The Promise of Socio-Economically Integrated Schools in DC

[Anonymous]

the next ward 3 cup-cake drive


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pixh2h-pMGw/UXvonqirG7I/AAAAAAAAAS4/6HgObokF45I/s400/segregation.jpg

[Anonymous]

Nice---13:04. Are you by any chance one of Abigail Smith's minions? Because that is how this is going to go . . . anyone who raises the very valid research showing that over 20% FARMs in any school starts to have detrimental effects (unless said school is a FARMs specific model like KIPP) is going to immediately be labelled a racist by the DCPS educational establishment. DCPS is obviously itching to try out this new fad of "controlled choice"---regardless of the fact that it is realistically about 10 years to soon to try that out in DC without torpedoing the gains that have been made in the last 15 years regarding attracting middle class families back to the DC educational system (both public and charter).

But DCPS wants this NOW, dagnabit!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nice---13:04. Are you by any chance one of Abigail Smith's minions? Because that is how this is going to go . . . anyone who raises the very valid research showing that over 20% FARMs in any school starts to have detrimental effects (unless said school is a FARMs specific model like KIPP) is going to immediately be labelled a racist by the DCPS educational establishment. DCPS is obviously itching to try out this new fad of "controlled choice"---regardless of the fact that it is realistically about 10 years to soon to try that out in DC without torpedoing the gains that have been made in the last 15 years regarding attracting middle class families back to the DC educational system (both public and charter).

But DCPS wants this NOW, dagnabit!

There is always "valid" data available to justify even the most unconscionable beliefs. After all this country was built on good intentions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the next ward 3 cup-cake drive


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pixh2h-pMGw/UXvonqirG7I/AAAAAAAAAS4/6HgObokF45I/s400/segregation.jpg

Look, I find a lot of the discussion on this thread offensive but that picture is not fair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the next ward 3 cup-cake drive


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pixh2h-pMGw/UXvonqirG7I/AAAAAAAAAS4/6HgObokF45I/s400/segregation.jpg

Look, I find a lot of the discussion on this thread offensive but that picture is not fair.

I find the picture extremely offensive. We all seem to accept that many Ward 3 parents peel off for BASIS and Latin, which are both majority AA. DEAL is majority AA as well.

Some OOB kids come to JKLM having skipped two grades in their old school and in their new school they are behind academically and socially, and can't or won't repeat a grade. I get why these kids are upset, but upset can equal disruptive as well as behind. Disruptive can tank a class and make every other kid lose out for a year. Behind does not do that. OOB can mean many things. It does not mean brown.

Signed,
A parent of four "brown" faces IB at JKLM who would never send kids to a 50% FARMS school because I went to one. Not having it. Not doing it. And not white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, it's not "an attitude" or "values" - it's an acknowledgement of reality. The studies and data confirm that if low-SES students comprise more than 20% of the student body, there are diminishing returns and increasing problems.

You can try and spin that however you like, but it doesn't change the reality of it.

I read every post and can safely say I'm not the one spinning.

I'm still trying to figure out where to send my kid who's not yet pre-K, and everything I've been reading from and about the vaunted "west of the park" makes the schools there sound grossly unappealing. I keep looking for evidence of inspiring teachers and/or principals and/or kids who go out and do fantastic things. All I keep finding are stories like the cupcake principal and an awful lot of whining and fearmongering about the certain destruction of DCPS if more brown faced kids are allowed to infiltrate public schools in Ward 3. Maybe there are just 5-10 people with time and motivation to hang out on these boards and +1 the shit out of all the "studies that show" you're absolutely right to believe that socioeconomic diversity is the first step in the fall of mankind.

I'm actually grateful to see true feelings revealed because I was about to drink the kook aid on JKLM schools (and the best little secret, Hearst!) but I couldn't put my finger on what made these schools "better" beyond test scores and families who have money for real estate but not for private schools. I can finally understand why so many go for charters, where the diversity seems appreciated or and even essential to the success of a school.

