DCPS Improving -- Let's Ignore Charters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS does a horrible job making kids safe in the classroom. The anti-bullying law is form without substance, no doubt due to influence from DCPS. DC would do best to give everyone a voucher to send their kids where they want.

Lol and where would you go?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS does a horrible job making kids safe in the classroom. The anti-bullying law is form without substance, no doubt due to influence from DCPS. DC would do best to give everyone a voucher to send their kids where they want.

Lol and where would you go?

NoAr or MoCo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think DCPS is doing a great job making progress considering that, unlike charters, they can't IN ANY way "cherry pick" students. Or "counsel them out".

Um, they do in fact "counsel kids out" of DCPS schools - and frankly that's part of the reason so many kids are in charters now - because DCPS could not meet their needs, made them miserable, made them feel unwelcome, or "counseled them out" - nobody likes to admit or acknowledge that but it does happen quite a bit.

I'd like to be counseled out of DCPS and be put into Yu Ying (or any other HRCS). How do I make that happen? I get how it works the other way -- I get counseled out and my IB has to accept me, but would love to have a charter forced to accept me over my IB school.

[Anonymous]

DCPS could easily make a concerted effort to up its game in attracting and retaining neighborhood families to neighborhood schools, including high SES families in gentrifying areas. One obvious approach that hasn't been tried would be to offer in-boundary schools the very same cash incentives to draw in, and keep, neighborhood families DCPS currently offers for raising test scores. When I asked David Catania if he'd back such an initiative as mayor, he pledged to explore the idea. If DCPS admins and teachers knew that they, and their schools, would be rewarded with cash bonuses for catering to neighborhood parents, they'd surely make much more of an effort to do so.

DCPS could also establish test-in gifted and talented programs with a city-wide draw and neighborhood preference. MoCo has long used GT and test in MS and HS programs as a tool to draw high SES neighborhood families to struggling schools on the socioeconomically and racially diverse eastern side of the county.

Back in 2009, the Brent Elementary PTA asked DCPS if they'd establish a test-in program at Jefferson MS as an incentive to induce in-boundary neighborhood families to try the school. The answer was, unequivocally, NO. Then they asked DCPS if they could add MS grades to Brent. Again, the answer was ABSOLUTELY NOT. Instead, DCPS created Jefferson Academy (within Jefferson MS) to meet these families' needs, with a proficiency pass rate of around one-third. As a result, in the last six years, almost every in-boundary 4th grader from Brent has hit the road, mainly for Washington Latin and BASIS. For Brent families, DCPS is not in fact improving after Brent. For most of them, ignoring charters after elementary school would mean moving to the burbs.

So let's not ignore charters. Instead, let's consider why most the overwhelming majority of high SES families outside the Deal District vote with their feet from DCPS before 6th grade. Then let's organize to back city politicians willing to stick their necks out for voters in a effort to stem the tide. Grosso and Charles Allen are trying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think DCPS is doing a great job making progress considering that, unlike charters, they can't IN ANY way "cherry pick" students. Or "counsel them out".

Um, they do in fact "counsel kids out" of DCPS schools - and frankly that's part of the reason so many kids are in charters now - because DCPS could not meet their needs, made them miserable, made them feel unwelcome, or "counseled them out" - nobody likes to admit or acknowledge that but it does happen quite a bit.

I'd like to be counseled out of DCPS and be put into Yu Ying (or any other HRCS). How do I make that happen? I get how it works the other way -- I get counseled out and my IB has to accept me, but would love to have a charter forced to accept me over my IB school.

Unfortunately that's not how it works, they just push you out, as opposed to getting you in somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS could easily make a concerted effort to up its game in attracting and retaining neighborhood families to neighborhood schools, including high SES families in gentrifying areas. One obvious approach that hasn't been tried would be to offer in-boundary schools the very same cash incentives to draw in, and keep, neighborhood families DCPS currently offers for raising test scores. When I asked David Catania if he'd back such an initiative as mayor, he pledged to explore the idea. If DCPS admins and teachers knew that they, and their schools, would be rewarded with cash bonuses for catering to neighborhood parents, they'd surely make much more of an effort to do so.

DCPS could also establish test-in gifted and talented programs with a city-wide draw and neighborhood preference. MoCo has long used GT and test in MS and HS programs as a tool to draw high SES neighborhood families to struggling schools on the socioeconomically and racially diverse eastern side of the county.

Back in 2009, the Brent Elementary PTA asked DCPS if they'd establish a test-in program at Jefferson MS as an incentive to induce in-boundary neighborhood families to try the school. The answer was, unequivocally, NO. Then they asked DCPS if they could add MS grades to Brent. Again, the answer was ABSOLUTELY NOT. Instead, DCPS created Jefferson Academy (within Jefferson MS) to meet these families' needs, with a proficiency pass rate of around one-third. As a result, in the last six years, almost every in-boundary 4th grader from Brent has hit the road, mainly for Washington Latin and BASIS. For Brent families, DCPS is not in fact improving after Brent. For most of them, ignoring charters after elementary school would mean moving to the burbs.

So let's not ignore charters. Instead, let's consider why most the overwhelming majority of high SES families outside the Deal District vote with their feet from DCPS before 6th grade. Then let's organize to back city politicians willing to stick their necks out for voters in a effort to stem the tide. Grosso and Charles Allen are trying.

+1,000,000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think DCPS is doing a great job making progress considering that, unlike charters, they can't IN ANY way "cherry pick" students. Or "counsel them out".

Too bad. I know a number who should be counseled out... to Lorton or wherever the prison is now!

[Anonymous]

Jesus, you people just need to stop. After 25 years of this I am so tired of you all.

