Bower's top education aide sends his kids to 100 percent open private school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What school is his kids supposed to go to in DC's public options. The DCPS schools are not good! Who would send kids there if they had a choice vs a private school.

I would only send my kids to private schools as a last resort. 95% of their success is because of their parents not the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My spouse (they) works in public education and we send our kids to private school. By the logic here, they should just give up because they clearly don’t care about public school families? It’s mostly my choice where the kids go to school.
If you have issues with the DME’s job performance then write about that. Leave his family out of it.

Is your spouse in a high-profile leadership position where the choices they make affect tons of public school kids? If not, I think you're fine. If so...yeah, it's not good to be doing that without some skin in the game. It's not a criticism of the person's family. Maybe his wife is making the choices, but if he couldn't even convince her that public schools were sufficient for their kids, what does that say?

It’s not so much skin in the game but that he should be held accountable for lying to the public about the risks of in person school. clearly he doesn’t believe that. He needs to be held accountable.

I think it was a problem pre-COVID, too, though. Just on principle, if you're running the public school system, you should believe in them enough to send your kids there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What school is his kids supposed to go to in DC's public options. The DCPS schools are not good! Who would send kids there if they had a choice vs a private school.

Go back where you belong and get off this forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My spouse (they) works in public education and we send our kids to private school. By the logic here, they should just give up because they clearly don’t care about public school families? It’s mostly my choice where the kids go to school.
If you have issues with the DME’s job performance then write about that. Leave his family out of it.

Is your spouse in a high-profile leadership position where the choices they make affect tons of public school kids? If not, I think you're fine. If so...yeah, it's not good to be doing that without some skin in the game. It's not a criticism of the person's family. Maybe his wife is making the choices, but if he couldn't even convince her that public schools were sufficient for their kids, what does that say?

It’s not so much skin in the game but that he should be held accountable for lying to the public about the risks of in person school. clearly he doesn’t believe that. He needs to be held accountable.

I think it was a problem pre-COVID, too, though. Just on principle, if you're running the public school system, you should believe in them enough to send your kids there.

This is true and it’s come up over and over again here on dcum. Many Ed officials not at public schools. Same with councilors such as McDuffie, self proclaimed champion of poor Black folks, with kids in Georgetown day I believe.

[Anonymous]

If you can’t spell “Bowser” why believe y?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn keeps our kids out of the classroom, because it is supposedly unsafe, he sends his own kids to Washington International School, which has been open for months

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/local-opinions/dc-public-schools-need-in-person-classes/2021/03/18/5fffdecc-8122-11eb-ac37-4383f7709abe_story.html

i guess we know what he really thinks about the safety of schools reopening

[Anonymous]

A few thoughts:

It would be difficult- but not impossible - for senior officials to have their kids in DCPS or a charter. Lots of issues around optics, the school asking for favors, implementing policies that may have a positive impact on the school, etc. Just having kids is inherently a conflict of interest. So I get why he would choose private. However, it also looks terrible. I’d prefer if the DME was someone who either had adult children or no kids.

Recalling the Mayor is absolutely possible. The threshold isn’t even that high to start a recall election - its 10% of registered voters.

https://www.dcboe.org/Candidates/Recall-Process

[Anonymous]

I suspect that we have no idea what any individual person in DCPS central office actually thinks about the safety on in-person education in DCPS schools. The Mayor made a political decision to follow whatever DOH recommends, and DOH made a political decision to take the most restrictive stance possible in light of how hard this pandemic has been felt by people of color - the vast majority of DC voters. There’s a kernel of science in all this, but its been vastly exploited by DC officials.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What school is his kids supposed to go to in DC's public options. The DCPS schools are not good! Who would send kids there if they had a choice vs a private school.

I would only send my kids to private schools as a last resort. 95% of their success is because of their parents not the school.

What if you want something for your kids that your IB can’t provide, like language immersion? We loved our IB while there, but after years of no lottery luck we moved to private for language.

