Anonymous wrote:Are these pps actually DCPS parents? Because, yikes.

No.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid just started at a Big3 for 9th and the summer reading was the Autobiography of Malcolm X.

A classic.

Exactly. But PPs insist that only white authors can write classics.

Currently at Deal,
6th graders are reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
7th graders are reading Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman
8th graders are reading Raisin in the Sun

They're not reading entire books, just excerpts.

Huh?! That's odd. My 6th grader read "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry", "Beowulf", "Tuck Everlasting" and a novel in verse about a Hmong girl (forget the title) in its entirety last year at Hardy. The assignments did cover the entire set of books. Was it not so at Deal? But I do agree that reading is pretty minimal at DCPS.

Nope - mine read "part" of Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry - and I think parts of Beowulf - but not the complete set of 4 books - that we did purchase - was an "on the fly" change...and they were not assigned full books

Interesting. Does it depend on the teacher? My 6th grader had homework twice a week with questions that covered each book in its entirety, a project to write a chapter of a novel in verse, a podcast interview with a character in Beowulf, a multiple page point of view essay on a character in RoT,HMC and reflections on immortality for Tuck Everlasting. There was more but I forget. This was in Hardy.

That's similar ot why my kids did when they were at Deal, but that was pre-pandemic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is just more work at a private school than a public, it doesn't mean your child isn't able to do it--they just need to get used to the volume. I do think that the volume of work prepares them more for college, but it does take a lot of fun out of the high school experience.

. Come on, such BS. Other US cities offer far more HS rigor in the public system than DC. My alma mater, Boston Latin,is the HS sending the most grads to Ivies on a per capita basis, not a Top DC (or NYC) private. Spare us your misplaced snobbery, PP.

This thread is local.

But the point is a good one. Tony private schools aren't magic bullets. Coddled kids in cocoon environments, with no more than token poor and lower middle-class peers on scholarships, don't necessarily put nose to the grindstone, hustle to get ahead, or appreciate their opportunities to learn like public students might. This is true matter how terrific the teachers and curriculum.

After almost a decade in DCPS, we learned not to rely on school inputs to provide serious humanities challenge long ago. We enroll our children in a variety of on-line workshops and classes each school year to beef up and round out the education on offer at our neighborhood MS. We started hiring a tough writing tutor with another DCPS family last year.

We require our kids to read at least one challenging novel weekly, mainly classics we discuss with them, on top of what's being assigned at school. We shut off the Internet in the afternoons, to promote reading. We have them earn "reading points" they can cash in for adventures of their own choosing, e.g. horse-riding lessons and zip lines. We opt out of PARCC, which we consider a waste of time, in favor of having them read during testing hours. In the summers, we send our children to several weeks of academic sleep-away camps. We spend 8-10K per kid per school year to supplement, a bargain compared to Sidwell, GDS etc.

Deal sucks.

Your parenting sucks.

Anonymous wrote:No, I think many parents would just like their child to read a single book in its entirety in 8th grade as part of ELA requirements.

Then you aren’t the person we are responding to.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid just started at a Big3 for 9th and the summer reading was the Autobiography of Malcolm X.

A classic.

Exactly. But PPs insist that only white authors can write classics.

Currently at Deal,
6th graders are reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
7th graders are reading Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman
8th graders are reading Raisin in the Sun

They're not reading entire books, just excerpts.

Huh?! That's odd. My 6th grader read "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry", "Beowulf", "Tuck Everlasting" and a novel in verse about a Hmong girl (forget the title) in its entirety last year at Hardy. The assignments did cover the entire set of books. Was it not so at Deal? But I do agree that reading is pretty minimal at DCPS.

Nope - mine read "part" of Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry - and I think parts of Beowulf - but not the complete set of 4 books - that we did purchase - was an "on the fly" change...and they were not assigned full books

Interesting. Does it depend on the teacher? My 6th grader had homework twice a week with questions that covered each book in its entirety, a project to write a chapter of a novel in verse, a podcast interview with a character in Beowulf, a multiple page point of view essay on a character in RoT,HMC and reflections on immortality for Tuck Everlasting. There was more but I forget. This was in Hardy.

