Anonymous wrote:Why do you change jobs so frequently? Why not a traditional public school?

+100000 Let me rephrase for you: "I am a transient employee who doesn't fit well within well established school cultures and doesn't form bonds with co-workers, students, administration or the community. But I'm an attention whore. So by all means ask me my opinions because I am a REALLY credible source of information on what works and doesn't."

Anonymous wrote:what do you think it is that allows charters to generally have higher achieving kids than the neighborhood schools? One thing? a combination? one of the usual suspects (skimming, counseling out, grit, parent interest or involvement, socioeconomic self-segregation, drill-and-kill, manners culture, unique curricula, etc., etc., etc....)

More involved parents apply to charters. Obviously some parents choose neighborhood schools but by default all parents who are not involved enough to even consider applying to other options will end up at neighborhood schools. I think this is the biggest reason.

Anonymous wrote:Is high staff turnover more related to the pay scale or administration?

Administration, without a doubt.

Anonymous wrote:What makes a charter the best or the worst?

How children are treated and how much kids are learning.

Anonymous wrote:From the child's POV how much of a gap is there between the middle and the best?

Does % FARMS of the school have a day to day impact on the educational experience of a middle to upper income child?

To be honest, before I had children I thought I would be totally okay with a middle-of-the-road charter. My mindset changed after I had my child and I felt much more that I wanted them at one of the top charters.

I think children can feel loved and cared for in either environment but I think that the top charters have more to offer in terms of the educational experience.

And sure - I think the educational experience is richer for students if they go to school with a diverse group of peers.

Anonymous wrote:What charactertics did the best Principals have?

Compare the overall mood personality of the best and worse school. What contributed to each?

The best principals are present and involved in a meaningful way. Some principals really spend all of their time in their offices or offsite. The better ones are a common presence in the building and have rapport and relationships with students, teachers and families. They know what is going on in their school. The worst principals have no idea what is happening just down the hall from them. I also think that parents sometimes have very distorted views of principals.

Worst - students with tremendous challenges placed with staff ill-equipped to handle those challenges. In many cases the staff exacerbated the problems the kids had. Policies in place that were very contrary to even the most basic understanding of child development. For example, expecting 4 year olds to sit in star position for prolonged periods.

Best - great sense of community and joy of learning. Constant focus on growth in staff and students. Supportive environment.

Anonymous wrote:If you were in DC with kids (maybe you do have kids?) would you go conventional, charter, or private? Or move to MD or VA?

Charter, but only a good one of course! I will say that there are some great charters that don't get much chatter on DCUM.

Anonymous wrote:Based on your experience do we need charter schools? Any significant benefits compared to public schools? What contributing factors made one school better than the other? . Are the teachers in the worse school not as qualified vs the good one? For example more masters graduates vs bachelors graduates or it didn't matter?.

I can't really compare to DCPS since I have only ever worked at charter schools. I do think it is great that charter schools have flexibility to offer a unique educational program and that ideally parents can select one they want for their kids. I worked in a pretty good school in an area with awful DCPS schools and I think that without that charter there, many kids would have been stuck at worse schools. However I also worked at a great charter adjacent to a pretty good DCPS and felt bad about the students we siphoned off from the decent DCPS. Of course it was the best students and most involved families that we attracted and I know the effects had to be negative for the DCPS.

The benefit of a charter is that if it has strong leadership and a strong staff, they are much more free to do the things they think are best for kids. Meanwhile some of my friends who worked in DCPS felt much more like their hands were tied by district-wide policies.

The worst school I was at was awful because of the leadership. They were extremely unrealistic about their expectations for children and how a school could run. Efforts were made to run the school like a military school and of course the kids did not react well to that. Behavior problems were unreal and the staff was really awful - it was all very cyclical. The better schools have much more stable leadership with more experience and better understanding of child development and education.

Teacher quality is definitely a huge difference. In the worst school the teachers were awful. Downright abusive to children. Only a handful were at all invested in teaching. The middle-of-the-road school I was at had more variety. A handful of teachers with advanced degrees but most teachers were not very well trained. A lot of jaded and unhappy teachers. Several changes in the administration made for constantly-changing policies and programs. The best school I was at had far more impressive teachers. Many more advanced degrees and just dynamic staff overall.

But in all I would say that many principals I have seen at charters seem to not place a high priority on hiring, developing and retaining effective teachers. I have seen this across the board though of course it is worse at the schools that perform the worst.

Anonymous wrote:Why do you change jobs so frequently? Why not a traditional public school?

It is incredibly easy to get a job at a charter school. DCPS has a lot more hoops you have to jump through.

Pretty much what I'd expect from a DC teacher - non-responsive.

what do you think it is that allows charters to generally have higher achieving kids than the neighborhood schools? One thing? a combination? one of the usual suspects (skimming, counseling out, grit, parent interest or involvement, socioeconomic self-segregation, drill-and-kill, manners culture, unique curricula, etc., etc., etc....)

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

What do bad things happen to good people?

Do you teach by the Socratic method?

Anonymous wrote:Is this a dead thread?

Kind of. I think it was mislabeled. It should have said "I'm not going to respond to you. AMA"