a school with high parent involvement and high achieving students. Teachers will often show up early, stay hours after and are always meeting to discuss remediation and enrichment. The SOLs are not a concern but they are always discussing new ways to teach the content.

This ^^^ has been my experience too. Completely the opposite of what OP is seeing. But maybe it's b/c I am in middle school. I spent 15 years in a high poverty, low achieving middle school. I was surrounded by some of the laziest, most incompetent teachers I've ever seen. They were hiding in our school knowing that when the kids failed, they could just blame the poverty and lack of parental involvement for the failure rather than themselves. The administration was too incompetent to do anything about it so the few good teachers we would get would leave after awhile because they were tired of admin being so clueless and doing nothing to get rid of the dead weight.

Now, like others, I work at a school closer to home. I left that previous school because I got tired of watching the administration fail so spectacularly. The year I left, the principal got the boot for being unable to raise SOL scores and a new one came in. Things are no better. The teachers are still not held accountable. But the school I'm at now is one of the ones where the kids come from middle to upper class homes and pretty much always pass the SOLs. I've seen better teaching here and more passion among the staff than I ever did at my last school. Don't get me wrong, we've definitely had some duds. But the difference between my last school and this one is that if you suck here, admin basically asks you to leave.

[Anonymous]

I hear you. I, too, taught in a low-income neighborhood in a school that certainly wasn't racking up the awards, but those kids worked so hard and most of the teachers were super-motivated and worked hard for their students' benefit.

Now my kids go to a "great" public school, and I actually think it sort of sucks. Their classroom teachers have been great, but it's the type of school that rests on the awards it won five years ago. Rampant bullying, too much testing, the same insane math curriculum that I guess we're all dealing with. There's no way the principal knows who any of my kids are -- and they are nice, smart, involved kids.

[Anonymous]

Everyone seems to be using examples of ELEMENTARY schools that are low/high income.

Don't you think things change in HS?

[Anonymous]

As an UMC family in a low-rated FCPS pyramid, people often ask why we don’t move for “better” schools. They imply that we’re doing our kids a disservice by not sending them to the higher SES school.

My children are performing well in school, seem happy and well-adjusted, and they have friends from all walks of life. They know that some families have to work very hard for the little that they have. I like that my kids don’t view our UMC life as the norm, and they aren’t exposed to the materialism that I’ve heard about at other schools.

With few exceptions, my children have had excellent teachers. While our schools have a harder time recruiting parent volunteers and providing a lot of extras, the teachers go the extra mile to help students achieve.

As they move on to high school, I think my children will be able to “try on” more activities than they would be able to at a more competitive school. That’s a plus to me.

[Anonymous]

My kids went to both an over 50% F&RL school and a very wealthy public school in the same district. I will not argue with you that the teachers in the poorer school were probably better skilled teachers. But my kids thrived more in the wealthy school. They don't need someone super skilled to teach them something 10 different ways. 3 ways or even 1 way was adequate for them to grasp and run with the concept. So, while the poorer school maybe "better" by the measure of teacher skill, the wealthier school was better for my kids to learn more faster. I get as a teacher you might prefer it the other way around.

[Anonymous]

Military family here, with 4 kids, and we've moved a LOT. We've experienced the entire gamut being discussed here and my personal opinion is that you just can't generalize like this. We had great/engaged teachers are low rated schools and the same at highly rated schools. So while I get the sentiment I don't think you should argue that teachers at Title 1 schools work harder/are better. That's just OP's experience and perception - having 4 kids go through FIVE different elementary schools I would argue that it far more teacher specific than school specific for many.