DCI or Deal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're missing the crux of the problem. No GT programs in traditional schools in this City, no law on GT education in the District, no focus on challenging the brightest kids.

The only real challenge in a public middle school can be found at BASIS, and their facilities are weak, their curriculum inflexible and their approach fairly brutal.

Outside BASIS, most of us pay to supplement, a lot.

all this talk of supplementing has me wondering:
- how do you know when/if you need to supplement
- are we talking tutors?
- how to find a good tutor that is worth the $$?

I have kids at Deal and supplement. I'm moving one to a Big3 school. Why do we supplement? 1) My kids get As at Deal with very little effort. "Little effort" this past year meaning that they had one standing assignment per week but otherwise did no homework outside of class. They never studied for a test or quiz at home. Rarely (I'd say once a month) did they do a math problem outside of school. 2) They always get 5's on the 2 PARCCs (math and ELA). They score in the 99% of the city and high 90s in their upper NW schools on the PARCC. 3) their writing (as learned in DCPS) is fairly abysmal.
So we supplement at home and during the summer with extra ELA work and writing and they take writing classes outside of school during the year and during the summer.
I know MANY Deal parents who are supplementing heavily this summer. Most don't advertise it (and others look at us like we have two heads) but there is a ton of summer supplementing going on. Many kids taking classes outside of Deal, doing work-books, working with tutors, etc. etc.

This … and then Deal teachers or any teachers at the west of the park schools were much of this goes on get credit, test scores on PARCC etc and the rest of the city (admin) look to copy what they are doing for the other schools, when in reality it is nothing, it is the parents. This is why this whole testing and comparing schools is ridiculous, it means neither low or high students get what they need and in reality it is all a farce, or as DC teachers like to say "smoke and mirrors". The involved parents know the real deal with DCPS.

+1

DCPS is a disaster. The sooner you accept that fact, the easier it is to move forward with what choices you then have.

You're painting with too broad a brush. There are points of light in DCPS, and you can make programs work under certain circumstances. I'd rather have my kid at Deal than at a Big whatever private school where he learns to be an entitled snob while our family struggles financially. But we don't pretend that DCPS is doing a good job and we opt out of the dumb PARCC. We do a good job ourselves by monitoring what he learns closely and supplementing extensively, to the tune of around 10K a year. We don't plan to stay in DCPS for high school if he doesn't crack Walls, which looks like a step up from Deal academically.

[Anonymous]

PP, where will you move to if your DC does not get into Walls? With everything you are already doing, it sounds like your DC should be a shoo-in.
This works fine if the parents are engaged and are supportive, and know where to go and what to do. What about parents who might be new to the country, do not have a college degree, yet still would like their kids to succeed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It’s obvious you don’t have a child in a language immersion school in DC or understand how languages work.

If there is no native speaking parent at home, the chances of that child being truly proficient in the language (vocabulary, reading, writing, etc..) depends not only on the child’s abilities but also the support outside of school. Just learning it in class is rarely enough. Outside support could be native speaking nannies, immersion camps, study abroad, etc...

So kids who start early and have native speaking parents usually do better. Just as kids who start early, don’t have native speaking parents but whose parents do lots of support outside of school tend to do better. Kids who start later (not all kids get in at preK), who are weak in ELA, or don’t have outside support are usually not as strong.

So you have different kids at different abilities and why DCI offers different level classes.

I see some parents at WIS or Rochambeau who value an additional language and enroll their kids there, in some cases the parents do not speak the language at all and not all of them have the resources to hire nannies, camps or study abroad. However their kids end up speaking the language very well.

Oh come on. Ridiculous to compare WIS or Rochambeau to DCI. They are established expensive private schools with not only much more resources and smaller class sizes with more individualized instruction but also much higher percentage of high SES kids. Plus all those parents are committed to their child being bilingual and why they chose the school. In addition, a much larger percentage of parents are native speaking.

You want to play that unfair game, then let’s compare DEAL middle school to Sidwell’s or St. Albans then.