No, none of this at Deal. hardy handled remote learning much better than deal. deal was a sh$&7t-show.

8th grade (at least my kid's team) did not read anything near full books either-they read excerpts only. I know because my kid struggled mightily last year (depression) and I sat and helped him with homework almost nightly for the entire year. If this wasn't the case I would have never known.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid just started at a Big3 for 9th and the summer reading was the Autobiography of Malcolm X.

A classic.

Exactly. But PPs insist that only white authors can write classics.

Currently at Deal,
6th graders are reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
7th graders are reading Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman
8th graders are reading Raisin in the Sun

They're not reading entire books, just excerpts.

Huh?! That's odd. My 6th grader read "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry", "Beowulf", "Tuck Everlasting" and a novel in verse about a Hmong girl (forget the title) in its entirety last year at Hardy. The assignments did cover the entire set of books. Was it not so at Deal? But I do agree that reading is pretty minimal at DCPS.

Nope - mine read "part" of Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry - and I think parts of Beowulf - but not the complete set of 4 books - that we did purchase - was an "on the fly" change...and they were not assigned full books

Interesting. Does it depend on the teacher? My 6th grader had homework twice a week with questions that covered each book in its entirety, a project to write a chapter of a novel in verse, a podcast interview with a character in Beowulf, a multiple page point of view essay on a character in RoT,HMC and reflections on immortality for Tuck Everlasting. There was more but I forget. This was in Hardy.

Deal doesn’t prepare you for HS or the real world which is based on merit and not some lame IB grading scale the same way you haven’t trained your child that there are losers and there are winners. Now you know which one your child is because their parent also happens to have the same self entitled level of self-loathing. Hard work gets you where you want to be, not being some entitled upper NW brat.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid just started at a Big3 for 9th and the summer reading was the Autobiography of Malcolm X.

A classic.

Exactly. But PPs insist that only white authors can write classics.

Currently at Deal,
6th graders are reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
7th graders are reading Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman
8th graders are reading Raisin in the Sun

They're not reading entire books, just excerpts.

Huh?! That's odd. My 6th grader read "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry", "Beowulf", "Tuck Everlasting" and a novel in verse about a Hmong girl (forget the title) in its entirety last year at Hardy. The assignments did cover the entire set of books. Was it not so at Deal? But I do agree that reading is pretty minimal at DCPS.

Nope - mine read "part" of Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry - and I think parts of Beowulf - but not the complete set of 4 books - that we did purchase - was an "on the fly" change...and they were not assigned full books

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The books they read at Deal are not particularly advanced. And for some reason all the books are about racism or minority groups being oppressed. Like every single book.

The kids at Deal are the ones that need to read these types of books. They’ll have plenty of time in high school and college to read the classics (that will have no major impact on the way they live the lives).

What do you mean by your first sentence? Why do you think the kids at Deal need to read these books? Who doesn’t need to read these books?

What’s your point?

Agree this is an odd comment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid just started at a Big3 for 9th and the summer reading was the Autobiography of Malcolm X.

A classic.

Exactly. But PPs insist that only white authors can write classics.

Currently at Deal,
6th graders are reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
7th graders are reading Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman
8th graders are reading Raisin in the Sun

They're not reading entire books, just excerpts.

Huh?! That's odd. My 6th grader read "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry", "Beowulf", "Tuck Everlasting" and a novel in verse about a Hmong girl (forget the title) in its entirety last year at Hardy. The assignments did cover the entire set of books. Was it not so at Deal? But I do agree that reading is pretty minimal at DCPS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went from one of the worst public school districts in the country (we moved to DC from a rural area) to a big three in ninth grade. It took me all of freshman year but I eventually did and I got into HYP.

What does that have to do with this thread about Deal?

I'm reassuring OP that her kid can hang in there and achieve in this environment even if Deal did indeed suck during the pandemic.

No, I think many parents would just like their child to read a single book in its entirety in 8th grade as part of ELA requirements.

Like seriously, they believe that a discussion of history of race that is any more complicated than "MLK, peaceful disobedience, kids holding hands together," is CRT.