Two of DCPS's biggest challenges going forward

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Poor performers at Central Office and at the Principal's level in many schools.

2) The teachers union.

Oh good grief. What is your proof that the teachers union is to blame for anything. WTU is such a weak union. We don't have tenure. We have the most punitive evaluation system in the country. We have very little due process, if any. And DCPS fires hundreds of teachers each year. What are you talking about?

It's so bizarre to me that anyone anywhere ever thought tenure was a good idea for teachers. Teachers complaining about not having tenure is like me complaining about not being able to get drunk at lunch. Of course you don't have tenure. Why would you?

Actually, we never did have tenure. Tenure is something that some college professors have. Teachers could always be fired for cause. All we had was some due process. Now that has been eroded.

True, DCPS teachers never had that kind of tenure. But it was NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to *actually* get bad teachers out of schools that year after year showed awful results. Guess who was protecting them and making it difficult for Principal after Principal and Chancellor after Chancellor to fire them? WTU. What you refer to as "some due process" actually protected a crazy number of truly horrible teachers. Without WTU, there would probably not be more than a handful of charters in DC, although now that the charter train is out of the station, even IMPACT and other ways of moving out poorly performing teachers are not slowing the charter ride down.

Do you have any data to back this up or are you just repeating something you've heard and read from other union-bashers? And if what you say it true, after firing hundreds of teachers, good as well as bad, is DCPS any better than it was before?

I have seen wonderful teachers leave, either voluntarily or IMPACTed out, and I also see real duds, in my own building, that not only have kept their jobs, but have been given cash rewards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Poor performers at Central Office and at the Principal's level in many schools.

2) The teachers union.

Oh good grief. What is your proof that the teachers union is to blame for anything. WTU is such a weak union. We don't have tenure. We have the most punitive evaluation system in the country. We have very little due process, if any. And DCPS fires hundreds of teachers each year. What are you talking about?

It's so bizarre to me that anyone anywhere ever thought tenure was a good idea for teachers. Teachers complaining about not having tenure is like me complaining about not being able to get drunk at lunch. Of course you don't have tenure. Why would you?

Actually, we never did have tenure. Tenure is something that some college professors have. Teachers could always be fired for cause. All we had was some due process. Now that has been eroded.

Thanks for the clarification. I guess I used the word "tenure" to refer to the due process that you mention. A poster up-thread (apparently a teacher) wrote "now we don't have tenure" in a way that I perceived as complaining. I may have misunderstood.

However, I've also discussed this issue at length with a teacher friend who is active in the union and is a staunch defender of what he perceives as teachers' right to a system of strict due process which, by design, makes it really tough to fire them. According to my friend, this is to protect teachers from political retribution. He claims that this never has caused any problems with teacher quality because it was possible to get rid of bad teachers during a probationary period.

This point of view seems absurd to me on its face.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Poor performers at Central Office and at the Principal's level in many schools.

2) The teachers union.

Oh good grief. What is your proof that the teachers union is to blame for anything. WTU is such a weak union. We don't have tenure. We have the most punitive evaluation system in the country. We have very little due process, if any. And DCPS fires hundreds of teachers each year. What are you talking about?

It's so bizarre to me that anyone anywhere ever thought tenure was a good idea for teachers. Teachers complaining about not having tenure is like me complaining about not being able to get drunk at lunch. Of course you don't have tenure. Why would you?

Actually, we never did have tenure. Tenure is something that some college professors have. Teachers could always be fired for cause. All we had was some due process. Now that has been eroded.

True, DCPS teachers never had that kind of tenure. But it was NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to *actually* get bad teachers out of schools that year after year showed awful results. Guess who was protecting them and making it difficult for Principal after Principal and Chancellor after Chancellor to fire them? WTU. What you refer to as "some due process" actually protected a crazy number of truly horrible teachers. Without WTU, there would probably not be more than a handful of charters in DC, although now that the charter train is out of the station, even IMPACT and other ways of moving out poorly performing teachers are not slowing the charter ride down.

Do you have any data to back this up or are you just repeating something you've heard and read from other union-bashers? And if what you say it true, after firing hundreds of teachers, good as well as bad, is DCPS any better than it was before?

I have seen wonderful teachers leave, either voluntarily or IMPACTed out, and I also see real duds, in my own building, that not only have kept their jobs, but have been given cash rewards.

Data? No, probably because it would be extremely difficult to measure how many teachers DCPS attempted to fire but couldn't. Personal experience working in DCPS? Yes. Lived it, did not hear it from a friend of a friend. And I can't answer your question for the whole school system re: whether it's any better now, but I can say that a few entrenched staff at my 3 schools that were terrible but couldn't be gotten rid of, they're now gone. So yes, we're better off now.

