Poll for Teachers. Your top 5 reasons for metro D.C poor performing schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get to the point. We cannot have an open discussion about these issues if every non liberal is called a racist or biased etc. people need to stick with facts respect and open mindedness (but not in the liberal sense)

Are we reading the same thread? What is YOUR point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Both parents working, family problems/struggles, multiculturalism, etc

No. There is no evidence that supports this.

And "multiculturalism" is a problem? What does that even mean?

[Anonymous]

It is based on the students background. In the MCPS W cluster you have a lot of educated and ambitious parents who set high standards. We admit this is supported by high IQs as well as high emotional intelligence Furthermore they are not distracted by students from lower SES.

[Anonymous]

It is multiculturism going too far too fast

[Anonymous]

Trump will fix this when he explains how a good work effort benefits everyone

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dolly Parton's excellent free book program has expanded to DC and to many states. That might address part of what 17:13 was referring to, lack of books.

But someone has to go online and request to be part of the program to get the books. If the families don't care about books and education, you need someone to do this for the family. Maybe kids should sign up through/at school.

The program starts at birth to age 5. Maybe the hospitals could help mothers register.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few random thoughts. I am an ESOL teacher and work in a school with a high FARMS rate.

1. Pre-K is great for getting kids used to being in school. That is helpful, as when they get to K they don't have to take the time to learn how to stand in a line, sit on the carpet etc. And, yes, they do have to learn those things. Real instruction begins the first week of school, and if students do not know how to behave in a school setting then their energy goes to learning how to do that, not the academic concepts being taught.

That being said, Pre-K cannot cure everything. I just assessed all of our K students (not just ESOL) on their ability to write their name, ID shapes, colors, numbers to 31, letters and letter sounds. Many of the students who had a year of Pre-K still knew very few of these concepts. Reinforcement at home is key, and it doesn't happen in many families. What we're finding is that many parents don't really engage in much vocabulary-rich conversation with their kids. And by vocabulary-rich at this age, I mean things like talking about the colors of the food they're eating or that the TV is shaped like a rectangle.

2. This kind of goes along with my last point, but many people lump ELL students into one pile. There is a huge difference between kids who come to school with little or no English but have a very good grasp of their native language. Those students will need some time to learn the language, but the foundation is there. It's a lot easier to learn vocabulary and concepts in English when you already have the background knowledge even though it's in a different language. It's called positive transfer. These students make progress very quickly and catch up to grade level after a year or two. These types of students are pretty rare in my school, but we do have a few who are like this.

Then there are the students who were born in the US, can speak and understand English just fine, but come to school with extremely limited background knowledge. They come to Pre-K or K at 4 or 5 with very little vocabulary. They need to learn from the ground up. The curriculum (at least in my district) assumes that students have a certain amount of background knowledge from which to draw, but they just don't. So then content becomes more and more in depth and students fall farther and farther behind. Like 4th graders who are learning about different types of government, but don't know what a city, state, country or continent is and think that Barack Obama is the president of the whole world. This happens with ELLs and also students who don't speak or understand any language other than English.

My friend teaches in a school with an affluent population. We teach the same curriculum, but her students have such a large amount of background knowledge and experiences from which to draw. She may need to fill in a few gaps here and there, but at my school we're pretty much filling in gaps so much that the purpose of the unit ends up being lost. But if we try to restructure the unit so that kids will understand and actually get something out of it we get in trouble for not following the curriculum to the letter.

3. Teachers are pulled in way too many directions. Class sizes are large, considerable behavior problems are expected to be handled in class by the teacher, special ed. instruction and accommodations must be given by the teacher with little support, and there can be up to 6 reading groups in a class. It's just very difficult to have the time to give each student exactly what they need. Every lesson needs so much differentiation, and planning time is taken up by meetings, meetings and more meetings. Teachers at my school have 1 individual planning time per week. The rest is long-range common planning and data chats. Students who are below grade level must be receiving interventions and those interventions must be documented. If a student does not respond to interventions after a certain period of time a building-wide meeting with the parent is called. Often times the parent does not show up even though they said they would be there the day before. After a certain point, the process is stalled without any parent cooperation and students who may have some level of learning disability don't receive the help they need.

Teachers and schools keep being asked to do more and more. The teachers I work with are very dedicated to their students and want the best for them. But they are staying at school until 8pm and forgoing time with their own families in order to get everything done. There is strong pressure from administration in my school to sponsor after school clubs since our students don't get many extracurricular opportunities. There is no stipend money for these clubs, so teachers are expected to volunteer their time. We are also asked to sign up for slots during the summer to come in and serve lunch since our school qualifies for the summer lunch program but there isn't staff provided with the program. Teachers by nature are usually pretty generous people, but at some point enough is enough. The lines have blurred between teacher and caregiver.