Spin that however you want.

You were on the right track noting that you maybe shouldn't form an opinion of an entire set of schools on the anonymous posts of one or possibly a handful of people (who may or may not actually be parents at these schools).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the next ward 3 cup-cake drive


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pixh2h-pMGw/UXvonqirG7I/AAAAAAAAAS4/6HgObokF45I/s400/segregation.jpg

My Lord, some people are stuck in their development. I think many of these people who "want" there to be rascists behind every opinion that doesn't agree with their own have some deep-seated need to think that way. My theory is that many of them actually were rascist or merely ignorant and then had an aha moment where they realized they were wrong. They feel like they have been enlightened and somehow need the rest of us to "follow" their path. Sadly, what they can't comprehend is that most of us of this generation are already informed, sensitized and not needing the aha moment like they did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I'm astonished that OP (who implies she/he is well-educated) is doing such a pathetic job of looking at statistics and then declaring he/she knows whether poor kids benefit from going to school with middle class kids.

First, as someone noted earlier, the testing starts at third grade and there have been any number of changes (or not) going on in the earlier grades. Second, you have to look at whether there has been any noticeable improvement on the part of individual students over time, NOT AT AGGREGATE SCORES THAT COMPARE DIFFERENT GROUPS OF STUDENTS, which is what you're doing now. Third, you have to compare any change (or lack thereof) to a control group of poor students who have gone to school in majority poor schools.

You have done none of these things so you don't know whether poor students on average have benefited from going to school with middle-class students. But go on, continue to interpret the data in a way that makes you feel superior, because I know that nothing I say (even though I'm a senior researcher) will make a difference to you.

FTR, I haven't looked at the research myself but I know enough to know when I don't know the answer to something. You all think you're better educated than you actually are. If you don't want your kids to go to school with a lot of poor students, that's fine. I can accept that. But don't give us some bullshit about test scores when you don't know what you're talking about. Seriously, go back to school and take a research methods course.

Thank you! OP is misrepresenting data to support her classist and racist views!

[Anonymous]

I was talking to an educator about testing and she thought nclb should focus more on student growth rather than averaging a whole grade or school. If you have a school that averages say 60% it masks the fact that some kids score a 40 and some scored a 80

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, it's not "an attitude" or "values" - it's an acknowledgement of reality. The studies and data confirm that if low-SES students comprise more than 20% of the student body, there are diminishing returns and increasing problems.

You can try and spin that however you like, but it doesn't change the reality of it.

I read every post and can safely say I'm not the one spinning.

I'm still trying to figure out where to send my kid who's not yet pre-K, and everything I've been reading from and about the vaunted "west of the park" makes the schools there sound grossly unappealing. I keep looking for evidence of inspiring teachers and/or principals and/or kids who go out and do fantastic things. All I keep finding are stories like the cupcake principal and an awful lot of whining and fearmongering about the certain destruction of DCPS if more brown faced kids are allowed to infiltrate public schools in Ward 3. Maybe there are just 5-10 people with time and motivation to hang out on these boards and +1 the shit out of all the "studies that show" you're absolutely right to believe that socioeconomic diversity is the first step in the fall of mankind.

I'm actually grateful to see true feelings revealed because I was about to drink the kook aid on JKLM schools (and the best little secret, Hearst!) but I couldn't put my finger on what made these schools "better" beyond test scores and families who have money for real estate but not for private schools. I can finally understand why so many go for charters, where the diversity seems appreciated or and even essential to the success of a school.

Spin that however you want.

You were on the right track noting that you maybe shouldn't form an opinion of an entire set of schools on the anonymous posts of one or possibly a handful of people (who may or may not actually be parents at these schools).