[Anonymous]

The biggest problem is that no one can decide what the problems are.

But seriously, one side's problem is the other side's solution. Because no one can agree on what the problems are, no solutions can be pursued that suit everybody.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The biggest problem is that no one can decide what the problems are.

But seriously, one side's problem is the other side's solution. Because no one can agree on what the problems are, no solutions can be pursued that suit everybody.

And yet decisions have to be made and improvements attempted. Not changing anything because there's no universally accepted solution is unacceptable. That's why it's such a mess, it's so so complex. But those in charge must do their best to understand the problems, study solutions, and act. You will never plead everyone.

[Anonymous]

A few observations from a New Yorker:

Now, we just moved here and I have no claim to being an expert, but a few things really stand out for me--

Your "crumbling" facilities are a whole lot less crumbling than most New York schools' crumbling facilities. Even in wealthy areas.

Your class sizes are A LOT smaller. What's the cap on class size for elementary here--25? In New York it's 32. Likewise, most of your schools are smaller. In terms of academics, I have no idea yet. But I just felt that was worth pointing out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Poor performers at Central Office and at the Principal's level in many schools.

2) The teachers union.

Oh good grief. What is your proof that the teachers union is to blame for anything. WTU is such a weak union. We don't have tenure. We have the most punitive evaluation system in the country. We have very little due process, if any. And DCPS fires hundreds of teachers each year. What are you talking about?

It's so bizarre to me that anyone anywhere ever thought tenure was a good idea for teachers. Teachers complaining about not having tenure is like me complaining about not being able to get drunk at lunch. Of course you don't have tenure. Why would you?

Actually, we never did have tenure. Tenure is something that some college professors have. Teachers could always be fired for cause. All we had was some due process. Now that has been eroded.

True, DCPS teachers never had that kind of tenure. But it was NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to *actually* get bad teachers out of schools that year after year showed awful results. Guess who was protecting them and making it difficult for Principal after Principal and Chancellor after Chancellor to fire them? WTU. What you refer to as "some due process" actually protected a crazy number of truly horrible teachers. Without WTU, there would probably not be more than a handful of charters in DC, although now that the charter train is out of the station, even IMPACT and other ways of moving out poorly performing teachers are not slowing the charter ride down.

I get it - you're a charter booster - and charters don't have unions (yet) and charters just recently beat DCPS in the score game -- by a very little - and not because of the union, but because they can take kids from all over town, from families of better means. The charters that have mainly kids from their own (poor) neighborhoods are not doing very well.
And did you know that teachers often move from charter to DCPS for the higher pay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Poor performers at Central Office and at the Principal's level in many schools.

2) The teachers union.

Oh good grief. What is your proof that the teachers union is to blame for anything. WTU is such a weak union. We don't have tenure. We have the most punitive evaluation system in the country. We have very little due process, if any. And DCPS fires hundreds of teachers each year. What are you talking about?

It's so bizarre to me that anyone anywhere ever thought tenure was a good idea for teachers. Teachers complaining about not having tenure is like me complaining about not being able to get drunk at lunch. Of course you don't have tenure. Why would you?

Actually, we never did have tenure. Tenure is something that some college professors have. Teachers could always be fired for cause. All we had was some due process. Now that has been eroded.

True, DCPS teachers never had that kind of tenure. But it was NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to *actually* get bad teachers out of schools that year after year showed awful results. Guess who was protecting them and making it difficult for Principal after Principal and Chancellor after Chancellor to fire them? WTU. What you refer to as "some due process" actually protected a crazy number of truly horrible teachers. Without WTU, there would probably not be more than a handful of charters in DC, although now that the charter train is out of the station, even IMPACT and other ways of moving out poorly performing teachers are not slowing the charter ride down.

I get it - you're a charter booster - and charters don't have unions (yet) and charters just recently beat DCPS in the score game -- by a very little - and not because of the union, but because they can take kids from all over town, from families of better means. The charters that have mainly kids from their own (poor) neighborhoods are not doing very well.
And did you know that teachers often move from charter to DCPS for the higher pay?

DCPS scores are significantly helped by the JKLMM cohort. Charters enroll few JKLMM catchment area students. Thus the charter population is less favorable for high test scores compared to charters, and charter test scores are all the more impressive for not having the JKLMM cohort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Poor performers at Central Office and at the Principal's level in many schools.

2) The teachers union.

Oh good grief. What is your proof that the teachers union is to blame for anything. WTU is such a weak union. We don't have tenure. We have the most punitive evaluation system in the country. We have very little due process, if any. And DCPS fires hundreds of teachers each year. What are you talking about?