I agree it’s different when you’re in a really public-facing role for public schools, though. His family’s decision, but the optics don’t look good given the disparities between public and private during a pandemic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What school is his kids supposed to go to in DC's public options. The DCPS schools are not good! Who would send kids there if they had a choice vs a private school.

Um, me? We have happily chosen public over private — happily until this year, at least. I am now thinking it won’t work after elementary school because of what Covid has shown me and because of the direction Wilson is heading.

What direction is Wilson heading? (Fellow future Wilson parent here)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A few thoughts:

It would be difficult- but not impossible - for senior officials to have their kids in DCPS or a charter. Lots of issues around optics, the school asking for favors, implementing policies that may have a positive impact on the school, etc. Just having kids is inherently a conflict of interest. So I get why he would choose private. However, it also looks terrible. I’d prefer if the DME was someone who either had adult children or no kids.

Recalling the Mayor is absolutely possible. The threshold isn’t even that high to start a recall election - its 10% of registered voters.

https://www.dcboe.org/Candidates/Recall-Process

the issue here is that kihn is preventing public school children from getting a decent education, supposedly for safety reasons, but his own actions show those safety reasons are a bunch of baloney.

i would absolutely support recalling the mayor. reopening schools was her big test and she failed, badly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A few thoughts:

It would be difficult- but not impossible - for senior officials to have their kids in DCPS or a charter. Lots of issues around optics, the school asking for favors, implementing policies that may have a positive impact on the school, etc. Just having kids is inherently a conflict of interest. So I get why he would choose private. However, it also looks terrible. I’d prefer if the DME was someone who either had adult children or no kids.

Recalling the Mayor is absolutely possible. The threshold isn’t even that high to start a recall election - its 10% of registered voters.

https://www.dcboe.org/Candidates/Recall-Process

Total BS. Senior officials can send their kids to DCPS public schools without huge problems. For goodness sakes, Jimmy Carter did for a couple years in the late 70s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few thoughts:

It would be difficult- but not impossible - for senior officials to have their kids in DCPS or a charter. Lots of issues around optics, the school asking for favors, implementing policies that may have a positive impact on the school, etc. Just having kids is inherently a conflict of interest. So I get why he would choose private. However, it also looks terrible. I’d prefer if the DME was someone who either had adult children or no kids.

Recalling the Mayor is absolutely possible. The threshold isn’t even that high to start a recall election - its 10% of registered voters.

https://www.dcboe.org/Candidates/Recall-Process

the issue here is that kihn is preventing public school children from getting a decent education, supposedly for safety reasons, but his own actions show those safety reasons are a bunch of baloney.

i would absolutely support recalling the mayor. reopening schools was her big test and she failed, badly.

This, leading an organization that is saying that in person is unsafe while sending your children to in person the whole time is the height of hypocrisy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What school is his kids supposed to go to in DC's public options. The DCPS schools are not good! Who would send kids there if they had a choice vs a private school.

President Obama, in 2008, recognized the atrocious state of DCs public schools - and Fenty even gave his pick of the very best school for the girls.

The Obamas still went fully private despite the optics.

It has been 13 years (8 of those with a Black president) and DC schools are just as atrocious as they were in 2008 ( not to mention decades before that).

- yet, DC still thinks it is somehow ready for statehood?? Sorry, that proposition is pathetically laughable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suspect that we have no idea what any individual person in DCPS central office actually thinks about the safety on in-person education in DCPS schools. The Mayor made a political decision to follow whatever DOH recommends, and DOH made a political decision to take the most restrictive stance possible in light of how hard this pandemic has been felt by people of color - the vast majority of DC voters. There’s a kernel of science in all this, but its been vastly exploited by DC officials.

Right and on a call with Ward 3 parents the deputy being discussed here was asked why private schools had different standards and were allowed to reopen and he insinuated that he was displeased that they were not listening to the DOH- which is obviously not true if he sends his kids in person. It is the blind following of the DOH that is problematic here- that is absolutely not a legal requirement because if it were then privates would not be open.