Should the Ed Reformers just quit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sort of. Poor charter students tend to have slightly more able and motivated parents, or grandparents, than poor DCPS students. Mostly they simply have access to a better school their families get them to easily. The difference isn't enormous.

The difference is statistically significant. You should revisit your own education, unless you're one of those "I
don't like numbers" types.

NP here who also has a PhD in the social sciences. It is perfectly possible for population mean differences to be statistically significant, but quite small. That suggests that the differences aren't policy relevant. No one can look at the data here and conclude that the answer to the achievement gap is to put kids in charters. Nationwide, the preponderance of the research suggests that charters are on average no better than the neighborhood schools they replace. Certainly, some individual charter schools do quite well, but there are enough Options and Excel.Academies to prove that it isn't sufficient just to be a charter.

In general, the Ed Reform movement is plagued by a lack of rigorous research backing up any of the proposed reforms. Charters, TFA, etc. Gget little support from the data. The business people running the New Centuries and the Eli Broads don't know how to evaluate research. I went to college with one of the board members of Flamboyan, basically a guy who was a successful manufacturer. He came to our reunion and imlplied that their program was responsible for increases in test scores at the schools in which they worked, despite admitting that "other changes " were also taking place in the schools. They don't really understand the idea of controls.

Some policies that do work include universal pre school, targeted feedback for teachers, and evidenced based curricula. A good summary of the research, targeted at a lay audience, is here.

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Opportunity-Inequality-Challenge-Education/dp/1612506348

You do realize that the bolded statement is only boastful when sitting around with a bunch of poli sci professors, right?

I love mocking PhDs, but the PP you're responding to is spot on and well reasoned.

It was an attempt at humor that apparently only another PhD in the soft sciences can understand.

[Anonymous]

Should the Ed reformers just quit?

I'm sure that's what WTF... er, WTU hopes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC Prep is hardcore test-prep drill and kill instruction. No recess, no talking during lunch, etc. Yes, you get kids to pass tests, but at a super-high cost that doesn't lead to success in the college or world of work because it's so regimented.

Proof or it didn't happen.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo2GU2dBrQ3yGK-ZMdOlXdg has tons of videos of DC Prep lessons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC Prep is hardcore test-prep drill and kill instruction. No recess, no talking during lunch, etc. Yes, you get kids to pass tests, but at a super-high cost that doesn't lead to success in the college or world of work because it's so regimented.

Proof or it didn't happen.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo2GU2dBrQ3yGK-ZMdOlXdg has tons of videos of DC Prep lessons.

Not the lessons, but show us the outcomes you are so sure about.

[Anonymous]

Oh god watching those videos makes me nauseous. I would NEVER subject my kid to such an education. Do they get test scores? Oh yes.
Are the kids prepared for a college environment? Hell no.
How much time, money, and energy are they wasting on those ridiculous PARCC rap videos and to what purpose? What's the message that these kids are getting? College and life are not about scantron tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It all starts at home. Educators cannot be both educators and parents, although many of them admirably try. Parents must be engaged in their child's education and provide basics like adequate sleep and nourishment. When these baseline things are not being provided it's difficult to see how a school can make up for all of the inadequacies regardless of how many wrap-around services they provide.

This is it, but they still blame the teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It all starts at home. Educators cannot be both educators and parents, although many of them admirably try. Parents must be engaged in their child's education and provide basics like adequate sleep and nourishment. When these baseline things are not being provided it's difficult to see how a school can make up for all of the inadequacies regardless of how many wrap-around services they provide.

This is it, but they still blame the teachers.

The bad ones, yes. And there were a LOT of bad teachers when the reformers took over and cleaned house. Actually, now I think about it, many of them got jaded and started throwing their hands up and saying, "there's nothing I can do but warehouse these kids because of their home lives." How'd you keep your job?

