Anonymous
Post 08/05/2014 12:31     Subject: Re:EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”
Anyone out there who's child's individual test scores are great but at a school with overall poor DC CAS results? If so, what did you decide? Stay (obvious your child is thriving) or go (find someplace with more kids with high scores)?
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2014 11:58     Subject: EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:After reading some of the comments in the Bruce Monroe thread, it puzzles me that many families are taking this route. How do you expect a school to improve if you just up and leave? What’s the point of living in the city? Your jobs or because you hope to land a spot in a Charter?

We are an EOTP family, who unlike others, plan on staying at our Title 1 school up to 5th grade.

Why does this puzzle you? I suppose it's nice that you think it's your job to improve a school, but many parents see it as the school's job to educate their child. That's not exactly the same thing. Not everyone is enrolling in a school with the intention of improving it, and if the school isn't up-to-par by K or 1st grade then parents whose number one priority is a high-quality education are well within their rights to bail.

It's pretty much this. I'm sorry, but my child is not an experiment for me to plug into a social engineering scheme. I'm a hard-core Democrat educated in public schools, but the whole system has become a nightmarish mess. And it's beyond my power to fix. Sorry.

I respect your right to send your kid wherever you feel is best, but please lay off the "social engineering" - I'm sending my kids to my EOTP DCPS school because I think that's what's best for them not for some education planning experiment. Maybe your school is a nightmarish mess - I don't know it or you, but mine isn't and the "whole system" isn't.

If you take out WOTP schools, which are mostly unavailable to EOTP, then DCPS is about a third or a quarter proficient (per DC CAS). In what world is that not nightmarish?

My EOTP school is a few points shy of 70% in math and in the 50%s in reading. The numbers are particularly good for students who start and finish there. That's certainly not goodin my book, but it is a challenge to address rather than a nightmare to run away from.
Schools with 10% profiency are more nightmarish, but not the whole system.

What is the story with your child's EOTP middle school? High school?
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2014 11:54     Subject: EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”
If you take out WOTP schools, which are mostly unavailable to EOTP, then DCPS is about a third or a quarter proficient (per DC CAS). In what world is that not nightmarish?

My EOTP school is a few points shy of 70% in math and in the 50%s in reading. The numbers are particularly good for students who start and finish there. That's certainly not goodin my book, but it is a challenge to address rather than a nightmare to run away from.
Schools with 10% profiency are more nightmarish, but not the whole system.


The SYSTEM is more than test scores at individual schools. It's the lottery process, the city politics, the testing/NCLB nonsense, the lack of accountability/oversight, the huge amounts of money spent with no demonstrable results, etc etc. I understand why some people are committed to staying, and if it works for you and your child, that's great. But for those of us who don't have the time to volunteer on a regular basis or lobby the city/state/federal governments on these issues, we just need a school and a system that is responsible to parents and to the needs of our children. I already have a job - I can't make it my job to fix my child's school/system on top of that.


This
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2014 11:52     Subject: EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”
Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't play Russian roulette with my kid, but go ahead with yours.


Anonymous
Post 08/05/2014 11:52     Subject: EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:After reading some of the comments in the Bruce Monroe thread, it puzzles me that many families are taking this route. How do you expect a school to improve if you just up and leave? What’s the point of living in the city? Your jobs or because you hope to land a spot in a Charter?

We are an EOTP family, who unlike others, plan on staying at our Title 1 school up to 5th grade.

Why does this puzzle you? I suppose it's nice that you think it's your job to improve a school, but many parents see it as the school's job to educate their child. That's not exactly the same thing. Not everyone is enrolling in a school with the intention of improving it, and if the school isn't up-to-par by K or 1st grade then parents whose number one priority is a high-quality education are well within their rights to bail.

It's pretty much this. I'm sorry, but my child is not an experiment for me to plug into a social engineering scheme. I'm a hard-core Democrat educated in public schools, but the whole system has become a nightmarish mess. And it's beyond my power to fix. Sorry.

I respect your right to send your kid wherever you feel is best, but please lay off the "social engineering" - I'm sending my kids to my EOTP DCPS school because I think that's what's best for them not for some education planning experiment. Maybe your school is a nightmarish mess - I don't know it or you, but mine isn't and the "whole system" isn't.

If you take out WOTP schools, which are mostly unavailable to EOTP, then DCPS is about a third or a quarter proficient (per DC CAS). In what world is that not nightmarish?

My EOTP school is a few points shy of 70% in math and in the 50%s in reading. The numbers are particularly good for students who start and finish there. That's certainly not goodin my book, but it is a challenge to address rather than a nightmare to run away from.
Schools with 10% profiency are more nightmarish, but not the whole system.