The last couple of responses totally miss the point. The point is that there is no special magic to the JKLMs other than the fact that there is a critical mass cohort of families that value education and hard work and puts those values on its kids. The critical mass is what it's all about, it has little to do with the school itself, nor skin color or anything else that keeps getting thrown around here. If you were to swap those students with a cohort from Anacostia, the performance would go with the students. The JKLM performance would drop like a rock with the Anacostia kids, and the Anacostia performance would rise with the JKLM kids. And, were you to mix the kids around, the only way it would work is with 20% or less low-SES kids. In that case, the low SES kids would benefit from that critical mass of middle class and higher SES kids and their performance would improve through modeling and mentoring, et cetera. But once that threshold of 20% is crossed, the performance of the low-SES kids stops improving and the performance of the higher-SES kids starts to decline, more and more as there are more and more low-SES kids in the school. This is not opinion, this is not ideology, this is not racism or classism, this is what objective data shows. It's reflected in many studies and is reflected in the DC-CAS data. Whether you agree is irrelevant, your disagreement will not change the data.

[Anonymous]

Some questions about your data, PP. What is the SES makeup of all school age children in DC? Is it possible that every school in DC can be made up of 80% high SES kids and 20% FARMS? If so, what do we do to get this magical combination in schools? If we cannot have that magical combination in every school, realistically, what percentage of schools can that combination be created in?

If there are only a few schools where that magical combination can be created, then we still have the problem of how to create excellent educational opportunities for all the children in every school. If we can create that magical combination in all schools, the problem merely becomes how to create boundaries that preserve this combination.

This all presumes, and I don't, that your one factor analysis of school success is as critical as you think it is.

[Anonymous]

You all need to check out the breakdown for Thomson. Almost all FARMs, but the Asian kids (who are also low SES) excel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some questions about your data, PP. What is the SES makeup of all school age children in DC? Is it possible that every school in DC can be made up of 80% high SES kids and 20% FARMS? If so, what do we do to get this magical combination in schools? If we cannot have that magical combination in every school, realistically, what percentage of schools can that combination be created in?

If there are only a few schools where that magical combination can be created, then we still have the problem of how to create excellent educational opportunities for all the children in every school. If we can create that magical combination in all schools, the problem merely becomes how to create boundaries that preserve this combination.

This all presumes, and I don't, that your one factor analysis of school success is as critical as you think it is.

There are virtually no public schools anywhere in DC that have 80% high-SES and there are not enough high-SES students to make it work. But that's not really the point here.

The bottom line is that the proposals out there to push more low-SES students into higher-performing schools is a deeply flawed and deeply misguided one. Unless those golden (but for DC, impossible) numbers can be met, messing with boundaries or restricting choice is only going to breed resentment, increase flight, make schools and educational achievement worse, not better - and that's what all the data speaks to.

Lots of excellent educational opportunities already exist. The far bigger challenge and opportunity is in educating families to get them to understand the importance and necessity of good education - that's the real longterm fix and that's where the real gains are to be had. Look at what reformers are doing in Harlem as an example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was the poster at 18:46. We have NEVER jumped. We got into a school and have stayed there since the first grade offered. Having IB options does not stop the jumping around. Charters facilitate it too. Choice is important but the jumping around I've seen at the elementary level tells my gut it isn't good for the kids. Again, personal opinion only not based in data or studies.

As complicating as you believe choice to be, the alternative is much worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jumping Around is often criticized here and I think it comes from those left behind.

We're at our third school in three years. We went from an Appletree (it was awesome!) to a DCI feeder a block from our house.

Despite the fact that we were all in at both previous schools (we don't have a lot of money but can spend hundreds of volunteer hours), the schools we left are doing just fine without us and we have also improved our family situation from each move.

The PS3-6th grade is a such a quaint, conservative Mayberry ideal that falls to pieces when you look at specific cases.

What are you trying to say with that? It's not as if there aren't studies to support even the K-8 model (generally for private schools) Or that there aren't studies to support PS/PK. What is your objection? Your family benefited from the opportunity to have a great free PS option and then moved on (when it ended) to another great public option, and can enjoy a 3rd for your HS experience. That's great and nobody begrudges you, but you don't actually believe your anecdotes proves anything, do you? You know the plural isn't data, right?