It is one thing to say, "this is hard and getting harder and we need support from parents and social services and the community." But you lose all credibility when you deny that teaching and teachers are a part of the equation or deny that bad teachers exist or need to be removed. When you play in the mud with pigs you get dirty. (Is the former president of the WTU out of jail yet?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nah. We just need more highly-paid consultants to study why their less-highly paid peers weren't able to fix societal issues by firing teachers and diverting half of DC students to underperforming charter schools.

Great idea! maybe paying the current admin staff more would help too, now that we've seen how well paying teachers more has worked. We could also consider firing all the current admin staff and hiring others, with even less experience and training in education. That's a time-tested solution, as well.

Attitude helps, too -- come in with guns blazing and an air of determination that your team and your team alone has a solution to educating "our black children."

I would suggest a Change.org petition to double Kaya's salary so that she is finally sufficiently motivated.

Further, I would suggest a Change.org petition to ask every parent to commit to doing his and her best to raise happy, successful kids, instead of outsourcing their responsibility to someone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Students in lower grades are showing improvements. It makes sense that the students who are younger, who have had the most early exposure to the reforms, would show the most improvement. The recent PARCC exam results confirm this:

Slide 16:
http://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/OSSE%20PARCC%203-8%20ReleasePresentation_finalv14.pdf

If reforms began seven years ago, then a child who started PK3 at that time would only be in 4th grade now -- and when the reforms began, not many children were enrolled in PK3.

DCPS has been in decline for more than 30 years. It isn't going to magically become Virginia in 5 years. But, in my own view, the improvement over this period is positive. Enough to make me stick around.

This is magical thinking, see the later posters. We essentially just see fewer middle class kids in the later grades. It's likely that more will stay...and scores will improve.

What DC has is a generational poverty issue, not an education crisis.

Whew! It's a good thing there's no relationship between the two.

I think that what the previous poster meant is once we have 100% gentrification, the problem will solve itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Students in lower grades are showing improvements. It makes sense that the students who are younger, who have had the most early exposure to the reforms, would show the most improvement. The recent PARCC exam results confirm this:

Slide 16:
http://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/OSSE%20PARCC%203-8%20ReleasePresentation_finalv14.pdf

If reforms began seven years ago, then a child who started PK3 at that time would only be in 4th grade now -- and when the reforms began, not many children were enrolled in PK3.

DCPS has been in decline for more than 30 years. It isn't going to magically become Virginia in 5 years. But, in my own view, the improvement over this period is positive. Enough to make me stick around.

This is magical thinking, see the later posters. We essentially just see fewer middle class kids in the later grades. It's likely that more will stay...and scores will improve.

What DC has is a generational poverty issue, not an education crisis.

Whew! It's a good thing there's no relationship between the two.

I think that what the previous poster meant is once we have 100% gentrification, the problem will solve itself.

That will be a happy day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nah. We just need more highly-paid consultants to study why their less-highly paid peers weren't able to fix societal issues by firing teachers and diverting half of DC students to underperforming charter schools.

Great idea! maybe paying the current admin staff more would help too, now that we've seen how well paying teachers more has worked. We could also consider firing all the current admin staff and hiring others, with even less experience and training in education. That's a time-tested solution, as well.

Attitude helps, too -- come in with guns blazing and an air of determination that your team and your team alone has a solution to educating "our black children."

I would suggest a Change.org petition to double Kaya's salary so that she is finally sufficiently motivated.

Further, I would suggest a Change.org petition to ask every parent to commit to doing his and her best to raise happy, successful kids, instead of outsourcing their responsibility to someone else.

Shouldn't you be working Madam Chancellor?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Students in lower grades are showing improvements. It makes sense that the students who are younger, who have had the most early exposure to the reforms, would show the most improvement. The recent PARCC exam results confirm this:

Slide 16:
http://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/OSSE%20PARCC%203-8%20ReleasePresentation_finalv14.pdf

If reforms began seven years ago, then a child who started PK3 at that time would only be in 4th grade now -- and when the reforms began, not many children were enrolled in PK3.

DCPS has been in decline for more than 30 years. It isn't going to magically become Virginia in 5 years. But, in my own view, the improvement over this period is positive. Enough to make me stick around.

