How the DC education system is structured - and why oversight of the mayor on DCPS is needed

[Anonymous]

^Okay. The people supporting this still have not explained why it's a better idea and will solve more problems than electing someone else to the Mayor's office who actually takes these problems seriously and can actually fix them using all the power accorded to the strong executive branch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^Okay. The people supporting this still have not explained why it's a better idea and will solve more problems than electing someone else to the Mayor's office who actually takes these problems seriously and can actually fix them using all the power accorded to the strong executive branch.

Please refer to the Robert white and schools thread.
“This person has done terribly; If you don’t like it vote for someone else”
“Don’t vote for that person; they’d be terrible”
“Mayoral control is the only way”
Education policy via DCUM

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many parent have good reason to suspect DCPS is slow walking testing and downplaying outbreaks to deflect from persistent case spikes early in school year They've never remotely come close to hitting the stated targets for testing, which is kind of straight from the Trump playbook. The just incessant inane flex over their non-response with pointless "Re-open strong" bs.

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

If you plant your head in the sand I guess you can honestly say 'I don't see a cloud in sight', but how dumb would you have to be to believe anything they say?

This all goes back to the Mayor's effort to expedite reopening and downplay necessary pandemic response measures. She owns all of this.

“many parents” think no such thing. the vast majority of us are extremely happy school reopening is going so well. truly the only change in my perspective is that I now agree early release Weds could be appropriate to give teachers more planning time. I was against the loss in instructional time before, but now see how much extra work adjusting it has been.

Enjoy the kool aid!

You can support re-opening AND still be critical of the poor performance. The two are not mutually exclusive

You’re living in an alternate universe. Covid is not spreading in schools. We’ve had two cases in our school and kids will be vaccinated in a matter of weeks and all teachers who want them have boosters, and starting next month all adults will have to be vaccinated. It’s going very, very well.

I also agree that things are going well in terms of Covid mitigation and think that people who think it isn't are increasingly living in some other world.

That said, some of the things that people raise as issues don't have to do with covid -- regardless of whether HVACs are highly pertinent to reducing covid spread, we can agree that they are important for creating a better learning environment. The ineptitude that is pretty much always on display from DCPS (which may be deliberate slow-walking or might just be that THIS IS DC AND EVERYTHING ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT RUNS SLOWLY) could be helped with....maybe better quality people? Idk. If there's obvious LYING from the Chancellor, that's certainly not ok and undermines trust of parents in the district to provide education. That might be helped.

I agree; I think Covid put a microscope on schools and the Mayor's impact on schools, at least for me. While a lot of the failures the PP wrote about have nothing to do with Covid, they're indicative of a poisoned system, top down.

The mayor opened the schools, they are open, covid cases are going down. I'm not sure where the evidence of "poisoned system" is. I could get into the argument that keeping the schools closed was actually the huge failure regarding schools but I actually don't want to get into the WTU-blaming cycle because it's a distraction. The schools had to be reopened (even if closure was justified) and she did it.

I thought it was clear my point was that my issues with Mayoral Control have nothing to do with Covid. HVACs; Inequitable Modernizations; A racist evaluation system; inequitable distributions of funding; budget cuts in schools while central office balloons

I have news for you - NONE of those policy goals are guaranteed by changing governance structures. The way you reach policy goals is LEGISLATION. Or voting in an executive you agree with. Hanging your hat on voting in ELEVEN YOKELS to reach your policy goals is just irrational.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many parent have good reason to suspect DCPS is slow walking testing and downplaying outbreaks to deflect from persistent case spikes early in school year They've never remotely come close to hitting the stated targets for testing, which is kind of straight from the Trump playbook. The just incessant inane flex over their non-response with pointless "Re-open strong" bs.

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

If you plant your head in the sand I guess you can honestly say 'I don't see a cloud in sight', but how dumb would you have to be to believe anything they say?

This all goes back to the Mayor's effort to expedite reopening and downplay necessary pandemic response measures. She owns all of this.

“many parents” think no such thing. the vast majority of us are extremely happy school reopening is going so well. truly the only change in my perspective is that I now agree early release Weds could be appropriate to give teachers more planning time. I was against the loss in instructional time before, but now see how much extra work adjusting it has been.

