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DC Public and Public Charter Schools
Letter from Cancellor re moving schools - opps - I got caught moving my kid?
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Anonymous
He hasn't done anything astounding for DCPS. Too much SEL, I notice that that seemed to be the same in Oakland, lots of fluff but nothing actually substantial and the PDs have been awful. Remember he did receive the initial emails from teacher about the situation at Dunbar but chose to not address it until it hit the media. Was he bad, not, but not inspiring, all talk and no actions. Lots of big money SEL type positions have been posted on indeed recently! |
Anonymous
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The announcement of his departure from Oakland in 2016...
"...."Unfortunately, Oakland is very familiar with the churn of an urban school superintendent,” he said. “As a city, we don’t have time to lament.” Harris said the trustees will look for a candidate to continue the district’s community schools effort, which includes providing a range of services for families at school sites, including health care. The next superintendent, he said, will also be expected to partner with the city, as Wilson has, to support programs like Oakland Promise, which provides students funding and support for college. And the next superintendent must have the stamina and stomach for the job. “It is very difficult to sit in the fire of an urban district,” Harris said. “You take a lot of heat.” Yet many urban leaders like Wilson are committed to the career. The complicating factor is that they often hopscotch across the country, boosting profiles and paychecks. Superintendent search firms have a stable of candidates they shop around, place in districts and then — maybe a few years down the road — poach again..." "...Wilson was recruited from Denver, where he was an assistant superintendent, to take over Oakland schools. A native of Nebraska and a former middle-school principal in Kansas, he had participated in the Broad Superintendent Academy, a training program sponsored by billionaire Eli Broad, who supports a more corporate philosophy in running public education. The Broad superintendents “often aim for national status and reputation, and they have strong personal career ambitions,” said Tina Trujillo, an associate professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education. “Almost nobody expected a Broad superintendent to stay,” she said. “It’s a career ladder. That is completely counter to what a high-needs school district needs.” Wilson’s tenure in Oakland — which like Washington, D.C., has about 49,000 students — has been marked by criticism of his efforts to overhaul struggling schools in Oakland and to include charter schools in the district’s enrollment process. Wilson drew fire within months of his arrival after he initiated a plan to redesign five high schools, an effort community members interpreted as code for conversion to charter schools. He also pledged to create a school enrollment process that allowed parents to choose from among the traditional public schools and the few dozen, nontraditional and largely independent charter schools, which many saw as a threat to the sustainability of their neighborhood schools. The teachers’ union and other community groups felt Wilson was an autocrat who made decisions without understanding the city and the people in it. The most recent school board election featured battles between incumbents who supported Wilson and union-endorsed challengers who didn’t. The incumbents won. Not everyone was sad to see him go. His departure “presents Oakland with a unique opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past, and select a new leader who is committed to making a difference in our students and who will stay in Oakland long enough to see those changes through,” said Kim Davis of Parents United for Public Schools, a community group representing Oakland families, in a statement. His mid-year decision also did not sit well with Oakland teachers’ union President Trish Gorham. “I don’t begrudge anybody making a career move,” she said. “However, teachers who want to move on to greener pastures in the middle of the year are told their credential will be suspended.” https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-schools-superintendent-takes-new-job-in-10630171.php
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Anonymous
[youtube]
np: Huh? This parent disagrees. I know nothing about Alexander, but I know my kids' principal is remarkable! |
Anonymous
| Now I’m anxious to hear from Jennifer Niles. |
Anonymous
Oh my goodness that's exactly how it should be. Principals should have total autonomy in how they run schools. That's the whole point of school choice/lottery to have actual choices and differentiation. Central Office should be completely gutted, its rife with corruption and incompetence, attendance/graduation scandal is just one of many examples. It's full of people removed from actually education children and causes all sorts of headaches with policies/procedures that don't help anyone. Low performing schools do need to be triaged. If it was up to me I would take whatever KIPP/DC Prep is doing and apply it. KIPP/DC Prep is the only model that can actually educate lower SES students and get results. |
Anonymous
| The answer is painfully clear ... smaller class sizes and more social workers. Every other initiative is second to this! |
Anonymous
| And I mean drastically smaller as in 10 to 12 students!!! |
Anonymous
| And don't give me that bs that there's no money. We have money to build fancy new schools, We have money to go hundreds of millions of dollars over budget for Ellington. the money's there and this is a top priority. Just imagine how much worse things will be a generation down the road if we don't take a drastic turn in our approach to education |
Anonymous
| DC is destined to continue to repeat their pattern of failing schools and segregation. Too many people with opposing agendas. The whole system needs to be restructured. Five years and 3 Chancellors? Something is wrong! |
Anonymous
Doing what you want - which I agree with - is paid for differently than school construction and renovation. The capital budget is financed over time. The operating budget — which pays for salaries is not. Keep the construction budget out of it. It isn’t available for day to day operations. |
Anonymous
What in the world does "Too much SEL" even mean? Be specific, because as far as we can tell from the school-based point of view, there isn't enough and it had barely gotten off the ground. What examples do you have of "too much SEL"? |
Anonymous
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So reallocate the funding, earmarking far more for programming and none for pointless Taj Mahal renovations creating fancy buildings that sit mostly empty (e.g. Dunbar HS) for years after the remodeling is done, and/or mainly attract OOB families (Eastern HS). DCPS is about to embark on a wave of renovating mostly empty MS buildings (Eliot Hine, Jefferson) that will stay that way for a generation because they can't begin to compete with Tier 1 charters.
I found it interesting to watch Ward 6 parents turn the tide in Wilson's ouster. Without Allen on board, it wouldn't have happened. Robert White's voice wasn't heard until another member of the CC Comm on Ed joined him, putting pressure on Grosso to dump Wilson. Ward 6 parents wouldn't have been pushing to can Wilson if DCPS had worked with them to create a Deal-like pan Ward 6 middle school back in 2014, probably on the spacious Eliot-Hine grounds. It was obvious to many of us on the Hill, at least those who've been in the neighborhood for a long time, that pumping 40 million into Staurt Hobson would set the stage for a political backlash. When I moved to the Hill 15 years ago, Ward 6 parents willing to schlep their kids to Deal and Wilson could use those schools. That ship has long since sailed and high SES Ward 6 parents are fit to be tied. A city just can't function properly with only one by-right HS most IB parents are OK with. |
Anonymous
News flash the majority of DCPS students are poor and black. It really doesn't matter what you think. That's simply the reality. If you actually want to make a difference in DC go to your neighborhood school and mentor/volunteer/donate to the vast majority of schools/areas that are worse off than the hill and Ward 3 |
Anonymous
He doesn't get why the parents would be so furious. He thinks it's just a bunch of cranky whiners. He didn't understand that the snowball would keep picking up speed daily until June. That idiotic "hmmm" tweet showed his true colors. Day-to-day there would be nothing that Wilson could accomplish between now and the end of the year as a lame duck. |
Anonymous
Bowser doesn’t think so due to the comment she made during the news conference. |