Reply to 20,000 kids missing from DCPS

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Reply to "20,000 kids missing from DCPS"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I love how little concern there is on this thread about thousands of kids not attending school AT ALL. It’s just belly aching about Perry Stein or hairsplitting over the numbers. No one expresses any concern whatsoever about the kids.[/quote]

Learn to read. The thread title is about the "20,000 kids missing". The issue I took with both the headline and the article is that is provides no evidence to support that conclusion. As I (and others) have already explained to you several times, the number isn't down 20,000 from years prior at this point in the process. Assuming it is "only" overstating the issue by 10,000 that's a huge, intellectually dishonest overstatement. Plus, as we have also explained,  even the article acknowledges that many students typically do registration confirmation in person so it isn't clear whether some of these "missing" students are even missing, or just attending after having failed to register.

No one is saying kids shouldn't be in school. What we are saying is that this article provides fuel for a fire where there might not even be smoke.

I am loving the DCUM Hill and upper NW parents who don't want these poor and homeless kids anywhere near their schools but have recently decided to mention them because it tracks with their narrative that they want to go back to school.[/quote]

Last year, there were 99,000 students in the system.

This year, only 77,000 have logged into a class at least once.

That means almost one-quarter of the students have yet to attend a single class this year.

How many thousands more have attended only one or two or three classes and then quit?

This translates to an astronomical absentee rate. [/quote]

Even Perry acknowledges that the number isn’t that high — she tweeted this: “At this time last yr. 87k had enrolled. DC does not suspect the main driver is people fleeing public schools, instead it is confusion over enrollment process. Typically families enroll in-person in the front desk of schools. Now its mostly virtual.” Also, Perry’s figures include adult students. Much better information is needed to draw any conclusions. [/quote]

If that's the case it's easy for DCPS to release more data to support it. I'm skeptical. I don't believe its a complete red herring since I do believe there are legitimate dc resident families having trouble completing the process. But until DCPS provides data showing real attendance stats and not just a measure of who's ever logged on I'm going to believe regular attendance is way down.

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