Reply to New opposition petition to the Maury-Miner boundary proposal from DME

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Reply to "New opposition petition to the Maury-Miner boundary proposal from DME"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Except there are numerous comments in this thread that Maury is actually failing kids in the upper grades and that the only reason test scores at Maury remain as high as they are is because the school has a lot of high-SES families who can supplement and support at home.

Also, I'd argue that there are schools more successful than Maury in DC, including in Ward 6, and DCPS isn't clustering them.

Increasingly it seems like both Miner and Maury have issues and maybe a cluster is a good idea as it would enable them to both pool resources and boundaries (and IB families) to see if they can address them together as they have been unable to address them apart. It certainly does not seem that Maury is some kind of paragon of public education that DCPS is destroying out of spite. Brent's test scores are just as high, L-T does a better job of education at risk kids, Tyler's immersion program is well-respected, SWS and CHMS both fill niches in the city and remain in high demand among  parents who want those approaches. There's really nothing special about Maury.[/quote]

I don’t understand this argument for the cluster at all.  If both schools have issues, why would putting them together be a solution?  Wouldn’t that just create more issues?  And DCPS cannot seem to solve the issues that currently exist at each school; wouldn’t it be easier for them to address the different issues at each school?  Or even if that isn’t easier, the cluster shouldn’t be implemented as a tool if it isn’t going to improve anything especially given the many logistical issues it is going to cause for families.

I also think that the many of the issues people have referenced at Maury are in later grades.  [b]A cluster would exacerbate those issues given the likely significant attrition that will happen when there is a transition from one school to the other as we see with Peabody and Watkins.[/b] [/quote]

Depends on how you define the problems. If the problem is just flagging test scores, then yes, attrition of high-SES families will lower test scores as those spots are filled with lower-SES students. Since (1) test scores tend to track SES, and (2) Maury has a demonstrated problem with raising the test scores of low-SES students, then a cluster would exacerbate that problem.

However, if the problem is that Maury is failing to educate upper grade students such that only high-SES students test well, and only because of support they get at home, then the attrition of these families would not exacerbate the problem because there's no reason why those students leaving this school would change the education kids are getting. If right now everyone is getting a poor education, but high-SES families make up for it at home, then losing high-SES students would just more clearly reveal the existing problem, not make it worse (remember, the problem here its he quality of instruction/eduction, not the test scores themselves).

And there is an argument that if Maury didn't have well-supported high-SES students in their upper grade boosting their averages, they'd be forced to actually address the problem with instruction.

I know many of you will call BS on this, but I'm actually basing it on real experience. My student went through a Title 1 school with a very high at-risk population. The overall test scores at the school were quite low, which is not surprising given that something like 70% of students were at risk. However, our actual experience at the school was very good, and the teaching in all grades, including the testing grades, was phenomenal. My own child scored 4s and 5s on all PARCC tests all three years and was very well prepared for MS, and other families (both MC and UMC, diverse group of races/ethnicities) we knew at the school had similar experiences.

I think our school had great teaching because it had no other option. Teaching a population of mostly at risk kids is very hard and requires a highly effective teacher to maintain classroom culture and keep up with the curriculum. There was no coasting because such a small percent of the students at this school had the kind of support at home that would make up for sub-par instruction. So the instruction was great, and then the students with support at home really excelled because they were getting high level instruction AND lots of support, which is pretty much the ideal.

Perhaps more at risk kids in Maury's upper grades would force the school to actually address the problem of weak instruction that is currently being concealed by a lot of families who can afford tutoring and other interventions.[/quote]

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