Innovative Ideas to reduce educational disparity

[Anonymous]

Children of lesser means should have the same educational opportunity as the wealthy and the well off children would really grow if they expanded their multicultural experiences and exposures.

1. DCC parents often make the point that the education IS the same across the schools and as evidence they show that white UMC kids perform about the same in the good schools and the bad schools. The children of lesser means are getting the same educational opportunities as children with more means. This is a valid point. Its not an opportunity problem, its a performance problem.

2. W parents often make the point that their schools do offer rich multicultural experiences with kids from all the world, 1st generation immigrants, and many bi or tri lingual families. This is a valid point. You can't restrict your definition of multicultural experience to only poor AA/Latino.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Actually the new thinking is we need to move away from the PreK model. We are over educating our kids... meaning we are forcing children into specific structured didactic with ever increasing worse results. Children are learning dependence not independence. We have expanded helicopter parenting to helicopter life from nearly cradle to post college. Kids need unsupervised play to develop properly.

This is the reasoning behind play-based preschools, but I haven't heard that it should be applied to at-risk children as well as UMC children.

[Anonymous]

for all schools regardless of income levels of those parents adjust school day hours and have 2 teachers per class who work in shifts. School starts at 8 am and ends at 7:00pm. Academic work is mixed with extracurriculars. Change breaks to two week periods throughout the year. No summer break.

weekly computer testing for all kids with the data tracked not by the teacher but by the system. Readjust groupings of kids weekly. eventually the system will get better at predicting results and groups can be formed for longer periods of time based on average student performance. This means there could be 5 group instead of 3 - high, medium, low. The system should also generate a basic lesson plan for each group for the teacher based on the current standards and the teacher can add in if he/she wants to do so.

[Anonymous]

for all schools regardless of income levels of those parents adjust school day hours and have 2 teachers per class who work in shifts. School starts at 8 am and ends at 7:00pm.

So basically all kids should be removed from all parents and the public school system will make them all mediocre. Why stop there, why not let the public school system collect all the kids when they turn 5 and house them in dormitories. Parents can have visitation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:You need to get the parents involved. If parents can't or won't be involved, the school will never get better for most of those kids.

Involved, how?

DP.. care about the kids' education. Make sure the kids do their HW and tell the kids to get a good education. A parent doesn't necessarily have to be able to help with HW, though that definitely helps. MCPS provides Saturday school and summer classes for struggling students. I took a math summer class once in MS (not in MCPS). It enabled me to take more advanced math class in HS.

I grew up low income with parents who didn't speak English. And I was a latch key kid.

Most parents care about their kids' education, don't they?

Oh yes - definitely talk to teachers about how most parents care about their kids’ education. Putting your head in the sand is not going to solve this issue.

When my kids were at at a Focus ES, the teachers talked all the time about how there are a number of parents who don't give a crap about education. It wasn't uncommon for a teacher to never hear back from a parent even after multiple attempts to reach out to them. I was also on the PTA board and we used to hold free Math tutoring events, free Science after school programs, etc. and I hate to say it, but it was the same handful of well-to-do families who would participate. BUt when we did have the fun events like the school dance, fall festivals, those were always a packed house. So to say that most parents here care about their kids education is to me quite idealistic. Of course, what parent would say that they don't. BUt ACTION speaks louder than words. We now go to a different ES (not a title 1 or Focus school) and the level of involvement from parents compared to where we were is like night and day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:for all schools regardless of income levels of those parents adjust school day hours and have 2 teachers per class who work in shifts. School starts at 8 am and ends at 7:00pm. Academic work is mixed with extracurriculars. Change breaks to two week periods throughout the year. No summer break.

weekly computer testing for all kids with the data tracked not by the teacher but by the system. Readjust groupings of kids weekly. eventually the system will get better at predicting results and groups can be formed for longer periods of time based on average student performance. This means there could be 5 group instead of 3 - high, medium, low. The system should also generate a basic lesson plan for each group for the teacher based on the current standards and the teacher can add in if he/she wants to do so.