These thoughts aren't in any particular order since I just wrote stream of consciousness style. Maybe I'll be back to give a more concise response and actually list top 5 reasons.

I am the teacher who posted previously and I also teach ESOL. I agree with everything you wrote especially about how we are expected to do more and more of what I consider the role of a parent. I went to my kid's BTS night and it was packed. Standing room only. I'm exhausted and yet I went to BTS night b/c I care and want to know about my child's teachers, curriculum, etc. My school's BTS night often has entire grade level teams (3 classrooms) where not one parent attends. 90%+ of the students who attend my school live within walking distance. When I leave BTS night, I see parents sitting on stoops and sitting out in front yards. If you can't spend an hour walking down the street to your child's school once a year, what does that say to your child?

Do you think it would help if the lower SES and/or ESL students weren't so concentrated? Again, I don't know how you address this within DC proper, since so many affluent families have left the system all together. But in neighboring counties that have more affluent students attending public school, wouldn't having the ESL and low SES students less concentrated make teaching easier because you wouldn't be quite so overwhelmed, and you would have more time for differentiation? Wouldn't it make staffing clubs and events easier if you had a larger pool of parents who could fund and/or staff clubs and events? Wouldn't it improve the academic culture if the majority of the parents did prioritize education and attend events and expect excellence from their children?

Yes it would greatly help. Once you have a school with >40% poverty it is very hard to make improvements in the school. The problems are just too big and widespread. The solution you are proposing is basically busing and/or a blind lottery system.

However, If you do that the high SES people will leave the system (either by moving or going private) and you will be left with an even lower base of students to work with.

Some schools have adoption programs where a high SES school will adopt a low SES school and provide PTA resources, volunteers, even have exchange programs. That helps but still the issues as I initially stated is. Once a school passes the 40% poverty mark there is almost nothing that will make the school successful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dolly Parton's excellent free book program has expanded to DC and to many states. That might address part of what 17:13 was referring to, lack of books.

But someone has to go online and request to be part of the program to get the books. If the families don't care about books and education, you need someone to do this for the family. Maybe kids should sign up through/at school.

The program starts at birth to age 5. Maybe the hospitals could help mothers register.

YES! I work in ECE in ward 7 and when an organization was giving away books, all you had to do was go pick them up at a pretty convenient location, NOT ONE of our parents went to pick them up. I disagree about parents not caring about books/education though. Our families have so many other constant crises going on (Mental health, substance abuse, housing issues, health problems, domestic violence, etc) that education often appears takes a back burner because those things must be dealt with immediately. It's like Maslow's Pyramid: basic physical and psychological needs must be met first before higher order functions can be focused upon by an individual.

[Anonymous]

I agree with much of what has been written but would highlight:

1) Poverty: This gap can be narrowed and will result in positive changes in the long-run.

2) Parenting: Studies show that low SES parents can be trained to have more verbal/exploration conversations with their young children, read to them, etc., and that it makes a difference.

3) Teachers/admin: Finding people who are a good fit for poor-performing schools and a system that supports rather than burdens them.

Teacher, but hs/college

[Anonymous]

how and who is going to pay for it?

[Anonymous]

Do you think it would help if the lower SES and/or ESL students weren't so concentrated? Again, I don't know how you address this within DC proper, since so many affluent families have left the system all together. But in neighboring counties that have more affluent students attending public school, wouldn't having the ESL and low SES students less concentrated make teaching easier because you wouldn't be quite so overwhelmed, and you would have more time for differentiation? Wouldn't it make staffing clubs and events easier if you had a larger pool of parents who could fund and/or staff clubs and events? Wouldn't it improve the academic culture if the majority of the parents did prioritize education and attend events and expect excellence from their children?

It would greatly help with ESL if the kids were spread out more. When you have a couple of kids who don't speak English, they are motivated more because they have no one else to speak with. They learn by playing with other kids on the playground and in their neighborhoods. When you have a large segment who don't speak English, the motivation is minimal. The only place they speak English is in the classroom.

I taught in such an environment. When I had two ESL kids in my first grade classrooms, they picked English up very quickly. I'm not sure how this works if they are older. But, when I had seven or eight kids, they learned English much more slowly. Some did not learn much at all. I tried to break the kids apart--but, you really cannot do that if they are friends. Wouldn't you be more comfortable hanging with kids who speak your language? It's human nature.

