Reply to San Francisco: a good model for DC?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "San Francisco: a good model for DC?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Neighborhood schools, in and of themselves, are NOT THE ANSWER to DC's underserved students.  Be very clear what SF was trying to achieve when they took this on:  they were trying to reduce racial isolation, the concentration of underserved students, and improve the quality of schools overall, for all students.  That was what they were trying to achieve.

In DC we already have neighborhood schools.  We've had them for decades.  They INCREASE the isolation of underserved families, there is abundant evidence of that and there is NO refuting that.

Neighborhood schools are not rocket science and are one of the key reasons all over the US that some neighborhoods are crazy expensive and hard to find affordable housing in: because they're in a good or wonderful school district.  What happens if you can't afford to move or can't find affordable housing in those areas and it's next to impossible to get in OOB?  You are stuck in your sucky neighborhood school.

DC can look at a million other cities' models for ideas and structures to try out, but at the end of the day the path DC chooses will have to depend on what DC is trying to achieve, and what DC is willing to pay/lose as they strive for that.

Every single person who suggests turning the current city-wide lottery schools into neighborhood schools is doint ZERO - get it?  ZERO! - to actually improve ANY school in DC. All that does is re-define who has the best shot of getting in and who gets shut out, but the crappy schools that were crappy before?  They are just as crappy and nothing about turning charters into neighborhood schools does a thing to improve any of those schools.

DCPS and OSSE and PCSB need to look at their priorities and thing both short term and long term about what it will take to improve the quality of the worst schools and the mediocre schools, how to attract and retain good/great teaching staff and administrators, how to re-think resource redistribution (instead of a certain school's additional renovations, how many school social workers or progressive discipline specialists could be hired at the most challenged schools for the same money?), and what lessons can be learned academically from the successful charters re: curricula?

But to take away from any of these other cities models that "neighborhood schools are what's called for"? DC's been there, done that, got the "epic fail!" t-shirt.  Only those in neighborhoods that they know will benefit from changing charters over to neighborhood schools will champion that.  I just hope they'll be honest about doing so and not cloak it as somehow benefitting the underserved students, because that is so far from the truth and a horrific tactic.

It'll be interesting to see the results of this year's common lottery: what families go where, how the common lottery changes (or doesn't change) the distribution of resourced families, under-resourced families, superstar students, students really struggling academically, various native language speakers, and geographically where families from each ward and neighborhood end up.  I hope some sort of geomapping project is undertaken after this year re: where students live and where they go to school.

But let's not kid ourselves while we wait: nothing about "neighborhood schools" improves the quality of schools overall.  It just isolates people and you're either thrilled about your isolation or it is a major disaster, based on what neighborhood your school-aged kids are isolated into.  Whatever direction DC goes in, has to have more planning around what will actually improve the quality.  I'm all for improving access to underserved students as well, so that is a legitimate reason to take action.  But anything that isn't about increasing access for the most underserved students better be very clear about how it will improve school quality at the most challenged schools, or it's just middle and upper class families and politicians further wrangling away access to the best schools from the students who most need them to serve their own purposes, at the clear disadvantage of underserved families.[/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