This is magical thinking, see the later posters. We essentially just see fewer middle class kids in the later grades. It's likely that more will stay...and scores will improve.

What DC has is a generational poverty issue, not an education crisis.

Whew! It's a good thing there's no relationship between the two.

I think that what the previous poster meant is once we have 100% gentrification, the problem will solve itself.

the schools will certainly have the best test scores in the country. its just a fact, plain and simple. SES is tied to high achieving kids. the "transitioning" schools that are improving scores are tied to the number of high SES families taking a chance on the school, not about race. KIPP and other AA charter that do well are basically 6 day a week boot camps, and honestly keeping those kids AWAY from their homes as much as possible is probably helping them function and learn better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It all starts at home. Educators cannot be both educators and parents, although many of them admirably try. Parents must be engaged in their child's education and provide basics like adequate sleep and nourishment. When these baseline things are not being provided it's difficult to see how a school can make up for all of the inadequacies regardless of how many wrap-around services they provide.

This is it, but they still blame the teachers.

The bad ones, yes. And there were a LOT of bad teachers when the reformers took over and cleaned house. Actually, now I think about it, many of them got jaded and started throwing their hands up and saying, "there's nothing I can do but warehouse these kids because of their home lives." How'd you keep your job?

It is one thing to say, "this is hard and getting harder and we need support from parents and social services and the community." But you lose all credibility when you deny that teaching and teachers are a part of the equation or deny that bad teachers exist or need to be removed. When you play in the mud with pigs you get dirty. (Is the former president of the WTU out of jail yet?)

How many teachers did you hear saying this? I bet none -- but this was an oft repeated phrase of Michelle Rhee, soI can see why it stuck. And don't forget her other mantra --"all it takes is a good teacher to turn around student learning" followed by a lesson on how she knows because she did it herself in a low performing school in Baltimore during her first years of teaching.

It was the height of bs, but a lot of people fell for it.

PS, the former head of WTU was embezzling, long before Rhee's time. The head during Rhee's time now works for the "Students First" organization that Rhee started after leaving DC and has since left.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Students in lower grades are showing improvements. It makes sense that the students who are younger, who have had the most early exposure to the reforms, would show the most improvement. The recent PARCC exam results confirm this:

Slide 16:
http://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/OSSE%20PARCC%203-8%20ReleasePresentation_finalv14.pdf

If reforms began seven years ago, then a child who started PK3 at that time would only be in 4th grade now -- and when the reforms began, not many children were enrolled in PK3.

DCPS has been in decline for more than 30 years. It isn't going to magically become Virginia in 5 years. But, in my own view, the improvement over this period is positive. Enough to make me stick around.

Stick around if you want, but not because "reform is working" but because gentrification is. And DC was not "in decline for more than 30 years" from a scores perspective -- NAEP scores have been climbing steadily all that time, through numerous superintendents and despite all those supposedly crappy teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming that this thread is riffing off of yesterday's PARCC scores, it seems that a couple schools e.g. KIPP and DC Prep - have figured out how to get their students to do nearly as well as white, affluent students.

I think that DCPS and the rest of the charters need to go spend some time in those schools and start replicating what they are doing.

What they are doing is selecting the "best" students from the most functional families (not all poor black families are the same). In order to go to KIPP, parents need the resources and the wherewithal to apply their kid to the lottery and to manage the transportation issues. They then must sign a pledge to commit to a certain number of parent participation hours. Then they also need to get their kid to school for frequent Saturday hours. All of these things are not possible for the most dysfunctional families, who are then concentrated in schools like Turner and Motten, with less than 5% proficiency rates.

At the middle and high school level, where kids from dysfunctional families need so much more -- in terms of social workers and guidance counselors -- the fact that their peers from more functional families are going to charters and OOB leaves the school less money for non-classroom staff.

I read article about a "day in the life at a no excuses charter" and frankly prison treats people better than those students in those schools.

As others have said the attrition numbers at both schools speak for themselves about why it's a solution for,some but not all.