It's not ridiculous or unfair. What's ridiculous and unfair to public school families is the notion that substituting half-baked charter elementary language "immersion" and middle school "partial immersion" programs for popular neighborhood schools, particularly in great swathes of NE, is a smart move in this city.

When most of the families in "immersion" programs lack the resources, and/or the motivation, to support immersion study adequately let alone well, the results can only be poor. Throw in DC's myopic decision to fill each charter school with a single lottery (not the case in many states), which ensures that there are few native-speaking students in "immersion" programs, particularly for languages other than Spanish, and you've got a broad-based formula for weak results.

When PP's post that many DCI students speak the target languages poorly for kids who've spent as many as 8 or 9 years studying them at least 50% of the time they are enrolled in the program, they invariably get called names and told to shut up. This may make the critics feel better, but it doesn't change the boneheaded reality outlined in my first sentence. The arrangement is simply bad ed policy.

Hers a fact for you. Some parents are choosing language immersion because they don’t want their child to go to their neighborhood DCPS school where none or a very small percentage of kids are at grade level and the school ignores the kids who are at or above grade level. They are happy just having their child expose to the language and understand it. They are happy there is a better peer group. They are not committed to or expecting proficiency.

And you know what would be a “smart move”? If DCPS provided tracking or higher level classes for advanced kids. Until they do that which we all know they won’t, you can expect the charter schools and language immersion school to have high demand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're missing the crux of the problem. No GT programs in traditional schools in this City, no law on GT education in the District, no focus on challenging the brightest kids.

The only real challenge in a public middle school can be found at BASIS, and their facilities are weak, their curriculum inflexible and their approach fairly brutal.

Outside BASIS, most of us pay to supplement, a lot.

all this talk of supplementing has me wondering:
- how do you know when/if you need to supplement
- are we talking tutors?
- how to find a good tutor that is worth the $$?

I have kids at Deal and supplement. I'm moving one to a Big3 school. Why do we supplement? 1) My kids get As at Deal with very little effort. "Little effort" this past year meaning that they had one standing assignment per week but otherwise did no homework outside of class. They never studied for a test or quiz at home. Rarely (I'd say once a month) did they do a math problem outside of school. 2) They always get 5's on the 2 PARCCs (math and ELA). They score in the 99% of the city and high 90s in their upper NW schools on the PARCC. 3) their writing (as learned in DCPS) is fairly abysmal.
So we supplement at home and during the summer with extra ELA work and writing and they take writing classes outside of school during the year and during the summer.
I know MANY Deal parents who are supplementing heavily this summer. Most don't advertise it (and others look at us like we have two heads) but there is a ton of summer supplementing going on. Many kids taking classes outside of Deal, doing work-books, working with tutors, etc. etc.

This … and then Deal teachers or any teachers at the west of the park schools were much of this goes on get credit, test scores on PARCC etc and the rest of the city (admin) look to copy what they are doing for the other schools, when in reality it is nothing, it is the parents. This is why this whole testing and comparing schools is ridiculous, it means neither low or high students get what they need and in reality it is all a farce, or as DC teachers like to say "smoke and mirrors". The involved parents know the real deal with DCPS.

+1

DCPS is a disaster. The sooner you accept that fact, the easier it is to move forward with what choices you then have.

You're painting with too broad a brush. There are points of light in DCPS, and you can make programs work under certain circumstances. I'd rather have my kid at Deal than at a Big whatever private school where he learns to be an entitled snob while our family struggles financially. But we don't pretend that DCPS is doing a good job and we opt out of the dumb PARCC. We do a good job ourselves by monitoring what he learns closely and supplementing extensively, to the tune of around 10K a year. We don't plan to stay in DCPS for high school if he doesn't crack Walls, which looks like a step up from Deal academically.

I disagree with the broad generalization that all kids at private schools are entitled snobs. It depends on how the child is raised and family values.

We are planning on going private and not considering Wilson at all. We are lucky we can afford it. If you can’t afford it then that’s a valid objective reason to look at other options or move.