It's so bizarre to me that anyone anywhere ever thought tenure was a good idea for teachers. Teachers complaining about not having tenure is like me complaining about not being able to get drunk at lunch. Of course you don't have tenure. Why would you?

Actually, we never did have tenure. Tenure is something that some college professors have. Teachers could always be fired for cause. All we had was some due process. Now that has been eroded.

True, DCPS teachers never had that kind of tenure. But it was NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to *actually* get bad teachers out of schools that year after year showed awful results. Guess who was protecting them and making it difficult for Principal after Principal and Chancellor after Chancellor to fire them? WTU. What you refer to as "some due process" actually protected a crazy number of truly horrible teachers. Without WTU, there would probably not be more than a handful of charters in DC, although now that the charter train is out of the station, even IMPACT and other ways of moving out poorly performing teachers are not slowing the charter ride down.

I get it - you're a charter booster - and charters don't have unions (yet) and charters just recently beat DCPS in the score game -- by a very little - and not because of the union, but because they can take kids from all over town, from families of better means. The charters that have mainly kids from their own (poor) neighborhoods are not doing very well.
And did you know that teachers often move from charter to DCPS for the higher pay?

DCPS scores are significantly helped by the JKLMM cohort. Charters enroll few JKLMM catchment area students. Thus the charter population is less favorable for high test scores compared to charters, and charter test scores are all the more impressive for not having the JKLMM cohort.

Umm, please show me statistical evidence about the demographics of students enrolled in charters, because I'm pretty sure that some high performers (Yu Ying, Mundo Verde, Creative Minds, etc.) serve similar populations to WOTP schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Poor performers at Central Office and at the Principal's level in many schools.

2) The teachers union.

Oh good grief. What is your proof that the teachers union is to blame for anything. WTU is such a weak union. We don't have tenure. We have the most punitive evaluation system in the country. We have very little due process, if any. And DCPS fires hundreds of teachers each year. What are you talking about?

It's so bizarre to me that anyone anywhere ever thought tenure was a good idea for teachers. Teachers complaining about not having tenure is like me complaining about not being able to get drunk at lunch. Of course you don't have tenure. Why would you?

Actually, we never did have tenure. Tenure is something that some college professors have. Teachers could always be fired for cause. All we had was some due process. Now that has been eroded.

True, DCPS teachers never had that kind of tenure. But it was NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to *actually* get bad teachers out of schools that year after year showed awful results. Guess who was protecting them and making it difficult for Principal after Principal and Chancellor after Chancellor to fire them? WTU. What you refer to as "some due process" actually protected a crazy number of truly horrible teachers. Without WTU, there would probably not be more than a handful of charters in DC, although now that the charter train is out of the station, even IMPACT and other ways of moving out poorly performing teachers are not slowing the charter ride down.

I get it - you're a charter booster - and charters don't have unions (yet) and charters just recently beat DCPS in the score game -- by a very little - and not because of the union, but because they can take kids from all over town, from families of better means. The charters that have mainly kids from their own (poor) neighborhoods are not doing very well.
And did you know that teachers often move from charter to DCPS for the higher pay?

You'd like to over-simplify and dismiss my points by just labelling me, but it's not that simple, and no, this isn't about charter boosting. And DC history more than proves my points are valid. My points have nothing to do with opinions about charters and everything to with DCPS's decades of poor performance before charters even existed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Poor performers at Central Office and at the Principal's level in many schools.

2) The teachers union.

Oh good grief. What is your proof that the teachers union is to blame for anything. WTU is such a weak union. We don't have tenure. We have the most punitive evaluation system in the country. We have very little due process, if any. And DCPS fires hundreds of teachers each year. What are you talking about?

It's so bizarre to me that anyone anywhere ever thought tenure was a good idea for teachers. Teachers complaining about not having tenure is like me complaining about not being able to get drunk at lunch. Of course you don't have tenure. Why would you?

Actually, we never did have tenure. Tenure is something that some college professors have. Teachers could always be fired for cause. All we had was some due process. Now that has been eroded.

True, DCPS teachers never had that kind of tenure. But it was NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to *actually* get bad teachers out of schools that year after year showed awful results. Guess who was protecting them and making it difficult for Principal after Principal and Chancellor after Chancellor to fire them? WTU. What you refer to as "some due process" actually protected a crazy number of truly horrible teachers. Without WTU, there would probably not be more than a handful of charters in DC, although now that the charter train is out of the station, even IMPACT and other ways of moving out poorly performing teachers are not slowing the charter ride down.

I get it - you're a charter booster - and charters don't have unions (yet) and charters just recently beat DCPS in the score game -- by a very little - and not because of the union, but because they can take kids from all over town, from families of better means. The charters that have mainly kids from their own (poor) neighborhoods are not doing very well.
And did you know that teachers often move from charter to DCPS for the higher pay?