I'm curious what this "system" is, and where it comes from, and why it should be in charge of children's education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:for all schools regardless of income levels of those parents adjust school day hours and have 2 teachers per class who work in shifts. School starts at 8 am and ends at 7:00pm. Academic work is mixed with extracurriculars. Change breaks to two week periods throughout the year. No summer break.

weekly computer testing for all kids with the data tracked not by the teacher but by the system. Readjust groupings of kids weekly. eventually the system will get better at predicting results and groups can be formed for longer periods of time based on average student performance. This means there could be 5 group instead of 3 - high, medium, low. The system should also generate a basic lesson plan for each group for the teacher based on the current standards and the teacher can add in if he/she wants to do so.

Why bother with teachers? Just park the kids in front of the computer all day. Done.

[Anonymous]

We need to instill a college going culture starting in Elementary school and we need to make it loud and clear to ALL students and their parents. Check out what this school did in CA: https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/12/08/14colleges_ep.h30.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We need to instill a college going culture starting in Elementary school and we need to make it loud and clear to ALL students and their parents. Check out what this school did in CA: https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/12/08/14colleges_ep.h30.html

Uh, no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need to instill a college going culture starting in Elementary school and we need to make it loud and clear to ALL students and their parents. Check out what this school did in CA: https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/12/08/14colleges_ep.h30.html

Uh, no.

why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trying to think outside the box to resolve the educational disparities of MCPS, seems some schools consistently perform better, likely due to the insular nature of the well to population attending those schools.

It’s time we finally do something instead of complaining about it. Children of lesser means should have the same educational opportunity as the wealthy and the well off children would really grow if they expanded their multicultural experiences and exposures.

So this isn’t really an innovation because it’s been done before in other places but should we start to advocate for diversified schools... we already have a robust busing system all we need to do is end the practice of local based schooling (which sadly has its roots in segregation, yet has persisted). Amazing how that segregation remains today in schools, albeit more ‘economic’ than race based but we all know pervasive institutional racial discrimination leads to economic disparities and that translates to the reduced educational opportunity in the local school where the victims of systemic generational racism attend.

It cannot be that hard to develop a computer model which will place students in schools to create a balance in the schools of the wonderful diversity we have in the county. What a truly enriching experience it would be for all our young students. The only challenges I see would be potentially longer school bus commutes but I think this one is workable. We already have many of the ‘gifted’ program students traveling cross county. Sure another challenge will be some will complain, but like all change once instituted they’d get used to it.

Let’s have a good discussion and start to make our schools better for all. Please no haters here, the first step to advantageous change is constructive dialogue.

Kumbaya my loooooord, Kumbayaaaaaa.
Kumbaya my loooooord, Kumbayaaaaaa.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you did not have access to a car, would you want your child transported to a distant school based on a computer model? What if they needed a sick pick up? What if they missed the bus? How about friends and community building near home? I believe NYC attempted to open up their HSs to all students and it has been successful. Most of the kids taking advantage of the program are not the ones that the system hoped to help.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/05/nyregion/school-choice-new-york-city-high-school-admissions.html

NYC attempted to open up their HSs to all students and it has not been successful.

Chapter 220 in Milwaukee public schools bussing kids to the suburb schools failed a well; it was a multi-million dollar failure over 2 or 3 decades. Did not change inner city children's graduation rates, pregnancy rates, GPAs, AP test results nor college aspirations/accomplishments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, parental involvement is something that cannot be solved by re-engineering the districts. I live in a wealthy public school district in the NYC suburbs and even with the relatively homoegeneous student population (racially diverse but not economically diverse), it is the students whose parents feel the school district should raise and educate their kids that have the worst outcomes.

Cradle to grave public schools will not teach beyond a low bar.

[Anonymous]

OP, it cracks me up that you believe busing is an "innovative" solution in education. Come on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Kumbaya my loooooord, Kumbayaaaaaa.
Kumbaya my loooooord, Kumbayaaaaaa.

Through labor protests, folk masses, civil rights marches, student uprisings, postprandial programs at church spaghetti suppers, the song was treated in a straightforward manner, held up without irony as a ritual of reverence, a soft-voice anthem of togetherness, a choral group hug.

Then something changed in the American psyche, and "Kumbaya" — along with the unity it represents — began to be mocked, especially by political figures and the people who cover them. The song became sneering shorthand for blissful agreement...The fuzzily translated word has become crystal clear code in the world of politics. As Vanderbilt University political scientist John G. Geer said to Freedman in The New York Times, invoking kumbaya "lets you ridicule the whole idea of compromise."

https://www.npr.org/2012/01/13/145059502/when-did-kumbaya-become-such-a-bad-thing