How about we shut all the failing schools and force everyone into the Wilson and it's feeders? The extra money can be used to provide busing for the rest of the district. We may also have to raze some homes so the schools will be big enough to house all the kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There will always be some kind of achievement gap -,whether at charters, Wilson or across America. Perhaps we should focus more on making schools excellent, engaging and responsive to the students they serve than on closing a gap for groups of people that we've thrown into a definition.

That's why you need to track median growth percentile. You can see whether all students (advanced, struggling and in the middle) are improving and learning compared to where they were the previous year.

You can find this data now. But people believe the anecdotes more and behave like sheep.

Where does one find the median growth percentile?

For charters it is the first item on page 2 of each school's PMF report http://www.dcpcsb.org/report/school-quality-reports-pmf

For DCPS go to the DCPS school profile page and click into a school page. http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/ Then click into the "scorecard" tab, and then click under "student progress"

It is PARCC based - percentage of students that improved from year to year relative to their previous scores. But more gives a different picture from just the percentage achieving 4 or 5.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There will always be some kind of achievement gap -,whether at charters, Wilson or across America. Perhaps we should focus more on making schools excellent, engaging and responsive to the students they serve than on closing a gap for groups of people that we've thrown into a definition.

That's why you need to track median growth percentile. You can see whether all students (advanced, struggling and in the middle) are improving and learning compared to where they were the previous year.

You can find this data now. But people believe the anecdotes more and behave like sheep.

Where does one find the median growth percentile?

DCPS isn't opening new schools anyway, so what you're calling for is a moratorium on charters. The city is going to add about 45,000 school-age kids in the next decade if Office of Planning is to be believed, and it looks like all of them are going to go to charters. So a moratorium on charters makes no sense.

Anonymous wrote:Of course the idea for a moratorium comes from a MV parent -- someone who already has entry into a HRC. The rest of us who are shut out of HRCs and need to settle for mediocre DCPS or move should suffer so MV parent can have what they want. OP take a hike.

I can see both sides of this issue. It's really, really tough out there to find a halfway decent school. But it's also tough to see your halfway decent school fall apart.

Anonymous wrote:People are not going to be trapped and herded into staying in this system. Offering more and better options helps people stay in DC rather than move to VA and MD. The whole precept of bullying people into staying in failing DCPS schools is flawed because many families will move out before they send their kids to schools with 15% pass rates for the PARCC.

Both DCPS and DC Charter schools systems have great schools and schools that need improvement. What's the key factor? everyone knows that answer "Parenting". No one wants to touch that though. I do agree with a post earlier to freeze charter schools acceptance to keep creating new schools. However, I would also stop with DCPS wanting to build new schools from scratch as well. Both sectors are with good with a few schools and bad with a few schools. Both sectors struggle with the students in the middle that need work.

People are not going to be trapped and herded into staying in this system. Offering more and better options helps people stay in DC rather than move to VA and MD. The whole precept of bullying people into staying in failing DCPS schools is flawed because many families will move out before they send their kids to schools with 15% pass rates for the PARCC.

Anonymous wrote:There will always be some kind of achievement gap -,whether at charters, Wilson or across America. Perhaps we should focus more on making schools excellent, engaging and responsive to the students they serve than on closing a gap for groups of people that we've thrown into a definition.

That's why you need to track median growth percentile. You can see whether all students (advanced, struggling and in the middle) are improving and learning compared to where they were the previous year.

You can find this data now. But people believe the anecdotes more and behave like sheep.

There will always be some kind of achievement gap -,whether at charters, Wilson or across America. Perhaps we should focus more on making schools excellent, engaging and responsive to the students they serve than on closing a gap for groups of people that we've thrown into a definition.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A moratorium would reveal that the emperor has no clothes - city leaders need to keep up the bait and switch and ambiguity of churn to disguise the fact that ed reform is a failure.

Every time I hear someone criticize Education Reform, I know I must be listening to a Union Troll.

The rest of the world has come to accept being graded on their performance. For some reason the teacher's unions think they should be exempt.

You seem to have an overly simplistic understanding of data, which is a theme with "Education Reformers".

Anonymous wrote:Of course the idea for a moratorium comes from a MV parent -- someone who already has entry into a HRC. The rest of us who are shut out of HRCs and need to settle for mediocre DCPS or move should suffer so MV parent can have what they want. OP take a hike.

It is boggling my mind that anyone is considering the original post as anything other than parody or pastiche. Where'd y'all go to school?

Of course the idea for a moratorium comes from a MV parent -- someone who already has entry into a HRC. The rest of us who are shut out of HRCs and need to settle for mediocre DCPS or move should suffer so MV parent can have what they want. OP take a hike.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A moratorium would reveal that the emperor has no clothes - city leaders need to keep up the bait and switch and ambiguity of churn to disguise the fact that ed reform is a failure.

Every time I hear someone criticize Education Reform, I know I must be listening to a Union Troll.

The rest of the world has come to accept being graded on their performance. For some reason the teacher's unions think they should be exempt.

I'm PP and a parent, not a troll. I remain convinced, however, that very little improvement has been made in public education (based on, of all things TEST SCORES) in DC that cannot be attributed to gentrification/the entry of children from college-educated households. DCPS, charter leaders and city leaders all benefit from the changing testing standards, student churn and all sorts of dodges to explain why improvement is just around the corner. The reality is they're all just trying to put lipstick on a pig.

Let's hold change static for 3-4 years of real study so that we can see if there are any parts of the system that are leading to better outcomes.

Anonymous wrote:A moratorium would reveal that the emperor has no clothes - city leaders need to keep up the bait and switch and ambiguity of churn to disguise the fact that ed reform is a failure.

Every time I hear someone criticize Education Reform, I know I must be listening to a Union Troll.

The rest of the world has come to accept being graded on their performance. For some reason the teacher's unions think they should be exempt.

You make no sense at all.