Anonymous
Post 08/05/2019 09:24     Subject: Latin replication pulled from PCSB agenda
Worst I think is The Mayor’s attitude about Latin-she takes it as great regardless of how it does for at risk kids and you know she’d find a place like that appealing rather than touting the public schools in her own ward. She just doesn’t seem to get what the overall ecosystem needs.

Could you imagine if the charter system was the system of right for at risk kids? It gives you a different perspective. Makes you see the kinds of enclaves charters can become and how that has negative effects overall.
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2019 09:19     Subject: Latin replication pulled from PCSB agenda
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:NP. It will be close to the Hill and the Waterfront and likely Metro, new Latin will probably be flooded with high SES students. Without an at-risk preference, I predict it will be like Lee and Stokes; in a poor neighborhood but a low percentage of at-risk students.

However before it turned into a middle class enclave, Latin did well with disadvantaged students (pre-permanent building). Still not sure what has changed? Different staff? Disadvantaged kids just being left behind or the kind of supports that used to exist fading away as the school became wealthier?


I just don't understand why a school that is doing poorly with low-income kids would even want to go EOTR. If their attitude is "too bad, so sad, not our fault, can't be helped" then what is the point of doing it? Any building should go to a school that wants to make an effort.


They felt a "moral responsibility," according to their expansion application. The Latin Board lamented the dwindling level of economic diversity in its strategic plan (see its website). But I agree that until the application forced the issue, there wasn't a lot of action on this front. Most of the things they are now being required to do, such as staff training for anyone who interacts with kids, are pretty common sense for a school that serves a diverse population.

I think the Board hired the current HOS to help address this problem but I'm not sure he's up to the task. The thing is, before coming to Latin he was head of the elementary at Hyde PCS (now Perry Street Prep) for 5 years. Elementary school =/= MS and HS. He's also worked in several private schools. Also a whole different kettle of fish.
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2019 09:06     Subject: Latin replication pulled from PCSB agenda
Anonymous wrote:NP. It will be close to the Hill and the Waterfront and likely Metro, new Latin will probably be flooded with high SES students. Without an at-risk preference, I predict it will be like Lee and Stokes; in a poor neighborhood but a low percentage of at-risk students.

However before it turned into a middle class enclave, Latin did well with disadvantaged students (pre-permanent building). Still not sure what has changed? Different staff? Disadvantaged kids just being left behind or the kind of supports that used to exist fading away as the school became wealthier?


I just don't understand why a school that is doing poorly with low-income kids would even want to go EOTR. If their attitude is "too bad, so sad, not our fault, can't be helped" then what is the point of doing it? Any building should go to a school that wants to make an effort.
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2019 08:15     Subject: Re:Latin replication pulled from PCSB agenda
Anonymous wrote:Not PP you're responding to. The gap is as large as it is mainly because the curriculum is tough enough, and the academic demands high enough, to mostly attract UMC families in a city with a vast low-SES/minority-high SES/mostly white achievement gap. The problem is hardly unique to Latin - you see it in Upper NW by-right schools and at BASIS. If Latin watered down its curriculum and demands, the at-risk population would surely rise.

If City ed leaders want to see more at-risk students in charters with broad appeal to UMC families they need to stop blaming schools and start convincing the Mayor and city council members to pay up for the support at-risk kids need to cope with the academics at the highest-performing charters. It's rotten that charters don't get the same per student allocations DCPS does, and need to devote big chunks of the resources they do get to renovating buildings. Not supporting elementary school GT for the brightest low-SES kids like most other big US cities do doesn't help either.


Don’t bring BASIS into this. Look at the black as well as at-risk subgroup performance and discipline data. Better than Latin on both by a significant amount. Neither have a high percentage of at-risk kids but BASIS doesn’t ‘water down’ its curriculum.
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2019 08:13     Subject: Latin replication pulled from PCSB agenda
NP. It will be close to the Hill and the Waterfront and likely Metro, new Latin will probably be flooded with high SES students. Without an at-risk preference, I predict it will be like Lee and Stokes; in a poor neighborhood but a low percentage of at-risk students.