Enjoy the kool aid!

You can support re-opening AND still be critical of the poor performance. The two are not mutually exclusive

You’re living in an alternate universe. Covid is not spreading in schools. We’ve had two cases in our school and kids will be vaccinated in a matter of weeks and all teachers who want them have boosters, and starting next month all adults will have to be vaccinated. It’s going very, very well.

Even with the lousy monitoring DCPS has posted scores of cases at schools. Now you're just making this up - spreading does not have to equal "28 Days" scenario and many Covid+ kids are asymptomatic. Your school is not a microcosm and is but one of 100+ with ~50K students -- you don't have a window into the whole system.

The 4th wave numbers have crested but that's absolute nonsense that Covid wasn't/isn't spreading in schools, and any improvement was dumb luck rather than successful mitigation by DCPS after deliberately clouding the picture with substandard screening. That's the frame the Mayor wants. She needs to go for many reasons, but her educational failures stand out.

Again -- I supported re-opening and do not think virtual is appropriate for most students right now. I still think DCPS has performed terribly throughout.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many parent have good reason to suspect DCPS is slow walking testing and downplaying outbreaks to deflect from persistent case spikes early in school year They've never remotely come close to hitting the stated targets for testing, which is kind of straight from the Trump playbook. The just incessant inane flex over their non-response with pointless "Re-open strong" bs.

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

If you plant your head in the sand I guess you can honestly say 'I don't see a cloud in sight', but how dumb would you have to be to believe anything they say?

This all goes back to the Mayor's effort to expedite reopening and downplay necessary pandemic response measures. She owns all of this.

“many parents” think no such thing. the vast majority of us are extremely happy school reopening is going so well. truly the only change in my perspective is that I now agree early release Weds could be appropriate to give teachers more planning time. I was against the loss in instructional time before, but now see how much extra work adjusting it has been.

Enjoy the kool aid!

You can support re-opening AND still be critical of the poor performance. The two are not mutually exclusive

You’re living in an alternate universe. Covid is not spreading in schools. We’ve had two cases in our school and kids will be vaccinated in a matter of weeks and all teachers who want them have boosters, and starting next month all adults will have to be vaccinated. It’s going very, very well.

Even with the lousy monitoring DCPS has posted scores of cases at schools. Now you're just making this up - spreading does not have to equal "28 Days" scenario and many Covid+ kids are asymptomatic. Your school is not a microcosm and is but one of 100+ with ~50K students -- you don't have a window into the whole system.

The 4th wave numbers have crested but that's absolute nonsense that Covid wasn't/isn't spreading in schools, and any improvement was dumb luck rather than successful mitigation by DCPS after deliberately clouding the picture with substandard screening. That's the frame the Mayor wants. She needs to go for many reasons, but her educational failures stand out.

Again -- I supported re-opening and do not think virtual is appropriate for most students right now. I still think DCPS has performed terribly throughout.

It’s not “dumb luck” or a cover-up that numbers are low and falling. It’s exactly what we knew would happen based on last year. To claim it’s some kind of disaster really just shows your primary aim is to criticize DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no unbiased decision, objective views to be made as everyone works for the Mayor!

The Council and the SBOE can't give objective views?

If they do, are they implemented?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no unbiased decision, objective views to be made as everyone works for the Mayor!

The Council and the SBOE can't give objective views?

If they do, are they implemented?

welcome to the balance of powers between three co-equal branches of government. the executive implements the law; if the legislature dislikes the way they do so, pass a better law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many parent have good reason to suspect DCPS is slow walking testing and downplaying outbreaks to deflect from persistent case spikes early in school year They've never remotely come close to hitting the stated targets for testing, which is kind of straight from the Trump playbook. The just incessant inane flex over their non-response with pointless "Re-open strong" bs.

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

If you plant your head in the sand I guess you can honestly say 'I don't see a cloud in sight', but how dumb would you have to be to believe anything they say?

This all goes back to the Mayor's effort to expedite reopening and downplay necessary pandemic response measures. She owns all of this.

“many parents” think no such thing. the vast majority of us are extremely happy school reopening is going so well. truly the only change in my perspective is that I now agree early release Weds could be appropriate to give teachers more planning time. I was against the loss in instructional time before, but now see how much extra work adjusting it has been.

