Reply to EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”

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[quote=Anonymous]Non-economically disadvantaged students (who are disproportionately but not all white) are doing fine in every school they attend.  I really think that if you switched the student bodies of--for example--Aiton and Eaton, all of a sudden you'd have different perceptions of each school.

A kid with involved, educated, parents is going to score advanced on DC-CAS wherever they go.  So that's one reason to stay.  The teachers are largely just fine, and the kids can get a diverse experience.

But if the school isn't doing anything to differentiate or challenge the few advanced kids, or if there are discipline/bullying problems I can see why parents want to leave.

I would be fine sending an academically advanced kid to my neighborhood school, where proficiency rates are about 30%, if the teachers could provide some real enrichment (not tutoring other kids or just sitting in a corner with a book) and the other students were well-behaved.

And in a small school, it only takes a few families making that choice before test scores go up.  For example, in an elementary school with 100 kids in testing grades and 35% proficiency, moving in 10 proficient kids (so, 3 or 4 per grade) allows the teachers to move 5 students from basic to proficient (1 or 2 per grade) and wind up with 45% proficiency.  Do it again the following year--find 10 families to stay or come in OOB at the testing grades, and get 6 students from basic to proficient.  Now you're at 55% proficiency and DCPS and DCUM are giving it buzz. It's not easy to find or keep those proficient students though.

One thing that really hurts schools that are trying to retain students is the policy that once you're in OOB you can go to the destination middle school.  People are therefore willing to play the lottery and leave an elementary they're fairly happy with in hopes of getting into one that feeds a better middle school.   I am really disappointed that the DME's plan didn't address this issue, because I think it might be one of the major hurdles to improving schools (and probably one of the few hurdles DME is actually able to address--things like childhood poverty and low parental literacy are much greater issues but outside of her control).[/quote]

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