However before it turned into a middle class enclave, Latin did well with disadvantaged students (pre-permanent building). Still not sure what has changed? Different staff? Disadvantaged kids just being left behind or the kind of supports that used to exist fading away as the school became wealthier?
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2019 08:01     Subject: Re:Latin replication pulled from PCSB agenda
Anonymous wrote:Not PP you're responding to. The gap is as large as it is mainly because the curriculum is tough enough, and the academic demands high enough, to mostly attract UMC families in a city with a vast low-SES/minority-high SES/mostly white achievement gap. The problem is hardly unique to Latin - you see it in Upper NW by-right schools and at BASIS. If Latin watered down its curriculum and demands, the at-risk population would surely rise.

If City ed leaders want to see more at-risk students in charters with broad appeal to UMC families they need to stop blaming schools and start convincing the Mayor and city council members to pay up for the support at-risk kids need to cope with the academics at the highest-performing charters. It's rotten that charters don't get the same per student allocations DCPS does, and need to devote big chunks of the resources they do get to renovating buildings. Not supporting elementary school GT for the brightest low-SES kids like most other big US cities do doesn't help either.


So how is this going to be successful EOTR, if what you say is true?
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2019 07:24     Subject: Re:Latin replication pulled from PCSB agenda
Not PP you're responding to. The gap is as large as it is mainly because the curriculum is tough enough, and the academic demands high enough, to mostly attract UMC families in a city with a vast low-SES/minority-high SES/mostly white achievement gap. The problem is hardly unique to Latin - you see it in Upper NW by-right schools and at BASIS. If Latin watered down its curriculum and demands, the at-risk population would surely rise.

If City ed leaders want to see more at-risk students in charters with broad appeal to UMC families they need to stop blaming schools and start convincing the Mayor and city council members to pay up for the support at-risk kids need to cope with the academics at the highest-performing charters. It's rotten that charters don't get the same per student allocations DCPS does, and need to devote big chunks of the resources they do get to renovating buildings. Not supporting elementary school GT for the brightest low-SES kids like most other big US cities do doesn't help either.
Anonymous
Post 08/05/2019 05:13     Subject: Latin replication pulled from PCSB agenda
Anonymous wrote:It is not just that the PCSB wants to make charter schools like Latin take a higher percentage of at-risk kids, it also wants to make the schools revise their disciplinary policies such that it is harder to suspend kids who disrupt the learning environment for everyone else. Latin does not suspend kids lightly and it provides home tutors for the kids it does suspend, as well as providing counseling with suspended kids and their families to re-enter the child into the learning environment. That's a reasonable balance between the needs of the many and the individual. But apparently there are some on the PCSB who believe that it is more important to reduce the statistic of at-risk suspensions on the page than it is to actually maintain a scholastic environment conducive to learning.


Why do you think Latin's achievement gap is so big, PP?
Anonymous
Post 08/04/2019 23:03     Subject: Latin replication pulled from PCSB agenda
It is not just that the PCSB wants to make charter schools like Latin take a higher percentage of at-risk kids, it also wants to make the schools revise their disciplinary policies such that it is harder to suspend kids who disrupt the learning environment for everyone else. Latin does not suspend kids lightly and it provides home tutors for the kids it does suspend, as well as providing counseling with suspended kids and their families to re-enter the child into the learning environment. That's a reasonable balance between the needs of the many and the individual. But apparently there are some on the PCSB who believe that it is more important to reduce the statistic of at-risk suspensions on the page than it is to actually maintain a scholastic environment conducive to learning.
Anonymous
Post 08/04/2019 20:51     Subject: Re:Latin replication pulled from PCSB agenda
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Washington Post wrote on this today. Includes discussion of an at-risk preference vs sibling preference and what effect that might have on all schools. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/a-top-dc-charter-school-educates-few-at-risk-students-should-it-be-opening-a-second-campus/2019/08/04/24593e12-b3a2-11e9-951e-de024209545d_story.html


The really newsworthy thing here is that Scott Pearson supports it. I am all for it myself, even if it has a smaller impact it seems worthwhile. No school should be allowed to avoid or shirk this responsibility.


How should overcrowded schools find room for at risk kids?


It is a lottery preference. Not all schools offer seats in the lottery every year, and some not at all.

However, there are few DCPS schools without at least a few OOB students. With an at-risk preference, any seats offered to the at-risk student(s) with the highest lottery number who applied. If there are more seats than at-risk applicants, then siblings of currently enrolled students who be offered a seat, and so on.