The SYSTEM is more than test scores at individual schools. It's the lottery process, the city politics, the testing/NCLB nonsense, the lack of accountability/oversight, the huge amounts of money spent with no demonstrable results, etc etc. I understand why some people are committed to staying, and if it works for you and your child, that's great. But for those of us who don't have the time to volunteer on a regular basis or lobby the city/state/federal governments on these issues, we just need a school and a system that is responsible to parents and to the needs of our children. I already have a job - I can't make it my job to fix my child's school/system on top of that.
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2014 11:51     Subject: EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”
I wouldn't play Russian roulette with my kid, but go ahead with yours.
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2014 11:48     Subject: EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:After reading some of the comments in the Bruce Monroe thread, it puzzles me that many families are taking this route. How do you expect a school to improve if you just up and leave? What’s the point of living in the city? Your jobs or because you hope to land a spot in a Charter?

We are an EOTP family, who unlike others, plan on staying at our Title 1 school up to 5th grade.

Why does this puzzle you? I suppose it's nice that you think it's your job to improve a school, but many parents see it as the school's job to educate their child. That's not exactly the same thing. Not everyone is enrolling in a school with the intention of improving it, and if the school isn't up-to-par by K or 1st grade then parents whose number one priority is a high-quality education are well within their rights to bail.

It's pretty much this. I'm sorry, but my child is not an experiment for me to plug into a social engineering scheme. I'm a hard-core Democrat educated in public schools, but the whole system has become a nightmarish mess. And it's beyond my power to fix. Sorry.

I respect your right to send your kid wherever you feel is best, but please lay off the "social engineering" - I'm sending my kids to my EOTP DCPS school because I think that's what's best for them not for some education planning experiment. Maybe your school is a nightmarish mess - I don't know it or you, but mine isn't and the "whole system" isn't.

If you take out WOTP schools, which are mostly unavailable to EOTP, then DCPS is about a third or a quarter proficient (per DC CAS). In what world is that not nightmarish?

My EOTP school is a few points shy of 70% in math and in the 50%s in reading. The numbers are particularly good for students who start and finish there. That's certainly not goodin my book, but it is a challenge to address rather than a nightmare to run away from.
Schools with 10% profiency are more nightmarish, but not the whole system.
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2014 11:43     Subject: EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:After reading some of the comments in the Bruce Monroe thread, it puzzles me that many families are taking this route. How do you expect a school to improve if you just up and leave? What’s the point of living in the city? Your jobs or because you hope to land a spot in a Charter?

We are an EOTP family, who unlike others, plan on staying at our Title 1 school up to 5th grade.

Why does this puzzle you? I suppose it's nice that you think it's your job to improve a school, but many parents see it as the school's job to educate their child. That's not exactly the same thing. Not everyone is enrolling in a school with the intention of improving it, and if the school isn't up-to-par by K or 1st grade then parents whose number one priority is a high-quality education are well within their rights to bail.

It's pretty much this. I'm sorry, but my child is not an experiment for me to plug into a social engineering scheme. I'm a hard-core Democrat educated in public schools, but the whole system has become a nightmarish mess. And it's beyond my power to fix. Sorry.

I respect your right to send your kid wherever you feel is best, but please lay off the "social engineering" - I'm sending my kids to my EOTP DCPS school because I think that's what's best for them not for some education planning experiment. Maybe your school is a nightmarish mess - I don't know it or you, but mine isn't and the "whole system" isn't.

If you take out WOTP schools, which are mostly unavailable to EOTP, then DCPS is about a third or a quarter proficient (per DC CAS). In what world is that not nightmarish?


Exactly. And yes, it most certainly is social engineering - from the carefully crafted lottery policies to the parental politics.
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2014 11:42     Subject: EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”
I go back and forth on this issue. I have a soon-to-be PK4 child. I would love if we didn't have to change schools for a couple years (last year we were at a charter that ended up not being a very good fit for DD). To some extent, I think there are things parents can do to mitigate a less-than-stellar elementary school, but it really depends on what the issue is. Parents cannot fix crappy facilities on their own. Parents cannot manage widespread behavioral problems in the student body. Parents cannot cheerlead teachers who are overwhelmed, underpaid and unappreciated by their principal.

Parents can support their children academically. If my child was struggling to master her lessons, I would make it a priority to sit down and help her learn. Parents can get involved in the PTA and organize events that contribute to overall school community morale. Parents can donate supplies so that children have what they need in the classroom. Parents can volunteer in the classroom (if that's allowed). All of those things take time and energy, though, and understandably, many parents do not have that much free time and energy.

At the end of the day, I know that my child will probably do pretty well no matter what kind of school she attends. I wish that we could have faith that schools will meet the needs of every student, but given that we cannot, I think that it is incumbent on every family to be realistic about what they can contribute, what their limits are and then go forward and do those things. I am not going into our new school experience with the mentality that we will bail when it doesn't work out. I am going in with the mentality that we will try our best to make it work and deal with the possibility of it not working if and when that possiblity actually arises.
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2014 11:41     Subject: EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Non-economically disadvantaged students (who are disproportionately but not all white) are doing fine in every school they attend. I really think that if you switched the student bodies of--for example--Aiton and Eaton, all of a sudden you'd have different perceptions of each school.

A kid with involved, educated, parents is going to score advanced on DC-CAS wherever they go. So that's one reason to stay. The teachers are largely just fine, and the kids can get a diverse experience.

But if the school isn't doing anything to differentiate or challenge the few advanced kids, or if there are discipline/bullying problems I can see why parents want to leave.

I would be fine sending an academically advanced kid to my neighborhood school, where proficiency rates are about 30%, if the teachers could provide some real enrichment (not tutoring other kids or just sitting in a corner with a book) and the other students were well-behaved.

And in a small school, it only takes a few families making that choice before test scores go up. For example, in an elementary school with 100 kids in testing grades and 35% proficiency, moving in 10 proficient kids (so, 3 or 4 per grade) allows the teachers to move 5 students from basic to proficient (1 or 2 per grade) and wind up with 45% proficiency. Do it again the following year--find 10 families to stay or come in OOB at the testing grades, and get 6 students from basic to proficient. Now you're at 55% proficiency and DCPS and DCUM are giving it buzz. It's not easy to find or keep those proficient students though.

One thing that really hurts schools that are trying to retain students is the policy that once you're in OOB you can go to the destination middle school. People are therefore willing to play the lottery and leave an elementary they're fairly happy with in hopes of getting into one that feeds a better middle school. I am really disappointed that the DME's plan didn't address this issue, because I think it might be one of the major hurdles to improving schools (and probably one of the few hurdles DME is actually able to address--things like childhood poverty and low parental literacy are much greater issues but outside of her control).


I like the way you look at this. So when people ask about "how will I improve the school?" I'm going to push for and volunteer for enrichment activities (in addition to volunteering to tutor). There are some pretty cool parents (and community memebers) in our community who could help with some really awesome enrichment activities and tutoring in whatever area is important to them.


But school is more than academics, especially in the early years. It is also a social-emotional learning experience at that age, and when the schools fail on that, they've lost me. I get that my kid will most likely do well academically wherever he goes because he has educated, involved parents. But my experience was that the school my child attended was utterly inept at the social/emotional teaching and their idea of disciplining 3 yos was ridiculously innapropriate - a no go for me. Nothing else matters if my kid hates school every day.
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2014 11:40     Subject: EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:After reading some of the comments in the Bruce Monroe thread, it puzzles me that many families are taking this route. How do you expect a school to improve if you just up and leave? What’s the point of living in the city? Your jobs or because you hope to land a spot in a Charter?

We are an EOTP family, who unlike others, plan on staying at our Title 1 school up to 5th grade.

Why does this puzzle you? I suppose it's nice that you think it's your job to improve a school, but many parents see it as the school's job to educate their child. That's not exactly the same thing. Not everyone is enrolling in a school with the intention of improving it, and if the school isn't up-to-par by K or 1st grade then parents whose number one priority is a high-quality education are well within their rights to bail.

It's pretty much this. I'm sorry, but my child is not an experiment for me to plug into a social engineering scheme. I'm a hard-core Democrat educated in public schools, but the whole system has become a nightmarish mess. And it's beyond my power to fix. Sorry.

I respect your right to send your kid wherever you feel is best, but please lay off the "social engineering" - I'm sending my kids to my EOTP DCPS school because I think that's what's best for them not for some education planning experiment. Maybe your school is a nightmarish mess - I don't know it or you, but mine isn't and the "whole system" isn't.

If you take out WOTP schools, which are mostly unavailable to EOTP, then DCPS is about a third or a quarter proficient (per DC CAS). In what world is that not nightmarish?
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2014 11:38     Subject: EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:After reading some of the comments in the Bruce Monroe thread, it puzzles me that many families are taking this route. How do you expect a school to improve if you just up and leave? What’s the point of living in the city? Your jobs or because you hope to land a spot in a Charter?

We are an EOTP family, who unlike others, plan on staying at our Title 1 school up to 5th grade.





Why does this puzzle you? I suppose it's nice that you think it's your job to improve a school, but many parents see it as the school's job to educate their child. That's not exactly the same thing. Not everyone is enrolling in a school with the intention of improving it, and if the school isn't up-to-par by K or 1st grade then parents whose number one priority is a high-quality education are well within their rights to bail.


It's pretty much this. I'm sorry, but my child is not an experiment for me to plug into a social engineering scheme. I'm a hard-core Democrat educated in public schools, but the whole system has become a nightmarish mess. And it's beyond my power to fix. Sorry.


I respect your right to send your kid wherever you feel is best, but please lay off the "social engineering" - I'm sending my kids to my EOTP DCPS school because I think that's what's best for them not for some education planning experiement. Maybe your school is a nightmarish mess - I don't know it or you, but mine isn't and the "whole system" isn't.
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2014 11:34     Subject: EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”
Anonymous wrote:Non-economically disadvantaged students (who are disproportionately but not all white) are doing fine in every school they attend. I really think that if you switched the student bodies of--for example--Aiton and Eaton, all of a sudden you'd have different perceptions of each school.

A kid with involved, educated, parents is going to score advanced on DC-CAS wherever they go. So that's one reason to stay. The teachers are largely just fine, and the kids can get a diverse experience.

But if the school isn't doing anything to differentiate or challenge the few advanced kids, or if there are discipline/bullying problems I can see why parents want to leave.

I would be fine sending an academically advanced kid to my neighborhood school, where proficiency rates are about 30%, if the teachers could provide some real enrichment (not tutoring other kids or just sitting in a corner with a book) and the other students were well-behaved.

And in a small school, it only takes a few families making that choice before test scores go up. For example, in an elementary school with 100 kids in testing grades and 35% proficiency, moving in 10 proficient kids (so, 3 or 4 per grade) allows the teachers to move 5 students from basic to proficient (1 or 2 per grade) and wind up with 45% proficiency. Do it again the following year--find 10 families to stay or come in OOB at the testing grades, and get 6 students from basic to proficient. Now you're at 55% proficiency and DCPS and DCUM are giving it buzz. It's not easy to find or keep those proficient students though.

One thing that really hurts schools that are trying to retain students is the policy that once you're in OOB you can go to the destination middle school. People are therefore willing to play the lottery and leave an elementary they're fairly happy with in hopes of getting into one that feeds a better middle school. I am really disappointed that the DME's plan didn't address this issue, because I think it might be one of the major hurdles to improving schools (and probably one of the few hurdles DME is actually able to address--things like childhood poverty and low parental literacy are much greater issues but outside of her control).


I like the way you look at this. So when people ask about "how will I improve the school?" I'm going to push for and volunteer for enrichment activities (in addition to volunteering to tutor). There are some pretty cool parents (and community memebers) in our community who could help with some really awesome enrichment activities and tutoring in whatever area is important to them.
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2014 11:30     Subject: EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:After reading some of the comments in the Bruce Monroe thread, it puzzles me that many families are taking this route. How do you expect a school to improve if you just up and leave? What’s the point of living in the city? Your jobs or because you hope to land a spot in a Charter?

We are an EOTP family, who unlike others, plan on staying at our Title 1 school up to 5th grade.





Why does this puzzle you? I suppose it's nice that you think it's your job to improve a school, but many parents see it as the school's job to educate their child. That's not exactly the same thing. Not everyone is enrolling in a school with the intention of improving it, and if the school isn't up-to-par by K or 1st grade then parents whose number one priority is a high-quality education are well within their rights to bail.


It's pretty much this. I'm sorry, but my child is not an experiment for me to plug into a social engineering scheme. I'm a hard-core Democrat educated in public schools, but the whole system has become a nightmarish mess. And it's beyond my power to fix. Sorry.
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2014 11:28     Subject: EOTP Parents “ we will bail after k or 1st grade”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:After reading some of the comments in the Bruce Monroe thread, it puzzles me that many families are taking this route. How do you expect a school to improve if you just up and leave? What’s the point of living in the city? Your jobs or because you hope to land a spot in a Charter?

We are an EOTP family, who unlike others, plan on staying at our Title 1 school up to 5th grade.



How old is your child? And, how long have you lived in the city?

Those are the questions I'd put to you.

I've lived here a long time. And I see people like you come and go. And it's great! But, more often - you are excited in PS3 and PK4 and then burnt out by K....and then you leave in 1st grade.

If you had a 2nd or 3rd grader I'd take you more seriously. As someone who has lived in DC for awhile, its hard to take some of these posts seriously.


I was born and raised in the city. My older child attends a WOTP school while my younger PK4 child attends a DCPS language immersion school.