Reply to Kaya Leaving; John Davis in as interim

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Original PP here.

I think that the Deal example illustrates perfectly how personally people take this. I don't think it's appropriate. No one is looking at Family X and saying, "Let's kick Family X to the curb so that it's less crowded for Family Y." Rationally, one would look at the physical capacities of schools and adjust the boundaries in order to make sure that no school is over-enrolled. It's not personal!

I am sympathetic to everyone trying to find solid education options for their kids, but I'm also sympathetic to the macro issue at play, which is that many individuals are not willing to invest in the collective, wherever or however that's defined. [/quote]

I'm the poster you responded to, and I think we agree on the general problem and on the need to make decisions without letting personal or neighborhood bias control.  But I still don't think it's so easy.  Here's one really concrete example ...

Deal is overcrowded despite the boundary changes, and is projected to get significantly more overcrowded in the coming years.  Some say the Deal boundaries should shrink further, which likely means at least one of the feeder elementary schools gets removed from Deal.  Rationally, one would say Shepherd or Bancroft is the logical choice for removal, because they're farthest away from Deal and closest to other middle school options.  But many parents in those neighborhoods will believe - just as fervently - that the rational choice is just an excuse to benefit other neighborhoods and block their children from attending Deal.  They will offer various rational reasons for their position, such as claiming that DCPS needs to keep those elementary schools in the Deal feeder pattern to add to diversity, or by claiming there aren't very many students coming to Deal from those neighborhoods anyway.

So how do you decide which side is more rational?[/quote]

of course everyone believes the solution that benefits them the most is the most rational. again, that is the point: these decisions should be made on a macro level, not based on special pleading from small groups. 
[/quote]

Well, we definitely agree on the need for objective, macro-level decision-making.  But the really hard part is that in most places - and certainly in DC - such decisions are inherently political.  Every mayor and councilmember knows she will catch blowback from neighborhood constituents and other special interest groups if their viewpoints don't prevail, and every DME/Chancellor knows she needs to support the mayor's agenda.

Maybe the mayor will hire you and me to work together to develop the strategy for improving DCPS.  [/quote]

It's actually at least 3 of us, because I (the original PP) wasn't the one who posted about macro level/special pleading (though I agree!).

I think it would probably be easier to have the policy conversation if we had any kind of models of how to turn an entire failing system around. You can certainly frame unattractive things in a way that makes them LESS unattractive. There are so many points of entry as to what to fix, and I think that one thing that DCPS has really screwed the pooch on in the last 5 years is trying out a new solution pretty much every year. Expanded access to preschool. At-risk funding. Boundary revision. Extended day. Extended year. New teacher evaluation systems. New standardized tests. It is pretty difficult to measure the effectiveness of any one of those things without a slightly more longitudinal study of effectiveness. It may be that PARCC and Common Core are, overall, good for academic achievement in DC, but if we were just to look at the effectiveness of those things now, today, and determine whether to keep them or not based on their effectiveness in July 2016, we'd scrap that shit so fast.

We try throwing money at the problem, but that clearly isn't working. Is it that DCPS is spending money unwisely? Are there contracts that could be revisited and made more beneficial for students? Are there things that schools need that DCPS isn't covering that could be paid for by diverting money from other places?

We talk about holding teachers accountable, but are they trained in the many non-academic education aspects of their job? Do teachers in high poverty schools receive professional development in working with kids who have experienced trauma? Do teachers receive adequate support from their administrations when it comes to burn out and balance?

We talk about increasing parent engagement, but it has not been my observation that DCPS as an entity is effective at engaging with parents. I have seen some improvement in the last year (I'm a fan of the idea of the Community Action Teams and hope that they expand and become more useful), but there does not seem to be much other than lipservice in terms of engagement. It is hard to organize a PTA from scratch (I know, because I've done it), and many people do not have the time or the organizing skills to make that happen. Even when they do, if the school isn't used to having a PTA, it can be hard to engage with parents (as countless threads here show).

So I don't know what the solutions are. I don't think that John Davis will suddenly bring solutions either. I think that it really depends on who is brought in on a non-interim basis and what power that person has to effectuate actual changes. [/quote]

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