Universal AP English & History at Wilson next year for 11th grade
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Anonymous
The Algebra 2 class at Deal is actually very racially diverse. It's almost 1/3 white, 1/3 black, 1/3 hispanic. And the teacher is black. |
Anonymous
How do you think it would go if UMC, heavily-white parents started demanding that elementary and middle schools where they don't send their kids should make curricular changes? I think the response would be "you don't know what you're talking about, you're not in these schools, MYOB." And that wouldn't be an incorrect response. |
Anonymous
I agree. At the same tome, high school is too late to be forcing everyone onto the same page. At the point, the only way to do it seems to be holding te advanced learners back, which is exactly the opposite of what a high school should be doing. Nonetheless, that seems to be Wilson’s MO. |
Anonymous
If we advocated for extra resources going to those schools for gifted and accelerated courses, I'm not convinced that would be the response....there are kids all over the city trying to get into Walls and Banneker who are unable to. But here's a bigger question. What is your solution to inequity? You don't want your child in advanced classes you deem to be "not ready." You don't want to advocate for acceleration in all schools across the city so that all kids are ready. You seem to be fine, therefore, with the status quo, which is largely inequitable system (though one that benefits your kids). If that's your position, just own it. But please don't put a Black Lives Matter sign in your window. |
Anonymous
Advocate for more support at the ES level so students enter MS and HS on grade level and prepared for advanced work. But you will have to do it because you seem to think you are the only one advocating in good faith. |
Anonymous
dp: PP didn’t say she opposed gifted and accelerated courses across the city. She expressed her expectation that UMC people advocating for that will get blowback, which is surely correct. She didn’t say she didn’t want a solution. She expressed weariness in how the most logical changes get shouted down for the wrong reasons, and then we end up with sub-optimal solutions like trying to get high schoolers from below-grade reading to AP level all in a snap. |
Anonymous
I just haven't seen a single solution...not one. Just complaints about watering down the AP classes and fear that this is going to happen to other classes. Where are the alternatives or the suggestions for how to make it work? I'm worn down too because there's always fatalism and NIMBYISM. |
Anonymous
If you advocated for gifted and accelerated courses you'd be accused of trying to create tracking for white kids. And, again, that would not be an entirely unfair accusation given the history of those programs in the public school system. What's my solution to inequity? I have a whole platform of reforms that are not largely school-focused, although some of them are. My acknowledgement that I have zero ability to make these happen is not a reflection on my feelings about the status quo. Additionally, uniform and high-quality instruction across DCPS would be extremely beneficial for my kids, as well as any families who would like to be able to separate out residential choices from basic school quality choices. |
Anonymous
It actually does matter. As a teacher I feel responsible for all my students so if 1/4 are lost and disengaged, I have to figure out what to do since they also deserve a good experience. So that means I will most likely have to slow down and drop my teaching to an easier level at least some of the time. Second, I can’t and don’t want to fail too many kids so I will probably have to reduce the complexity of tests and assignments. Teaching 30 kids together is always challenging but it becomes even more difficult when some kids don’t want to be there. I love the struggling kids who want to actually learn as we can always do more help sessions and office hours etc. I have been teaching for 10 years but I am still learning something new every year. Being an effective and engaging teacher is actually pretty difficult |
Anonymous
| I'd just like to highlight how it was received when it was suggested that Lafayette Pre-K get relocated to a building on Military Road where there might be the possibility for families from "east of the park" to also attend.... People went nuts about how it would lead to the "right" to attend Lafayette and all the overcrowding blah, blah, blah. There was no evidence that that was the case but immediately people: 1) look out for their own self interest; and 2) don't think about the fact that maybe letting some other kids into one of the better resourced elementary schools would help with issues of equity. Same thing when there was talk about affordable housing being built in Chevy Chase...discussions centered around property values and overcrowding of school but zero discussion about expanding opportunity. At some point, you have to assume that people's priorities are what they are regardless of what they say or what their progressive bumper stickers signal. |
Anonymous
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There is no internally consistent argument to keep math tracking if you make every kid take AP classes.
I think they should keep leveled coursework but I would expect if they remove it for humanities you can make the exact same case for math. And that they will makes these changes at Deal as well. |
Anonymous
How do you know this? Oh an the teacher is one of my favorites at Deal. |
Anonymous
If you put a kid in a math class that's several years ahead of where they are, they're not going to get anything from it. Similarly if you make a kid repeat material they know very well. In more reading and writing-based courses, there's more ability for kids at different levels to still benefit. You can have a kid reading at a 9th-grade level and a kid reading at a 12th grade level both reading Romeo and Juliet and writing a paper about it, and they're both at least potentially going to get something out of it in a way that's going to be much tougher with that kind of discrepancy in a math class. |
Anonymous
Fairfax county and Montgomery county school leaders would disagree with you. They are both eliminating any meaningful math tracking. |
Anonymous
+1 I'd add that you can go to many (if not most) public colleges and universities in this country and find students at all academic levels taking Freshman English and Intro History classes, which are what these AP classes are supposedly teaching. And they make it work. |