Enjoy the kool aid!

You can support re-opening AND still be critical of the poor performance. The two are not mutually exclusive

You’re living in an alternate universe. Covid is not spreading in schools. We’ve had two cases in our school and kids will be vaccinated in a matter of weeks and all teachers who want them have boosters, and starting next month all adults will have to be vaccinated. It’s going very, very well.

Even with the lousy monitoring DCPS has posted scores of cases at schools. Now you're just making this up - spreading does not have to equal "28 Days" scenario and many Covid+ kids are asymptomatic. Your school is not a microcosm and is but one of 100+ with ~50K students -- you don't have a window into the whole system.

The 4th wave numbers have crested but that's absolute nonsense that Covid wasn't/isn't spreading in schools, and any improvement was dumb luck rather than successful mitigation by DCPS after deliberately clouding the picture with substandard screening. That's the frame the Mayor wants. She needs to go for many reasons, but her educational failures stand out.

Again -- I supported re-opening and do not think virtual is appropriate for most students right now. I still think DCPS has performed terribly throughout.

The setting that DCUM alarmists suggested in August was that 85% of students would have covid within three months, and that something like 1,000 children would die. They spammed threads with alarming articles about full hospitals in the South. That was what a lot people believed would happen here once schools opened.

Now, we don't see any of that. The case positivity rate in schools is under 1%. There may be some spread, but if it was like the wildfire that we were led to believe that was delta, we'd see a lot higher rates than that. We'd also see community cases continuing to climb, which we don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many parent have good reason to suspect DCPS is slow walking testing and downplaying outbreaks to deflect from persistent case spikes early in school year They've never remotely come close to hitting the stated targets for testing, which is kind of straight from the Trump playbook. The just incessant inane flex over their non-response with pointless "Re-open strong" bs.

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

If you plant your head in the sand I guess you can honestly say 'I don't see a cloud in sight', but how dumb would you have to be to believe anything they say?

This all goes back to the Mayor's effort to expedite reopening and downplay necessary pandemic response measures. She owns all of this.

“many parents” think no such thing. the vast majority of us are extremely happy school reopening is going so well. truly the only change in my perspective is that I now agree early release Weds could be appropriate to give teachers more planning time. I was against the loss in instructional time before, but now see how much extra work adjusting it has been.

Enjoy the kool aid!

You can support re-opening AND still be critical of the poor performance. The two are not mutually exclusive

You’re living in an alternate universe. Covid is not spreading in schools. We’ve had two cases in our school and kids will be vaccinated in a matter of weeks and all teachers who want them have boosters, and starting next month all adults will have to be vaccinated. It’s going very, very well.

Even with the lousy monitoring DCPS has posted scores of cases at schools. Now you're just making this up - spreading does not have to equal "28 Days" scenario and many Covid+ kids are asymptomatic. Your school is not a microcosm and is but one of 100+ with ~50K students -- you don't have a window into the whole system.

The 4th wave numbers have crested but that's absolute nonsense that Covid wasn't/isn't spreading in schools, and any improvement was dumb luck rather than successful mitigation by DCPS after deliberately clouding the picture with substandard screening. That's the frame the Mayor wants. She needs to go for many reasons, but her educational failures stand out.

Again -- I supported re-opening and do not think virtual is appropriate for most students right now. I still think DCPS has performed terribly throughout.

It’s not “dumb luck” or a cover-up that numbers are low and falling. It’s exactly what we knew would happen based on last year. To claim it’s some kind of disaster really just shows your primary aim is to criticize DCPS.

Yeah it's really disingenuous to suggest that what has happened with covid in DC schools is a "disaster". The numbers themselves do not support that story at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many parent have good reason to suspect DCPS is slow walking testing and downplaying outbreaks to deflect from persistent case spikes early in school year They've never remotely come close to hitting the stated targets for testing, which is kind of straight from the Trump playbook. The just incessant inane flex over their non-response with pointless "Re-open strong" bs.

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

If you plant your head in the sand I guess you can honestly say 'I don't see a cloud in sight', but how dumb would you have to be to believe anything they say?

