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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It is absolutely wild to my aged, gray-haired self how the mighty TR, MV, and CMI have fallen from their former glory. I really don't know what happened. People seem more or less mostly satisfied-ish at ITDS and LAMB, so it's not a systemic explanation.[/quote]

1. School starts off as hidden gem for in the know parents.
2. In the know parents tend to have smart kids, parents are engaged, kids do well
3. Knowledge of schools quality diffuses out, school becomes more sought after by broader mix of people.
4. Broader mix of people necessarily includes lower quality parents. Lottery insures their kids get in. Sibling preference means this process starts slow then speeds up.
5. School regresses as kid and family quality declines

Step 6, which to my knowledge hasn’t happened yet here, is school recovers as people leave for greener pastures and a new core of engaged parents who missed out on other schools comes in. [/quote]

I don’t think this is is. There are plenty of schools with lots of at risk kids that provide solid academics especially in ECE. I believe TR still uses “whole language” instead of phonics (someone correct me if I’m wrong). If a school doesn’t have a coherent curriculum it will fail. CMI started to fail pre-pandemic when its PARCC scores were abysmal. ITDS has always been stronger because it’s model was always about teaching (imagine that!). At the end of the day schools are about academics and fluff like “expeditionary learning” cannot compensate for kids jot learning the basics.

TR also handled the pandemic very badly - I believe they still had masking and quarantines well after all the other schools stopped. And if they didn’t attempt to catch up academically then the results are inevitable. [/quote]

+1 it's the curriculum. There are things to like and dislike about TR's culture but the real issue is that the curriculum is weak and disorganized and everything flows from that. I think when the school was smaller the flaws in the curriculum could be concealed because 4th street had a very nurturing and cohesive community so teachers could essentially work together to create consistent advancement in education. As the school has expanded that's become impossible and it's really exposed the fundamental weakness in the EL curriculum approach. Just to use ITDS as a comparison -- their curriculum has some specific strengths (like an emphasis on writing) and even with expansion to middle they've kept their school pretty small so they can ensure consistency across classes and grades.

Also speaking specifically to the impact of families and community -- TR's lack of a clear educational philosophy hurts it here too. EL sounds good to ECE parents who are looking for a play-based and nurturing environment because EL dovetails nicely with those priorities. But once you get to K and 1st EL does not offer a true alternative to traditional education models. It's true that DCPS has lots of worksheets and repetition for reading and math in those grades and I get why parents are turned off by that. But unlike montessori which has a pretty well-developed approach for teaching reading and math in a montessori setting that can be highly effective for certain kids (montessori is not for everyone) EL doesn't really offer this. It's kind of a general idea about what the experience will be like and it's very lacking in actual pedagogy around how children acquire skills and knowledge. It's like "well it's great for kids to learn through experiences and investigation" and sure that does sound good. But how does that literally translate into learning to read. What seems to happen at TR is that they essentially teach reading and math in a traditional way but with less organization than you will find in DCPS and then they layer expeditions on top of this. But it's disjointed and doesn't feel like an efficient use of classroom time. It's very very easy for kids to fall through the cracks at TR -- both because they are advanced and it's not being recognized and they aren't being challenged OR because they are behind and it's not being recognized and they aren't getting the help they need to catch up. It's a huge problem and if you talk to families who leave this is a constant refrain -- it's just not clear what exactly kids are learning and how they are progressing through material especially from year to year.[/quote]

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