Anonymous wrote:... The PTA at our monolingual DCPS pays more than 200K a year to hire teachers aides, partly to beef up writing instruction. My eldest scored a 5 on the ELS PARCC, like most of her friends...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been impressed with the writing curriculum at our neighborhood DCPS ES. My kids write more, both in volume and variety, than I did at the same ages. If anything, I've felt they were expected to do too much writing too young. And they have always been given very clear writing instructions and constructive, written feedback and corrections from teachers.

My kids have been taught spelling, vocabulary, word roots, grammar, syntax, punctuation, dialogue, sentence construction, paragraph form, essay formats, poetry writing, research skills, and have written all kinds of papers -- small moment stories, persuasive, informative, critical analysis and interpretation, science fiction, news article, advertising, formal and personal letters, research papers, plays, poems, songs -- far more variety than I ever had to learn or write prior to high school. Neither of my kids is a natural writer, and I have watched their skills improve through their schoolwork. There is a lot of emphasis on process, including drafts and rewriting. Comparatively little writing has been required in MS, but the variety and feedback has been good. They are both in CTY, and we have not seen a need to choose the writing courses offered.

And to the comment about multiple choice tests -- that is not something you will see in most schools around here outside of the standardized tests. Even math requires written explanations of your answer. Everything else is an essay, short answer, project, presentation, or some creative means of showing mastery.

Sounds like most of the critics on here don't actually have kids in DCPS schools.

Or, not all public schools are doing what yours is doing. Guessing you are at Mann, Janney or similar school that has embraced and trained in readers and writers workshop?

Anonymous wrote:I've been impressed with the writing curriculum at our neighborhood DCPS ES. My kids write more, both in volume and variety, than I did at the same ages. If anything, I've felt they were expected to do too much writing too young. And they have always been given very clear writing instructions and constructive, written feedback and corrections from teachers.

My kids have been taught spelling, vocabulary, word roots, grammar, syntax, punctuation, dialogue, sentence construction, paragraph form, essay formats, poetry writing, research skills, and have written all kinds of papers -- small moment stories, persuasive, informative, critical analysis and interpretation, science fiction, news article, advertising, formal and personal letters, research papers, plays, poems, songs -- far more variety than I ever had to learn or write prior to high school. Neither of my kids is a natural writer, and I have watched their skills improve through their schoolwork. There is a lot of emphasis on process, including drafts and rewriting. Comparatively little writing has been required in MS, but the variety and feedback has been good. They are both in CTY, and we have not seen a need to choose the writing courses offered.

And to the comment about multiple choice tests -- that is not something you will see in most schools around here outside of the standardized tests. Even math requires written explanations of your answer. Everything else is an essay, short answer, project, presentation, or some creative means of showing mastery.

Sounds like most of the critics on here don't actually have kids in DCPS schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want your kids to be better writers, fight for smaller class sizes. Even a great teacher can't provide the necessary feedback for multiple classes of 30 students.

This is true. I teach at a private school (and not in DC), and I'm able to devote about 40 minutes to each composition draft because my class sizes are reasonable. This weekend, I have a class batch of 11 compositions. I will spend 7-8 hours as I read and write careful comments on each paper.

And I will repeat the cycle a few times over the course of the week with my other classes. I teach 6 classes. The smallest class has 2 students, and the largest 13; I have a total of 40 students in all. I spend many hours outside of school reading and commenting upon compositions, and I could not do this if I had 30-35 kids in each class: the thing would be impossible. I am shuddering as I imagine having 180 students total....the kid and teachers are doomed to failure.

The class that contains only 2 students (AP Language and Comp) gets even more individual time and attention. I have a friend who is teaching this same course in a public school; she has 22 students in her class. It is not her fault that her class average on the exam is going to be significantly lower than the average of my class of 2. Think about it. I am certainly wondering now about how many parents of her students are blaming her for their child's writing skills.

(On the selfish bright side, this is why my school's IB and AP scores are so much higher than the average).

I'm a teacher and I understand that not everyone is wealthy, but there are other ways to make a private education possible, and they are worth researching. I have multiple students on partial or full scholarship. Large class sizes make it impossible to teach writing, and if you want your kid to have the best, do whatever it takes to get him/her into a private with small class sizes.