[Anonymous]

+1 to PP, We chose a language immersion charter because our DC would have been too bored at the DCPS schools. We where called off the waitlist
for a couple of top performing schools in upper NW and after visiting those schools and learning of the curriculum, we felt our DC was way too advanced
and would get bored. So we chose the Language immersion so our DC will at least have the challenge or learning a new language and not get bored.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1 to PP, We chose a language immersion charter because our DC would have been too bored at the DCPS schools. We where called off the waitlist
for a couple of top performing schools in upper NW and after visiting those schools and learning of the curriculum, we felt our DC was way too advanced
and would get bored. So we chose the Language immersion so our DC will at least have the challenge or learning a new language and not get bored.

I laughed so hard. Nice try there!

[Anonymous]

DCI has been an incredible experience for us. I'm glad that there are options in this city for families. I do think it's interesting that a very new school (DCI) is already being spoken about as a viable option to many long-established public and private schools. Imagine what it will be in 10 years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1 to PP, We chose a language immersion charter because our DC would have been too bored at the DCPS schools. We where called off the waitlist
for a couple of top performing schools in upper NW and after visiting those schools and learning of the curriculum, we felt our DC was way too advanced
and would get bored. So we chose the Language immersion so our DC will at least have the challenge or learning a new language and not get bored.

+1

We chose language immersion also because it’s a more challenging curriculum than the traditional curriculum besides wanting our child to be bilingual.
We did not make the decision lightly. We talked with parents who had kids in language immersion schools and also my good friend’s husband who went to one as a child. We are committed to language proficiency and lucky enough to also support it outside of school since we don’t speak the language.

[Anonymous]

Glad to amuse you, but unfortunately, for your case I am only speaking the truth. The curriculum for all DCPS school, including the top upper NW school are not very challenging....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Glad to amuse you, but unfortunately, for your case I am only speaking the truth. The curriculum for all DCPS school, including the top upper NW school are not very challenging....

Same here, we also visited an upper NW school for K that we where called off the lottery for K and found that they where covering material the my DS learned when he was 1-2 years old. He would
have been bored to death, so we went for language immersion as well. Needed more of a challenge for him

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Glad to amuse you, but unfortunately, for your case I am only speaking the truth. The curriculum for all DCPS school, including the top upper NW school are not very challenging....

Same here, we also visited an upper NW school for K that we where called off the lottery for K and found that they where covering material the my DS learned when he was 1-2 years old. He would
have been bored to death, so we went for language immersion as well. Needed more of a challenge for him

I speak 5 languages (including one of the languages rated most difficult for English speakers to learn), and I can assure you that if your child is so profoundly gifted as to be learning the important lessons of kindergarten (social skills, negotiation, auto-regulation, empathy) when s/he was 1, then your child will certainly be bored in a language immersion school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Glad to amuse you, but unfortunately, for your case I am only speaking the truth. The curriculum for all DCPS school, including the top upper NW school are not very challenging....

Same here, we also visited an upper NW school for K that we where called off the lottery for K and found that they where covering material the my DS learned when he was 1-2 years old. He would
have been bored to death, so we went for language immersion as well. Needed more of a challenge for him

It is completely fine for you to pick language immersion. But to say that: 1. all schools use the same curriculum is ridiculous and shows you spent no time in any DCPS school. 2. Thinking that what is in the curriculum you googled online is what is taught by the teacher in the classroom is ridiculous.

Not only have we been in 2 charters (elementary and DCI), but also 3 DCPS schools (2 elementary and middle) and can tell you that no school teaches the same material the same way. They are all vary not only by school but by teacher. One of the worst experiences we had was in a language immersion charter. Great curriculum, terrible instruction. We have multiple kids and have moved for schools. We are all very lucky to live in a location where you actually have a wide range of schools and a lottery where you can actually get in!

[Anonymous]

Your school-hopping speaks volumes.

[Anonymous]

I am not disagreeing that DCPS curriculum might not be very challenging. What I find funny is that you thought a lackluster immersion programme would somehow make it challenging for your kid. But to each their own.

[Anonymous]

Exactly, to each their own