To the parents in "good schools"
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Anonymous
Oh great. Word salad posts now. |
Anonymous
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OP here. I am happy to see the discussion and heartened. I know my experience isn't universal. When I worked in a Title I school, we had a very good admin team. They supported us, but we had to step up as well. We couldn't just say well these kids are so far behind. We had to do better. I loved it and it's an awesome school. Even now.
My current school has a fantastic parent community. People recommend it. It's an expensive area to live in (hell, we don't live in the zone, my kids are in a different FCPS pyramid). What my frustration is that there is this sort of sense of complacency. Here is an example. In our classrooms kids run through stations. We had a teacher in a team meeting mention that a kid was not completing the work. She kept saying she was running her small groups and doing assessments. She e-mailed mom and dad and she expected they'd talk to the kid. I piped in and pointed out that her e-mail (which basically said Larla isn't completing her work because she's thinking) isn't helpful. I offered some tools I use to keep kids engaged while I am going assessments. The teacher pointed out the kid was two grades above level on I-ready and being a "bit spacey" isn't a big deal in her room. Once she mentioned the I-ready scores, and mentioned the kid's DRA, the admin was like let's move on. So we did. I smiled. I kept things nice. But inside, I kind of died for that kid. Why IS she thinking so much? This is the thing. The kids, they are great. But they deserve much, much more. |
Anonymous
Falls Church High School? |
Anonymous
Falls Church isn’t an IB school. |
Anonymous
That's the point of this thread. Ugh. |
Anonymous
| Our kids attend a Title I school and I agree 100% with OP's points about staff dedication and the quality of teaching. Fortunately, the school also offers Local Level IV, which means a cohort of smart, motivated kids, in smaller class sizes, and the same nurturing environment we've grown to love. Feels like a win-win. |
Anonymous
We had lived in the district less than two weeks at our highly rated school when the staff told us they'd like to set up an IEP for one of our kids. A few years later, the high school initiated the process of setting up a 504 for another one of our kids (who performs very well academically). So your experience on this point may not be universal. However, I have noticed a huge gap in expectations between Honors/AP and the regular curriculum at our high school. And many of the honors/AP classes are very unforgiving. Since performance in the harder classes is to some extent dependent on SES, your argument suggests that it's actually a bad idea for a family of modest means to "move up" to a higher performing pyramid in hopes of getting access to better academics. |
Anonymous
sounds more like Lee. Falls Church has a decent reputation, especially under the two most recent principals. |
Anonymous
We we re e in a school like that. All the focus goes to the bottom and the average bright and gifted kids are an afterthought. At some points the parents need to step to the plate and start sending their kids prepared to learn. |
Anonymous
I agree, but within classes in a school, the poverty level can be really high in regular classes and low in honors or AP. So even when a school's poverty level is low, having large classes with high poverty numbers brings down the whole school. |
Anonymous
| We just moved from a bad (Alexandria) to a good (McLean) school district. We loved the principal and teachers at our old school. I was pleasantly surprised how great the school was during the younger primary years. Now that we moved, I can see an immense difference in parents and peer group. Our principal is very devoted and has been with the school for a long time. I’m not sure if the teachers are better or worse but discipline is far better at the new school. Extracurriculars available are night and day as well. So much parent support in the pta. Many highly competent SAHMs putting a lot of energy into the school. |
Anonymous
| Pp again. ESOL kids are very different as well. We had kids st old school come from countries who may never have been in a classroom setting before. Many illegals at the old school. New school has children of diplomats. The kids who have been here for only a year from South Korea are in advanced math and highest reading groups. Sadly there were kids at old school who obviously didn’t read books at home. They couldn’t even turn pages. |
Anonymous
This is actually what I want more of for my kids so I fit with your view of parent's perspective. "Set measured goals" are often too reductive and often not what matters most in learning--but rather what can be reliably measured and is appropriate across a large group of students. Fine for what it is, but a limited education. I would prefer the teachers to focus their energies on how to find competent ways of judging complex performances that vary--much like what happens at IB, at the university level, and life.But There are criteria--but not perfectly measured goals. For the basics, I think set measured goals are good. But like a good portion of educated families, my kids entered K reading and doing math several years above grade level and have continued on without hitches. I'm not worried about their ability to master the basics. I *would* prefer more competent math instruction--what I see happening is the worst of both worlds--too much rote practice on simple skills that are tested by SOL and then not enough thoughtful support in the deeper math investigations. Other countries have gotten math instruction down much better than we have in the US and we could learn a lot--but we don't attract enough math inclined adults to teach at the elementary level here so it's hard to import directly. I actually think students would do better if something like 3 teachers were hired in each elementary school to teach math to all the grades--much like an art or music specialist--and the rest of the math practice was just through computer adapted support. |
Anonymous
So true |
Anonymous
Agreed the math issues are astounding. I went to my elementary's back to school night yesterday and it was packed; you could tell many parents were anxious/tense about the subject. On the bright side, while I'm in agreement that the elementary teachers who I saw present do not have what I would consider a great enough level of expertise on the subject, I was pleasantly surprised in how much they seemed to care and put energy in showing parents how they actually teach. There were some good discussions and some parents asked some hard questions, a few which made it difficult for teachers to respond, but in the end my conclusion was that the teachers seemed genuinely interested in helping all the kids succeed using all the knowledge they knew (despite the fact that they were not math majors in college, etc). I highly agree that each school should have an expert on the subject, perhaps hire 1-2 folks with math/science/engineering background, and have them train the rest of the math department in how to teach. I think in the long run it would go a long way in helping teachers go beyond what they are currently teaching, which are mainly standard approaches to topics (which are fine), but normally lack enough good logic, reasoning, explanation to steer students toward understanding and making connections, versus just following/trying different recipes, (which is what I've noticed teachers mainly do). |