As for the low SES who are behind because of lack of interest in the home, I don't think it works the same way. Sometimes, the differences are extreme. And, if the kids don't live in the same neighborhood--i.e. are bussed in--there is a division right there. If the kids don't have a language rich background, it just is hard to catch them up. Their experiences are just too different from the others. And, by language rich, I do not necessarily mean English. It is amazing how some kids do not develop basic language skills in the home. Some parents never really talk to their kids about their environment. ESL kids with a language rich experience in their own language, are able to learn English and do fine in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Both parents working, family problems/struggles, multiculturalism, etc

No. There is no evidence that supports this.

And "multiculturalism" is a problem? What does that even mean?

Multiculturalism is enriching, in my opinion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:how and who is going to pay for it?

We are already paying for it--in social welfare programs and prisons and crime and lost potential. We can pay now or we can pay later.

The benefits of a strong, healthy, educated, gainfully employed population accrue to all of us.

[Anonymous]

We are already paying for it--in social welfare programs and prisons and crime and lost potential. We can pay now or we can pay later.

The benefits of a strong, healthy, educated, gainfully employed population accrue to all of us.

The paradigm needs to change. I don't know how--but I know that it will not be solved with money. All the money spent since the War on Poverty began and we see very little improvement. In fact, it may be worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That being said, Pre-K cannot cure everything. I just assessed all of our K students (not just ESOL) on their ability to write their name, ID shapes, colors, numbers to 31, letters and letter sounds. Many of the students who had a year of Pre-K still knew very few of these concepts. Reinforcement at home is key, and it doesn't happen in many families. What we're finding is that many parents don't really engage in much vocabulary-rich conversation with their kids. And by vocabulary-rich at this age, I mean things like talking about the colors of the food they're eating or that the TV is shaped like a rectangle.

...

Then there are the students who were born in the US, can speak and understand English just fine, but come to school with extremely limited background knowledge. They come to Pre-K or K at 4 or 5 with very little vocabulary. They need to learn from the ground up. The curriculum (at least in my district) assumes that students have a certain amount of background knowledge from which to draw, but they just don't. So then content becomes more and more in depth and students fall farther and farther behind. Like 4th graders who are learning about different types of government, but don't know what a city, state, country or continent is and think that Barack Obama is the president of the whole world. This happens with ELLs and also students who don't speak or understand any language other than English.

I think these are incredibly important points that aren't well understood by many. There is an ENORMOUS difference in the way the average person of higher SES/education talks to her young children compared with how the average person of lower SES/education does. It cannot be overstated. Think about how and how much many of us talk to our toddlers and preschoolers all day long:

"Yes, that is a tricycle. Do you see how it has three wheels? One, two, three. Mommy's bicycle has only two wheels. One, two."

"Do you want to wear your purple shirt or your red shirt?" (Kid points to purple) "Purple it is! Purple is one of my favorite colors. Do you know what else is purple in this room? I see something purple on your bookshelf. Can you find it?"

"Oh my goodness, what could that loud noise be?! Did you hear it? There it is again! Let's go look. Do you think it's the trash truck? No? Maybe it's a fire truck!"

"Are you going to use your doctor kit to give me a check up? Okay. I wonder if I have a fever. Can you check my temperature with the thermometer? It goes under my tongue. No, thermometers don't go in people's nostrils." (Kid: What is a nostril?) "You know those two holes that everyone has in their noses? Those are nostrils. One nostril, two nostrils."

"Hey, look, there's the library. Maybe we can stop there on our way home. Do you remember the name of the librarian who helps us find our books? That's right, Miss Larla. What kind of books should we ask Miss Larla about?"

and on and on and on and on and on. All day, every day.

Look at the concepts and vocabulary in just those few sentences above. Now think about a home where these kind of conversations just don't take place. It is like this in many more homes than people realize. These children get to school and they are, literally, YEARS behind. And catching up is almost impossible, because the homes in which those conversations occur between adults and preschoolers become the homes in which adults and school-aged children talk about elections and the discovery of a planet in another solar system and how to calculate a batting average and what the difference is between a hurricane and a tropical storm and what ISIS is and what makes someone born a boy or a girl and why are some people transgender. And on and on and on and on and on. All day, every day. And so the children of the haves continue to pull away from the children of the have nots.

I think the culture of poverty can only be changed by trying to change the culture of *parenting* in poorer communities. But it is incredibly hard, because adults are shaped by the way they themselves were parented.

For the record, I don't believe Chinese parents talk to their kids like this (I'm white, married into a Chinese family). My DH is always shocked by how white American parents talk to their children. So, whereas as talking could help, it's not necessarily a simple cause-effect situation. In social work, it's believed that low academic achievement correlates with persistent trauma. In a way, it seems that poverty works similarly to PTSD, and PTSD-affected parents raise PTSD-affected children.