Reply to Washington Informer article: "School Lottery Season Starts Amid Questions about Enrollment and Equity"

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Reply to "Washington Informer article: "School Lottery Season Starts Amid Questions about Enrollment and Equity""

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What I think people need to really realize here is that the death of schools East of the Anacostia is about the charter sector eating DCPS' lunch over there. My take is that parents aren't seeing their children succeed in DCPS and want an alternative, which means the charter sector over there.

The unkind reality is that children of poor people who can't give extra to their kids, don't read to them, experience trauma, have little education themselves, etc., are going to have poor educational outcomes. I don't fault people for wanting better for their kids even if - because education is JUST NOT a game-changer for poorly-performing students - they are not likely to do better just because of these schools.

At some point, I really hope there are game-changing educational possibilities for poor and disadvantaged children, actually, I want it generations ago, but it appears we can only change the future. However, if there was truly such a thing, DCPS would do it too! DCPS totally would! Even a bureaucracy in America would eventually do what works.

But instead because no one can fix kids' outcomes, they say "well, let's go to a different service provider who promises better things!" And then the different outcomes are not one-to-one matched to the same kids. The mirage of different outcomes we perceive is really about sorting those who are more likely to succeed away from those who are less likely to. And it sucks. And it leads to crap like this - normal schools with minimal budgets able to do little to support kids who need A LOT because they can't get enough butts in seats.

Our effort to "offer alternatives" that don't do better has led predictably to the starvation of normal DCPS, from Sousa to Anacostia.[/quote]

Why are you assuming that everyone in Wards 7 and 8 are full of trauma/have parents who can’t give them extras, etc.?

To me, the article seems to indicate that there are many families in those Wards who are just the same as W3 families— if their kids were in Janney, they’d be scoring 5s just like your kid. The problem is that the DCPS schools around them aren’t offering the programs/support/instruction Janney does, and that’s the result of historic disinvestment, not because of the families. So naturally, these families have to travel long distances to get the schooling your kid gets to walk to in 5 min.

How can DCPS address this problem??[/quote]

Thank you.  The same can be said for much of Ward 5 DCPS as well.  [/quote]

I think your problem is that DCPS won't admit that it can't handle your kid who's on their way to "PARCC 5s" and the kids who can barely read and attend school infrequently in the same classes. They want to go all heroic and save everybody together but the differences don't mix well. In Ward 3, these disparate educational cohorts aren't pulling the teachers in opposite directions.[/quote]

I believe this is the crux of the problem in the classroom.  You can’t effectively teach a kid reading above grade level and at the same time teach a kid who can’t read at all and only comes to school 70% of the time.  [/quote]

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