At charters, where all seats are determined by the lottery, an at-risk preference would presumably have a greater impact.

Anonymous
Post 08/04/2019 20:39     Subject: Re:Latin replication pulled from PCSB agenda
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Washington Post wrote on this today. Includes discussion of an at-risk preference vs sibling preference and what effect that might have on all schools. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/a-top-dc-charter-school-educates-few-at-risk-students-should-it-be-opening-a-second-campus/2019/08/04/24593e12-b3a2-11e9-951e-de024209545d_story.html


The really newsworthy thing here is that Scott Pearson supports it. I am all for it myself, even if it has a smaller impact it seems worthwhile. No school should be allowed to avoid or shirk this responsibility.


How should overcrowded schools find room for at risk kids?
Anonymous
Post 08/04/2019 19:39     Subject: Re:Latin replication pulled from PCSB agenda
Anonymous wrote:Washington Post wrote on this today. Includes discussion of an at-risk preference vs sibling preference and what effect that might have on all schools. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/a-top-dc-charter-school-educates-few-at-risk-students-should-it-be-opening-a-second-campus/2019/08/04/24593e12-b3a2-11e9-951e-de024209545d_story.html


The really newsworthy thing here is that Scott Pearson supports it. I am all for it myself, even if it has a smaller impact it seems worthwhile. No school should be allowed to avoid or shirk this responsibility.
Anonymous
Post 08/04/2019 18:52     Subject: Re:Latin replication pulled from PCSB agenda
Washington Post wrote on this today. Includes discussion of an at-risk preference vs sibling preference and what effect that might have on all schools. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/a-top-dc-charter-school-educates-few-at-risk-students-should-it-be-opening-a-second-campus/2019/08/04/24593e12-b3a2-11e9-951e-de024209545d_story.html
Anonymous
Post 07/30/2019 17:48     Subject: Re:Latin replication pulled from PCSB agenda
Anonymous wrote:
If someone has time to dig into them, there's good data in these fact sheets, although they are from 2015-16 and 2016-17.

https://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dm...20Fact%20%20Sheet_10.06.17.pdf
https://dme.dc.gov/node/1198445

Also, at risk of academic failure is a designation DC has only begun using in the last 2 years, so any comparison going further back isn't valid. Before that it was economically disadvantaged; before that FARMS, which only captures income.

At-risk is a narrower definition and fewer students meet this criterion (very poor, homeless, in foster care or at least one year behind the expected grade for your age) that meet the economically disadvantaged criterion.


What was the impetus for shifting from the FARMs designation to the narrower "at risk" category?


First OSSE went to economically disadvantaged -- in between that shift.

It was done because during the Obama Administration the USDA introduced the community eligibility standard. At any school with 60% or more students qualifying for FARMS, everyone would be allowed to have meals for free. It also made the FARMS category as a proxy for poverty meaningless. At a community eligibility, 100% percent of the students are reported as receiving FARMS.

I think at-risk was done to make sure that schools with the highest need students, poor kids but also children who are homeless or who are in foster care, would be eligible for additional resources.

Anonymous
Post 07/30/2019 17:45     Subject: Re:Latin replication pulled from PCSB agenda
Anonymous wrote:
If someone has time to dig into them, there's good data in these fact sheets, although they are from 2015-16 and 2016-17.

https://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dm...20Fact%20%20Sheet_10.06.17.pdf
https://dme.dc.gov/node/1198445

Also, at risk of academic failure is a designation DC has only begun using in the last 2 years, so any comparison going further back isn't valid. Before that it was economically disadvantaged; before that FARMS, which only captures income.

At-risk is a narrower definition and fewer students meet this criterion (very poor, homeless, in foster care or at least one year behind the expected grade for your age) that meet the economically disadvantaged criterion.


What was the impetus for shifting from the FARMs designation to the narrower "at risk" category?


During the Obama Administration, the USDA began allowing a state to adopt community eligibility standards for free lunches, where at any schools with 60% or more students qualifying for FARMS would be offered free lunch. It made the FARMS category useless as a way to capture poverty in a school or school district since the percentage of eligible children in a community eligible school would be 100%.