Reply to Experience with Macfarland?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Experience with Macfarland?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Idk, this is a great case study in how schools stay segregated. Posters are actively trying to convince someone who they've never met and know nothing about to not attend a school.[/quote]

Oh please. DCPS MS and HS stay segregated specifically because parents who ask for reasonable things (like appropriate curriculum and challenge, and basic safety) are called “Karens” and “Nice White Parents.” (Let’s leave aside for the moment that POC parents with resources generally don’t even entertain the idea of the poorly performing schools.) Look at schools like Hardy and Deal, where the IB parents bought in because school leadership acknowledged their kids needs and showed they were willing to meet them. That’s how you get white parents to attend. (Meanwhile most wealthy/educated POC depart for privates or the burbs, but I digress.)[/quote]

So what specifically does Hardy offer that other DCPS middle schools don’t?

[/quote]

Classes with the majority of kids at or above grade level, which means teachers can teach accordingly. Much smaller proportion of kids completely failing, meaning resources can be distributed more evenly. I believe they also offer geometry. [/quote]

That’s circular logic. The post above suggested that Hardy did something to attract IB parents to the school in the first place. What exactly did it do that other schools are not doing?

[/quote]

It's absolutely circular: That's why you hear about tipping points, where there are enough kids from UMC families to provide a peer group of academically on-grade students. Part of it is a coordination issue, which schools can't affect. But there are often a few inbound/UMC students who schools can retain by 1) actively recruiting, and 2) having a school culture that encourages behavior. We moved back and forth between a couple of EOTP schools. We left one (more than 10 years ago) when the principal said explicitly to a group of pre-K parents who were deciding whether to stay, "Your kids are not my priority. There are other kids with much great needs." Which is absolutely true. We moved to another, which had behavioral problems AND a principal who said almost exactly the same thing (in an all-school meeting) about prioritizing kids who were struggling academically. We moved back to school 1, which had much fewer behavioral problems and therefore had attracted a lot more inbounds, UMC (and yes, predominantly white) families. Our kids were happier with less chair throwing in the classroom. School 1 is now predominantly UMC and inbounds; school 2 is still struggling.[/quote]

Sorry, forgot to mention a critical fact: School 1 had gone through several new principals, who didn't think it was necessary to neglect kids who were on grade level to help those who weren't.[/quote]

Generally, I think my kid who is on/above grade level at MacFarland is not neglected. They are especially above grade level in one particular subject and that teacher has reached out to our family multiple times to discuss ways to give them additional academic support. Not every teacher is good at this, but my student has gotten enough unique attention that I am fairly confident that my kid is able to access appropriate grade level content (and sometimes beyond) even while many of their classmates are below grade level. I don't know for certain, but I think this is similar to the majority of public DC middle schools that do not track students in most classes  - and even when they are tracked like in "advanced math" many of the students are not able to access the content. I agree with other posters that it's not a great a system and there are very likely other things DCPS could be doing in middle school to improve academic access for many of their students. But that said, for my kid that is on or above grade level, the fact that many of their classmates are not performing on grade level has not prevented my kid from seeing grade-level content.  I think DCPS should be investing in ways to help the majority of their middle grade students who are not currently on grade level - which would very likely involve schools having a lot more staff than they currently do - but our Mayor would have to want to pay for that and she does not.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics