DCPS Policy on Talented & Gifted & Acaemic Magnet Middle School Programs...Questions for You
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Anonymous
| Here is the challenge you have with tracking, it clearly favored middle class kids and in many cases white kids. NPR did an interesting series a while back about how tracking impacted minority kids and it found that white parents were much more likely to advocate for putting a child in a higher level class than minority parents. Minority parents believing more often that educators knew what they were doing. Even when teachers have also demonstrated for better or worse similar biases. Though the higher the economic level the less this was the case. So generalized privilege ended up helping a certain group and holding back another group. It is why there has been a generalized effort to do differentiated education within a classroom. I wish there was a greater attempt at educating parents in poorer neighborhoods to advocate for their kids. Many would like to but the educational system can be pretty formidable to a single poorly educated mom that demands meetings at times she will not be able to meet due to working or multiple bus schedules. But the long a short is that all of us wishing for more rigor, TAG or magnet schools will fight for change but the kids whose parents are not able or willing to be involved will not help their kids get these programs so they get left behind. |
Anonymous
| A cogent description of the problem. But differentiation in a classroom of widely divergent levels is really really hard. Educators agree that it is like the black diamond level of skills: only a few can really do it truly and well. So. Teachers do their best, but in the end teach to the middle and their hearts are really in it for those kids who struggle the most. And their pay checks and very jobs are dependent on focusing on those not making the mark. We end up with mediocrity as the norm in the classroom. Kids doing well or actually way ahead are mostly left on their own. Is mediocrity across the board the price to pay for avoiding the injustices that appeared with tracking? My instinct is that there must be a way to deal with the issues that came up with tracking without lowering the bar for everyone. |
Anonymous
Not snarky or doubtful, just uninformed. Where is the information that there are a significant number of students well prepared for a magnet middle school in these Wards. |
Anonymous
Maybe check with the Admin at deal, or entry stats for Banneker or Walls? |
Anonymous
Thus far some of the best examples of this have happened in in Montgomery county, but I am not sure it is sustainable given the cutbacks. Montgomery county has more mixed value housing than other jurisdictions so they have small amounts 15-20% of low SES kids throughout their well off schools, studies have shown that these kids have a lower gap in learning being mixed into these schools. What is not clear is if this is still a self-selection problem. They have also diverted funds from wealthier areas of the city for more wrap around funding for schools in very poor sections of the county such as Langley. These kids also have shown much greater success levels than their SES peers in other places. I think this is also the insight of the Harlem children's zone. The question still rests on how much you are willing to divert to help lower economic status kids so that they can compete at least on the same race track as well off kids. You need to narrow the band of variance between the kids at the bottom earlier. Frankly, it also takes time. If the Harlem Children's Zone is an example it is a 10 year process at least, are any of willing to wait that long, is any politician willing to make that investment? Weast in Montgomery County also took close to 10 years to get the results he has had. Most superintendent's last 3 years. |
Anonymous
Suppose DCPS created a magnet middle school with the admission requirement being DC-CAS proficiency – relatively inclusive given DC’s circumstances. Other admission standards can be used, but this gives a general sense of the approximate number of proficient/advanced students in grades 3rd to 5th in 2011. Ward 8 401 students (24%) Ward 7 527 students (30%) Warst 6 500 students (44%) Ward 5 341 students (47%) 1,800 students could benefit from a magnet middle school in just these four wards. DCPS would lose fewer students in the younger years and gain new students with strong middle school options. Strong schools are less expensive to operate (per pupil expense) and allow more resources for struggling students. The District would increase population and tax revenues with strong middle schools. DC has several magnet (selective admission) high schools; it needs corresponding middle schools. |
Anonymous
| This still does little for the "advanced" students. |
Anonymous
The data uncludes proficient and advanced students. With a magnet like the one described above you would have a concentration of advanced students, and the economy of scale to offer robust programs that challenge students at an affordable cost. |
Anonymous
| uncludes = include |
Anonymous
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I'm all for a DCPS magnet middle school. However, if DCPS doesn't act fast, BASIS will take care of this problem for it.
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Anonymous
Proficient on the DC-CAS is a horribly low bar to set for a so-called "magnet" school. |
Anonymous
Exactly. There's still an especially wide chasm between the needs of minimally proficient students and advanced students. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
I would want a magnet program to promote critical thinking not rote memorization for the sake of passing tests and earning AP credits. I suppose this raises an interesting issue. What would you consider a magnet school to look like? |
esevdali
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One could, and I know that parents in my Ward 6 neighborhood have been forming afterschool tutoring groups, mainly to prepare 5th graders from better-off families for MS independent, suruban magnet and parochial school entrance exams. It seems to me that the problem is that this approach promotes exhaustion and burnout on the part of participants, who waste a good deal of time each school day in not being challenged, then forfeit precious afterschool time that could be devoted to extra curriculars like sports and music. In Asian countries like Korea, Singapore and Taiwain, MOST kids partcipate in "magnet afterschool programs" otherwise known as "cram" schools ("juku" schools in Japanese). It sounds like a grim way to spend one's childhood, stuck in a seat in a structured setting not just 8-3 but well into the evening and on weekends. Why not just develop full-fledged TAG programs that serve these kids needs during the school day? We routinely accelerate the athletically gifted here in DC, just not the academically gifted... |