Most of you move out the city after 5 years anyway. Yeah, yeah your way is the best way.

The rest of us are just trying to educate our kids. Just shut up and stop bickering or I will put you all in time out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think DCPS is doing a great job making progress considering that, unlike charters, they can't IN ANY way "cherry pick" students. Or "counsel them out".

Um, they do in fact "counsel kids out" of DCPS schools - and frankly that's part of the reason so many kids are in charters now - because DCPS could not meet their needs, made them miserable, made them feel unwelcome, or "counseled them out" - nobody likes to admit or acknowledge that but it does happen quite a bit.

I'd like to be counseled out of DCPS and be put into Yu Ying (or any other HRCS). How do I make that happen? I get how it works the other way -- I get counseled out and my IB has to accept me, but would love to have a charter forced to accept me over my IB school.

Unfortunately that's not how it works, they just push you out, as opposed to getting you in somewhere.

If a child is being counseled out of a DCPS, s/he is probably going to a private special ed school paid for by DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think DCPS is doing a great job making progress considering that, unlike charters, they can't IN ANY way "cherry pick" students. Or "counsel them out".

Too bad. I know a number who should be counseled out... to Lorton or wherever the prison is now!

Get into the 21st Century, PP!
Lorton has been closed for over a decade and is now an artists colony.
Wake up and see this:
http://www.workhousearts.org/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jesus, you people just need to stop. After 25 years of this I am so tired of you all.

Most of you move out the city after 5 years anyway. Yeah, yeah your way is the best way.

The rest of us are just trying to educate our kids. Just shut up and stop bickering or I will put you all in time out.

B.S., PP, you can't make me go. At different times, I've had kids in both DCPS and charter MS while homeschooling my youngest.

Grow up, choice is here to stay! It was always here under ADW anyway. Don't know what ADW is? Google or Bing it!

Choice makes each school system better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS could easily make a concerted effort to up its game in attracting and retaining neighborhood families to neighborhood schools, including high SES families in gentrifying areas. One obvious approach that hasn't been tried would be to offer in-boundary schools the very same cash incentives to draw in, and keep, neighborhood families DCPS currently offers for raising test scores. When I asked David Catania if he'd back such an initiative as mayor, he pledged to explore the idea. If DCPS admins and teachers knew that they, and their schools, would be rewarded with cash bonuses for catering to neighborhood parents, they'd surely make much more of an effort to do so.

DCPS could also establish test-in gifted and talented programs with a city-wide draw and neighborhood preference. MoCo has long used GT and test in MS and HS programs as a tool to draw high SES neighborhood families to struggling schools on the socioeconomically and racially diverse eastern side of the county.

Back in 2009, the Brent Elementary PTA asked DCPS if they'd establish a test-in program at Jefferson MS as an incentive to induce in-boundary neighborhood families to try the school. The answer was, unequivocally, NO. Then they asked DCPS if they could add MS grades to Brent. Again, the answer was ABSOLUTELY NOT. Instead, DCPS created Jefferson Academy (within Jefferson MS) to meet these families' needs, with a proficiency pass rate of around one-third. As a result, in the last six years, almost every in-boundary 4th grader from Brent has hit the road, mainly for Washington Latin and BASIS. For Brent families, DCPS is not in fact improving after Brent. For most of them, ignoring charters after elementary school would mean moving to the burbs.

So let's not ignore charters. Instead, let's consider why most the overwhelming majority of high SES families outside the Deal District vote with their feet from DCPS before 6th grade. Then let's organize to back city politicians willing to stick their necks out for voters in a effort to stem the tide. Grosso and Charles Allen are trying.

I fail to see what Charles Allen is doing. He has done absolutely nothing in my opinion.

[Anonymous]

Allen, is doing some useful ed work, like working with Grosso to persuade the city council to fund a new public school position, the "Chief Student Advocate," a smart Ward 5 parent named Faith Gibson Hubbard. She opened her doors this spring. Gibson Hubbard works closely with the DC PS Ombudslady in supporting families who are being mistreated by the DCPS bureaucracy. My family sought her help recently, with help from Ward 6, and she sorted our DCPS issue out for us, skillfully, quickly and at no cost to us.

Allen hasn't even been on the job for a year yet, and he's just one member of the council. He obviously can't fix one of the lowest-performing urban school systems in the country single-handedly or quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jesus, you people just need to stop. After 25 years of this I am so tired of you all.

Most of you move out the city after 5 years anyway. Yeah, yeah your way is the best way.

The rest of us are just trying to educate our kids. Just shut up and stop bickering or I will put you all in time out.

B.S., PP, you can't make me go. At different times, I've had kids in both DCPS and charter MS while homeschooling my youngest.

Grow up, choice is here to stay! It was always here under ADW anyway. Don't know what ADW is? Google or Bing it!

Choice makes each school system better.

Did you mean to quote me?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Allen, is doing some useful ed work, like working with Grosso to persuade the city council to fund a new public school position, the "Chief Student Advocate," a smart Ward 5 parent named Faith Gibson Hubbard. She opened her doors this spring. Gibson Hubbard works closely with the DC PS Ombudslady in supporting families who are being mistreated by the DCPS bureaucracy. My family sought her help recently, with help from Ward 6, and she sorted our DCPS issue out for us, skillfully, quickly and at no cost to us.

Allen hasn't even been on the job for a year yet, and he's just one member of the council. He obviously can't fix one of the lowest-performing urban school systems in the country single-handedly or quickly.

Allen has not supported charters in Ward 6 (washington global) and is barely aware that there are schools that exist off the Hill. He isn't doing anything that CHPSPO doesn't tell him to do.