DCPS scores are significantly helped by the JKLMM cohort. Charters enroll few JKLMM catchment area students. Thus the charter population is less favorable for high test scores compared to charters, and charter test scores are all the more impressive for not having the JKLMM cohort.

Umm, please show me statistical evidence about the demographics of students enrolled in charters, because I'm pretty sure that some high performers (Yu Ying, Mundo Verde, Creative Minds, etc.) serve similar populations to WOTP schools.

You really have no idea how this works, do you? JKLMM schools are 90+% IB students overall. Charters don't have neighborhood preference, so they truly represent all parts of the District, although travel of course becomes a consideration so probably more people apply from reasonable travel distance than from far away. But they have vastly more ward-diversity than any JKLMM. Apparently you also aren't at any of the charter schools you named, because if you were, you'd know that the Ward 3 or JKLMM students are vastly in the minority, where they got in at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You really have no idea how this works, do you? JKLMM schools are 90+% IB students overall. Charters don't have neighborhood preference, so they truly represent all parts of the District, although travel of course becomes a consideration so probably more people apply from reasonable travel distance than from far away. But they have vastly more ward-diversity than any JKLMM. Apparently you also aren't at any of the charter schools you named, because if you were, you'd know that the Ward 3 or JKLMM students are vastly in the minority, where they got in at all.

If you're going to try to call somebody out, you better come correct.

Let's break it down with the stats:
Murch IB percentage: 66%
Janney IB percentage: 92%
Key IB percentage: 84%
Mann IB percentage: 86%
Lafayette IB percentage: 85%

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Compare.aspx?tab=1&school=254,272,273,287 (This link does not include stats for Lafayette because the DCPS tool only allows you to compare four schools)

Even a cursory glance at these numbers shows that the statistic you presented is wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You really have no idea how this works, do you? JKLMM schools are 90+% IB students overall. Charters don't have neighborhood preference, so they truly represent all parts of the District, although travel of course becomes a consideration so probably more people apply from reasonable travel distance than from far away. But they have vastly more ward-diversity than any JKLMM. Apparently you also aren't at any of the charter schools you named, because if you were, you'd know that the Ward 3 or JKLMM students are vastly in the minority, where they got in at all.

If you're going to try to call somebody out, you better come correct.

Let's break it down with the stats:
Murch IB percentage: 66%
Janney IB percentage: 92%
Key IB percentage: 84%
Mann IB percentage: 86%
Lafayette IB percentage: 85%

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Compare.aspx?tab=1&school=254,272,273,287 (This link does not include stats for Lafayette because the DCPS tool only allows you to compare four schools)

Even a cursory glance at these numbers shows that the statistic you presented is wrong.

Different poster, but even if other PP was wrong about 90%, take your own advice and come correct with the corresponding charter school %s of students who are IB for JKLMM but choose charters. YOu claimed upthread that it's their presence that helps boost charters, but their numbers are hardly big enough to have that effect. Come correct with the charter data that proves your point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You really have no idea how this works, do you? JKLMM schools are 90+% IB students overall. Charters don't have neighborhood preference, so they truly represent all parts of the District, although travel of course becomes a consideration so probably more people apply from reasonable travel distance than from far away. But they have vastly more ward-diversity than any JKLMM. Apparently you also aren't at any of the charter schools you named, because if you were, you'd know that the Ward 3 or JKLMM students are vastly in the minority, where they got in at all.

If you're going to try to call somebody out, you better come correct.

Let's break it down with the stats:
Murch IB percentage: 66%
Janney IB percentage: 92%
Key IB percentage: 84%
Mann IB percentage: 86%
Lafayette IB percentage: 85%

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Compare.aspx?tab=1&school=254,272,273,287 (This link does not include stats for Lafayette because the DCPS tool only allows you to compare four schools)

Even a cursory glance at these numbers shows that the statistic you presented is wrong.

Different poster, but even if other PP was wrong about 90%, take your own advice and come correct with the corresponding charter school %s of students who are IB for JKLMM but choose charters. YOu claimed upthread that it's their presence that helps boost charters, but their numbers are hardly big enough to have that effect. Come correct with the charter data that proves your point.

Yeah. Actually, if you took the time to read my post and analyze it, I asked for the PP to provide evidence for their claim, which they didn't. They only provided a sweeping statement that they painted as truth. I called them on it, and provided actual statistics to show how their point was invalid.

You should come correct, and not read meaning into my post so that you can do your best to create the wittiest comeback. It didn't work. However, I will concede that in my first post, I was vague when I spoke about demographics, which I think is where a lot of the disconnect lies.