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Anonymous
But what percentage of those families IB for Miner that live in Ward 6 are sending their kids to Miner? |
Anonymous
The Council doesn't control the process or outcomes. The childish response attacking Charles is your first clue that the poster is unserious and uninformed. |
Anonymous
I think is going to be particularly challenging at a "mega school" like they are proposing. There would be 7-8 classes per grade. How will they support that many kids per grade? How many reading interventionists would be needed across both campuses, for example? How many would be provided? |
Anonymous
What is DCPS' rationale for not tracking in elementary school? If DME does push this proposal through, could they allow for tracking to provide the appropriate level of reading, math, etc. instruction based on the levels of the students? This seems like the only way to properly combine both schools without sacrificing the learning of the children involved (both the above grade level and below grade level children). |
Anonymous
are you new here? |
Anonymous
You don't know who is an ECE parent and who isn't. I have been less skeptical of this proposal (still skeptical, just less so) and I have a kid in 3rd who will take PARCC this year. I think you are assuming anyone who doesn't immediately think this idea is terrible must be a "naive ECE parent." Believe this at your own risk. Also, I tend to think the input of ECE parents will actually be pretty meaningful to the DME because these are parents who are still early enough in their relationship with these schools to be the group who will make or break an idea like this. If a lot of ECE parents support it but parents with 3-5th graders don't, I imagine that the ECE parents would win out because they have more to lose and more to gain. Those of us with older kids will be gone in not too long. Like every other 3rd grade parent I know, we'll be lotterying for charter MS next year, and if we get a spot at either Latin campus, we'll be gone anyway because I'm still unconvinced of E-H's quality and consistency and I have zero interest in Eastern. So I would not be surprised if any of my feedback on this proposal is taken with a big old grain of salt. At least I can admit this, though. |
Anonymous
Yes. Can you provide a helpful response now? |
Anonymous
This is the age old question that plagues DCPS and all public education. For the past decade or so we've had a loud group of folks that scream "EQUITY" every time any effort to track or differentiate is made. These "advocates" have fostered an environment where anyone who wants advanced material to be taught, or classrooms to be free of distractions, are against equity and secretly racists. Never mind the racist foundation of their position that somehow wanting academic success is somehow punishing POC. All kids, POC, white, green benefit from advancement and safe, calm and supportive classrooms. This group of advocates is proud of themselves for having successfully lobbied DCPS to advance kids through grades no matter the education received. In their minds, it is racist to hold kids to a standard. |
Anonymous
DP, but DCPS generally opposes tracking, especially in younger grades, for equity reasons. It's not just DC, this is a common viewpoint in urban school districts with high poverty, because when you have tracking and G&T programs in these schools, generally the honors/G&T programming fills with high-SES kids and you wind up with demographically segregated tracks. This isn't surprising as test scores also correlate with family income. But it looks and feels bad, especially in a city like DC where most poor people are black and most wealthy people are not. So DCPS elementaries have virtually no tracking, and there are no G&T programs at all. Some of the middle schools have some tracking, especially in math, but generally only if it's a majority white school where you won't get de facto segregation. High schools have some tracking programs (like the IB program at Eastern) but by the time kids get to HS, families have already self-segregated by SES, with higher SES families fleeing for charters or the suburbs if they can't afford to live IB for the one (now two) DCPS high schools with decent test scores and college prospects. So it winds up being too little too late for families who want accelerated academic programming. |
Anonymous
I should note that this viewpoint on tracking in urban public schools is so pervasive there was actually an entire episode of Abbott Elementary about it, in which the thesis was "G&T programs are racist and exclusionary" and the one character in the program who didn't originally agree with this was proven wrong and made to feel foolish. |
Anonymous
But then how is it not considered racist and exclusionary at the MS and HS levels (e.g. EH and Eastern)? |
Anonymous