This all goes back to the Mayor's effort to expedite reopening and downplay necessary pandemic response measures. She owns all of this.

“many parents” think no such thing. the vast majority of us are extremely happy school reopening is going so well. truly the only change in my perspective is that I now agree early release Weds could be appropriate to give teachers more planning time. I was against the loss in instructional time before, but now see how much extra work adjusting it has been.

Enjoy the kool aid!

You can support re-opening AND still be critical of the poor performance. The two are not mutually exclusive

You’re living in an alternate universe. Covid is not spreading in schools. We’ve had two cases in our school and kids will be vaccinated in a matter of weeks and all teachers who want them have boosters, and starting next month all adults will have to be vaccinated. It’s going very, very well.

I also agree that things are going well in terms of Covid mitigation and think that people who think it isn't are increasingly living in some other world.

That said, some of the things that people raise as issues don't have to do with covid -- regardless of whether HVACs are highly pertinent to reducing covid spread, we can agree that they are important for creating a better learning environment. The ineptitude that is pretty much always on display from DCPS (which may be deliberate slow-walking or might just be that THIS IS DC AND EVERYTHING ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT RUNS SLOWLY) could be helped with....maybe better quality people? Idk. If there's obvious LYING from the Chancellor, that's certainly not ok and undermines trust of parents in the district to provide education. That might be helped.

I agree; I think Covid put a microscope on schools and the Mayor's impact on schools, at least for me. While a lot of the failures the PP wrote about have nothing to do with Covid, they're indicative of a poisoned system, top down.

The mayor opened the schools, they are open, covid cases are going down. I'm not sure where the evidence of "poisoned system" is. I could get into the argument that keeping the schools closed was actually the huge failure regarding schools but I actually don't want to get into the WTU-blaming cycle because it's a distraction. The schools had to be reopened (even if closure was justified) and she did it.

I thought it was clear my point was that my issues with Mayoral Control have nothing to do with Covid. HVACs; Inequitable Modernizations; A racist evaluation system; inequitable distributions of funding; budget cuts in schools while central office balloons

I have news for you - NONE of those policy goals are guaranteed by changing governance structures. The way you reach policy goals is LEGISLATION. Or voting in an executive you agree with. Hanging your hat on voting in ELEVEN YOKELS to reach your policy goals is just irrational.

Precisely.

[Anonymous]

Pretty clear during yesterday’s hearing that
- most of the parents and teachers want oversight and OSSE independence
And
- the charter schools are lobbying like CRAZY to oppose this.

The charter lobby just doesn’t want stronger oversight.
So they coordinated talking points across the charter leaders and had them all testify.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^Okay. The people supporting this still have not explained why it's a better idea and will solve more problems than electing someone else to the Mayor's office who actually takes these problems seriously and can actually fix them using all the power accorded to the strong executive branch.

Because this mayor covers things up and the next mayor will cover things up too.

More oversight means more ability for us to figure out what is happening so we Can vote to fix it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^Okay. The people supporting this still have not explained why it's a better idea and will solve more problems than electing someone else to the Mayor's office who actually takes these problems seriously and can actually fix them using all the power accorded to the strong executive branch.

Because education is one issue among many and, unless you have kids in public school, it probably isn’t the determining issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^Okay. The people supporting this still have not explained why it's a better idea and will solve more problems than electing someone else to the Mayor's office who actually takes these problems seriously and can actually fix them using all the power accorded to the strong executive branch.

Because this mayor covers things up and the next mayor will cover things up too.

More oversight means more ability for us to figure out what is happening so we Can vote to fix it.

I'm lost as to how a school board full of yahoos elected with few votes is better for governance or more responsive to the larger electorate.

[Anonymous]

So imagine for a moment:

A small group of white supremacists gets a school board member elected in an "off" year. This is possible because 1) half the school board is elected in non-Presidential years, and 2) there are low turn-outs in those off years, and 3) only a small percentage of voters (parents) conceivably care about school board members.

So that person gets on the council and just decides that Council should focus on removing CRT from schools, or ending OOB lotteries, or crusading to make education "present all sides" of the Holocaust.

That person is not responsive to the general population, because of the election structure.

In DC it'll be more likely to be some one of the Trayon White belief system, but you get the point.