Two of DCPS's biggest challenges going forward
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
I'm not going to make any excuses for DCPS's poor performance in educating children over the past decades, but let's admit they've had their share of challenges (self-imposed and otherwise). The current administration is saddled with the impacts from decisions and past events/dynamics that makes improvements difficult going forward. In my humble opinion, here are two issues that make meaningful improvements near impossible: 1. the infiltration of charter schools, and 2. OOB process/lottery.
Charter schools complicate matters for DCPS. For one thing, it makes it harder to efficiently direct capital investment and personnel/programming for the future because the number and location of children to be served is a moving target. In short, there's no coordination and central planning between DCPS and charters so there is the chance of ever-more massive misallocation of resources. A great example of this is the charter school that's setting up shop directly across the street from a DCPS school. Another issue as I understand it is that charters can play by different rules, like removing disruptive children during the school year whereas DCPS must take all comers. From a performance perspective, this is a tremendous advantage for charters in artificially boosting test scores. Therefore, more and more parents will choose charters all things being equal as time goes on. As for the OOB process, it might have been a good idea at the time, but it's turning out to be a terrible decision. Now that the District's school-age population is rising, the faults in the system are being exposed and they will only get bigger as time goes on. As it currently 'functions', the OOB lottery serves only to divide the city's residents and forces all parents to scrabble like crabs up the side of a bucket to the few well-performing options. What do you believe to be DCPS's biggest challenges going forward? |
Anonymous
| Children with a lack of educated parents. The cycle continues, funding, OOB, charter, reform, initiative, incentives be damned. The cycle is very, very difficult to break on a systemic level. |
Anonymous
But here is the hugest most fundamental flaw with your statement: DCPS had decades of opportunities to educate students and get better results before there were any charter schools. How are charters now one of the biggest barriers, when for decades there were no charters and the schools were still awful overall? How can you say "Ok, there were mistakes made, but now these are the biggest problems"?? If the biggest barriers before charters existed were not fully addressed, then how can you point to a new factor as the biggest barrier now? That makes absolutely no sense. Even in the last 5 years as charters have blown up, what has been the barrier to DCPS being much more successful? And on OOB, the more popular DCPS schools get, the fewer OOB students get in. How is THAT one of the biggest obstacles to DCPS improving ALL the schools so other neighborhood schools are more desireable? |
Anonymous
|
Charters and OOB options are pretty much the only reasons my neighborhood has become popular with middle class families.
I think the huge numbers of poor children and resulting challenges is the biggest issue for DCPS. |
Anonymous
|
1) Increasing inequality. Parents who have been failed by the education system, cannot access the economy and do not know how to help their children. 2) Integrating immigrant children. I am pro-immigrant, think we need to grant amnesty, but too many kids live in a legal limbo that limits their parents from helping them. There are at least a dozen schools in DC now that have high second language groups that need significant supports. |
Anonymous
|
I think that DCPS faces a confidence challenge from middle and upper middle class families. For obvious reasons, no one is willing to commit en masse to the "experiment". Even the most dedicated parents are still ready to jump ship the second their child is accepted somewhere "better" or they hit whatever magic brick wall they've identified - whether that's second grade, third grade, middle school, or whatever.
I would love to see an en masse commitment of the higher SES higher education level families to a) stay at the schools past kindergarten, b) work with the "other" families to engage, and c) pressure individual schools to make improvements. I also think that the crumbling facilities are demoralizing for kids. It's hard to care about education in a school building that is disgusting, overly hot or cold, or whatever else. It would be nice if DCPS could accelerate their renovation plans. |
Anonymous
|
I think the challenges are:
1. The teachers union- they rather flex their muscle to keep the status quo than focus on educating the kids. Teachers can come in late and sleep during class and you can't get rid of them. Charters don't tolerate this BS. 2. Indifferent parents. This label is applicable to single moms from the hood and/or affluent gentrifiers who don't get involved. 3.Lackluster blase' programs. I want dual language expeditionary learning. A charter offers this and a dual-by-default Tools of the Mind afterthought can't compete. 4. Too many kids that need extra- poor SES that need extra services to get them up to basic par, too many kids that need ESOL, too many kids that need IEPs etc... We didn't have all of this baloney back in the day. Everyone's "right" to everything for free is collapsing the system. People need to get honest and/or wake up. |
Anonymous
| The expensive DC real estate market is also driving out many solidly middle class parents. I am willing to take a chance on an up and coming school but I am not willing to take a chance on some of the neighborhoods. |
Anonymous
|
Anonymous
That may be true, but I only think partially. A lot of the baby-boom parents (parents of kids born from like 2008 through current or whatever the "official" thing is) bought as singletons in the late 90s and early 2000s. So we already own our homes. Hence, the current market doesn't matter. It's people who rented during those times with thoughts of moving on, but didn't that have that issue. However, it's expensive in close-in areas outside of DC proper as well. So, the folks that have this as an issue aren't going to hit a home run just stepping out of the confines. I think those that know this are working hard to making staying worthwhile. That's why upper Petworth, Brightwood, Woodside, etc... are catching on and gentrifying big time now. |
Anonymous
Damn poor people, just make them go away, it will be so much better if they could disapear. Wow, now I feel better. |
Anonymous
| The challenge that no developing school can get traction if its best students are clawing to escape for options in Ward 3. |
Anonymous
| 12:29, don't you have that backwards? Please have that backwards. |
Anonymous
1-3 make sense, but your 4 is way off. How do you conclude that the number of kids who need ESL or Special Education help are part of the reason DCPS schools are still struggling so much? When middle class people on DCUM complain about their neighborhood schools, they never mention Special Ed or ESL as what they think is messed up. And yes some kids do need services to get them up to par, but you canNOT equate "poor SES" with being behind. Ward 7 and 8 schools have plenty of students who are very low SES but still legitimately on grade level. And it's not "everyone's right to everything for free" that is collapsing the system. In DC it's much more that we're not making the most of the resources we do have. Highest per pupil allotment in the US - there are urban school districts that have the same problems, get less money, and do much better. The costs of Special Ed and ESL are nowhere near the top of the "What's really bringing DCPS down" list. |
Anonymous
Really? If that's true, then how do you explain the rising profiles of schools like Tubman, Powell, JO Wilson, and Garrison (Garrison which was going to be shut down for under-enrollment just a few years ago and now has only 3 open slots total)? The biggest differences in all of those schools are 1) school leadership and 2) dramatically increased parent involvement. If no developing school can get traction, how do you explain the traction of those schools and others that have increased interest and enrollment in the last few years? |