Reply to Should the Ed Reformers just quit?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Assuming that this thread is riffing off of yesterday's PARCC scores, it seems that a couple schools e.g. KIPP and DC Prep - have figured out how to get their students to do nearly as well as white, affluent students.

I think that DCPS and the rest of the charters need to go spend some time in those schools and start replicating what they are doing.

[/quote]

What they are doing is selecting the "best" students from the most functional families (not all poor black families are the same). In order to go to KIPP, parents need the resources and the wherewithal to apply their kid to the lottery and to manage the transportation issues. They then must sign a pledge to commit to a certain number of parent participation hours. Then they also need to get their kid to school for frequent Saturday hours. All of these things are not possible for the most dysfunctional families, who are then concentrated in schools like Turner and Motten, with less than 5% proficiency rates.

At the middle and high school level, where kids from dysfunctional families need so much more -- in terms of social workers and guidance counselors -- the fact that their peers from more functional families are going to charters and OOB leaves the school less money for non-classroom staff.[/quote]

Well, I'm happy for those "best" students from the most functional [poor black] families because if it weren't for KIPP they too would be languishing and failing at the 5% schools. There needs to be a completely different model for what you term as the "most dysfunctional families." Something that is targeted to their extreme need. I'm no educator and I don't know what that model looks like, but [b]slamming schools like KIPP[/b] (and in doing so, the families that attend there) for the amazing strides they've made is counterproductive.[/quote]

I don't see where pp slammed KiPP - the message is that something like that should be accessible to students with less parental support

[/quote]

Maybe not slammed but dismissed it out of hand by saying that it attracts motivated students. [b]Extended school days and Saturday school probably needs to be part of the solution and, to her credit, Chancellor has been trying to implement that for the last few years. But the WTU and higher SES parents are making it very difficult, if not impossible.[/b][/quote]

I think one of the District education leaders' biggest mistakes is this idea that every "solution" must be applied across the board. Higher SES parents (like me) are against an extended school day and Saturday school for [b]my children[/b] because they do not need it. Their school is already succeeding in providing what they are supposed to in terms of academic education in the time that we already entrust with them.  What my children need after 3:15 and on the weekends is the quality, enrichment time they get with their family by preparing and eating meals together while talking about our day, going over homework, going on trips, visiting museums, doing chores to learn responsibility, etc. Extending the school day (year or week) might be a great solution for at-risk children whose home life challenges are immense and every hour away from that environment is a plus. But I certainly do not trust that DCPS would take additional hours of my child's life and do more with it than my husband and I would already do. We have to recognize that solutions can't be one size fits all, they need to take into account what problems they are actually trying to solve. [/quote]

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