Reply to WaPo Editorial today on DCPS/charter collaboration

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]See the thing is, if we didn't have charters we'd have a greater number of better neighborhood schools because the many families that flee for HRCS would be forced to put their resources into their "focus" or "rising" schools that a few are already trying to improve. Yeah, some would move, but not all.

We will NEVER have universally good by-right schools if we perpetuate an easy opt-out for families. It will never happen. I'm not suggesting improvement would stretch east of the river immediately, but our Wests and Garrisons and Brookland Middles and Coolidges and Amidon-Bowens and Takomas and Truesdells would be much improved if all the families that go charter were there instead. I'm also not suggesting that we shouldn't have initiated charters when we did; it seems like it was necessary for our failing city schools at the time. But now? We can reevaluate our definition of and path to "excellence for everyone."

The mayor knows this, and to not continue to move us down this separate-but-equal-but-not-really road we are on is the right move. [/quote]

What you fail to acknowledge is that the freedom to innovate and do things differently than DCPS is part of what is making some of these charters work. I have a child who have profound and significant language based learning disabilities - now in high school with minimal accommodations. The charter school was willing and able to provide much more targetted and better services for him because they had the freedom to hire contractor specialists who were trained in his rare disorder and these services enabled him to now be succeeding beyond all of our expectations. We tried our local DCPS (Takoma) and were offered a fraction of the services by people with no experience. Rather than suing the school system - which we could have done and secured a private SN school placement - we have stayed in charters.

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I get your situation, I think you're right, and I'm happy things have worked out. But I'm admittedly speaking about the general population of students, which is the overwhelming majority of DCPS. FWIW, we are very familiar with Takoma and have found it to be chock full of experienced and effective educators. [/quote]

FWIW, Takoma of the last few years is definitely not the same school it was in 2004 our son was starting PK3.

Please just keep in mind that of the most persistent groups of at-risk children are those with learning disabilities. Children from low income families with learning disabilities have even more challenges. SN kids are 10-15% of the total DC school population and require more resources and, in my opinion, flexibility and innovation than they are getting today from virtually every school. Making sure they get appropriate and quality education can't be an afterthought to the broader education reform discussions.[/quote]

+1. I really wish you could see it today. There are several families who have sought it out specifically for its excellent special needs program, particularly autism. I think it's actually an example of one thing DCPS is doing really well. But again, I agree with you and appreciate your thoughtful and respectfully worded comments. [/quote]

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