There is tons of articles and books on the topic, a few (https://buildthefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Best-Intentions-Inequality-Thriving-in-Good-Schools.pdf, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/gifted-programs-worsen-inequality-here-s-what-happens-when-schools-n1243147) - part of the concern is by separating and tracking kids from a young age, it makes it hard for kids who were not initially put into the 'gifted' track in a mid elementary to access higher level courses later on. Some districts find ways around this by offering summer coursework or other options for kids, but often there is not much movement between tracks. Also, the process for placing kids into the advanced tracks is not always objective, with certain parents advocating/pushing for their students who may not be ready to be in a higher track or paying for outside tutoring while in those track. Even in middle schools this year in DC they are shifting to offering the same 6th grade math class to all kids (with 2 teachers, so they can differentiate) - and then moving kids to different tracks after 6th grade. Previously, if a kid didn't get put in advanced 6th grade from the get go, they never even had the option to take algebra by 8th, which would then eliminate certain high school options. Separate from this DME discussion - one silver lining of COVID and online learning is that online courses may be a way to help kids who were not in a certain track catch up/move up over a summer, so there isn't the risk of being cut out of a track permanently, simply because you had a bad year, or a parent didn't get you into a certain class. |
Anonymous
Well at Eastern the answer is easy -- it's only 2% white so you can institute advanced programming and as long as it includes more than 2% of the school population, it can't be segregated. The IB program there is tiny but it's still majority black. And the school has virtually no high-SES families -- it's 75% at risk and the remaining families are solidly middle class. As I said in my previous comment, high-SES families in DC self segregate by high school (really by middle school) and basically none of the many high-SES families in Ward 6 send their kids to the IB high school. I don't know enough about the IB program at E-H to tell you how it works or what its demographics are but I think it's just a similar situation as Eastern but not as stark. I do know that Stuart-Hobson has some minimal tracking in math but families had to fight hard for it and I've heard some families refer to it as "honors for all" which isn't really tracking. Perhaps someone more familiar with E-H can describe how the IB program there works. Further up in this thread, one or two posters claimed that the Maury families who send kids to E-H all wind up in the IB program. But I don't know what percent of high-SES, white Maury families stick around for E-H. My anecdotal observation is that most don't but I don't know the details as I'm far less familiar with EH than SH. |
Anonymous
Pie in the sky, perhaps. From an outsider, well, at least originally, maybe not. "Additionally, I urge DCPS explore two specific alternative proposals to an expanded Maury ES that would potentially increase access to high-quality seats and better support Maury’s destination middle school. These are: a. The creation of a cluster between Maury ES and Miner ES. Building off of promising practices in Raleigh, NC showing that the consolidation of school boundaries has narrowed achievement gaps, this would create a more mixedincome, diverse educational environment for students while better utilizing capacity at both schools. While many details would need to be discussed, a scenario where Maury ES served as an Early Ed through Grade 2 school with 3rd through 5th grade students attending Miner ES would relieve crowding at Maury ES and better utilize excess capacity and the educational infrastructure at Miner ES. ..." https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/joeweedonstateboardofed/pages/52/attachments/original/1449261913/Maury_Renovation__Dec_2015.pdf?1449261913 |
Anonymous
Anyone who can read knows immediately whether posters are in ECE or upper ES. As a parent of a third grader you are only beginning to understand what happens when differentiation occurs. Every ECE family at Brent and everywhere else starts out saying they want to remain and then move onto their IB MS. Then reality hits and they flee for Latin, BASIS, private, or move. Schools with single digits at grade level mean classrooms full of kids who need remedial help. It means disruptive environments that are exacerbated by hormones. It is neither racist nor close minded to observe that classrooms with 70% of kids at grade level will be markedly different than ones with 8% at grade level. My point is this; while the families with current upper ES kids won't be there for whatever change may come, they understand the potential impacts in ways you (ECE families) simply don't. I'd also suggest that a parent who admits they plan to bail is no more impacted than one who is already in upper ES. In fact, I'd argue current upper ES families are more important and credible voices since they will actually consume DCPS upper ES. |