Get him into a private with small class sizes? Oh right, fork over tens of thousands of tuition dollars (even with financial aid) each year per child through middle school and high school, just like that. Ridiculous.

If you want your kid to have the "best" you certainly don't need a pricey private school with a raft of pampered classmates on hand to erode your kid's work ethic. But you do need to make and implement a writing skills development plan. Hire a writing tutor. If you're a good writer, routinely make comments on his or her work require re-writes. Send him or her to summer writing camps. Buy him or her a Chicago Manual of Style. Enroll him or her in community college writing classes. Expect him or her to fight to become a good writer and reward the effort.

YOU are ridiculous. I am the PP teaching at a private school at which we have multiple students on scholarship, some of which are full (100% of tuition covered). Yes, I know exactly which students are on scholarship because I am part of a committee that helps assess application materials/spend time with prospective parents. You have not researched options fully, which to me indicates you just don't care that much this (or about your kids' education).

A parent who wishes their child to attend an excellent private with small class sizes really should make a list of schools, then carefully and systematically contact each for details about financial aid. You would be surprised at what is available if you cast a wide net and devote time to researching options.





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Anonymous wrote:I have always maintained that in my experience, DCPS fails miserably in teaching writing to students. Both of my dc's receive outside tutoring to better develop that very important skill.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want your kids to be better writers, fight for smaller class sizes. Even a great teacher can't provide the necessary feedback for multiple classes of 30 students.

This is true. I teach at a private school (and not in DC), and I'm able to devote about 40 minutes to each composition draft because my class sizes are reasonable. This weekend, I have a class batch of 11 compositions. I will spend 7-8 hours as I read and write careful comments on each paper.

And I will repeat the cycle a few times over the course of the week with my other classes. I teach 6 classes. The smallest class has 2 students, and the largest 13; I have a total of 40 students in all. I spend many hours outside of school reading and commenting upon compositions, and I could not do this if I had 30-35 kids in each class: the thing would be impossible. I am shuddering as I imagine having 180 students total....the kid and teachers are doomed to failure.

The class that contains only 2 students (AP Language and Comp) gets even more individual time and attention. I have a friend who is teaching this same course in a public school; she has 22 students in her class. It is not her fault that her class average on the exam is going to be significantly lower than the average of my class of 2. Think about it. I am certainly wondering now about how many parents of her students are blaming her for their child's writing skills.

(On the selfish bright side, this is why my school's IB and AP scores are so much higher than the average).

I'm a teacher and I understand that not everyone is wealthy, but there are other ways to make a private education possible, and they are worth researching. I have multiple students on partial or full scholarship. Large class sizes make it impossible to teach writing, and if you want your kid to have the best, do whatever it takes to get him/her into a private with small class sizes.

Get him into a private with small class sizes? Oh right, fork over tens of thousands of tuition dollars (even with financial aid) each year per child through middle school and high school, just like that. Ridiculous.

If you want your kid to have the "best" you certainly don't need a pricey private school with a raft of pampered classmates on hand to erode your kid's work ethic. But you do need to make and implement a writing skills development plan. Hire a writing tutor. If you're a good writer, routinely make comments on his or her work require re-writes. Send him or her to summer writing camps. Buy him or her a Chicago Manual of Style. Enroll him or her in community college writing classes. Expect him or her to fight to become a good writer and reward the effort.

YOU are ridiculous. I am the PP teaching at a private school at which we have multiple students on scholarship, some of which are full (100% of tuition covered). Yes, I know exactly which students are on scholarship because I am part of a committee that helps assess application materials/spend time with prospective parents. You have not researched options fully, which to me indicates you just don't care that much this (or about your kids' education).

A parent who wishes their child to attend an excellent private with small class sizes really should make a list of schools, then carefully and systematically contact each for details about financial aid. You would be surprised at what is available if you cast a wide net and devote time to researching options.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And not everyone has the same abilities in writing. Some people will be great writers despite poor teaching and some people will be not-so-great writers despite good teachers and plenty of practice.

"Not so great writers" should still be beyond adults at a third or fourth grade level, like a pp references.

Anonymous wrote:we have a had a lot of DCPS interns in our office, I would say most of the HS kids write on a 3rd or 4th grade level. Its shameful and worse how celebratory every one is as the graduation rates. (or that lame Ballou stunt -Every kid accepted to college!!). a lot of functionally illiterate. Any for profit college will take and their student loans.