e-news: October 31, 2023
In This Edition:
1. Teacher's Lounge: Health Insurance Debacle
2. Teacher's Lounge: Declining Rigor at APS
3. Parent's Corner: Lottery Schools Create Two-Tiered Education
4. How to Monitor DreamBox Usage
5. October 26th School Board Recap
6. Make Your Voice Heard - APS Policy Changes
7. What We Are Reading
From The Teacher's Lounge: APS Health Insurance Debacle Has Eroded Teachers' Trust
(Editor's Note: From time to time we will offer op-eds, which are the unedited perspectives of an APS parent or teacher on a topic of interest or concern to APS.)
Late September the earth shook for many APS employees when they found out that their health insurance would be changing and those on Kaiser would have to rebuild their health care from the ground up. Worse, employees learned APS sat on the information for months, not allowing time to research doctors or make a different employment decision before the school year started. This isn’t just an “operational decision”; your child’s education will be impacted by the continued erosion in trust of APS leadership in general, and in HR in particular.
The outrage on display at recent school board meetings was the icing on the cake of employee mistrust built on failures such as the loss of insurance for extended day workers, pay failures for summer school, the debacle with Nottingham employees and other unforced errors.
Teachers generally don’t exit mid-year for a neighboring district as their license can be threatened, leaving them unemployable; it is extreme but can happen. APS educators (especially ones for whom their health care team is critical) are looking anyway. If they leave, a long term substitute is the likely replacement leaving those students without a qualified teacher. I fear many teachers, some who never considered leaving APS, may exit in June when they look around and realize they can keep their doctors and make similar money in surrounding districts.
As our critical support professionals (bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians, etc) come to understand the loss, they can just leave. It may be easier (and possibly financially prudent) to switch districts than switch doctors. In Arlington, those positions are hard to fill in the best of circumstances given the cost of living.
It shouldn’t be this way. Central office leadership should be serving and supporting those in the schools and have a long hard road to repair the disconnect with those who teach our children.
From the Teacher's Lounge: Rigor is a Casualty of APS Not Holding Students Accountable
(Editor's Note: From time to time we will offer op-eds, which are the unedited perspectives of an APS parent or teacher on a topic of interest or concern to APS.)
From the perspective of a high school and dual-enrollment instructor.
Policies in APS referred to here, in simple language:
A student can pass a class with a .75 average at the end of a year (D, D, D, E or A, E, E, E).
Students do not have to pass the last quarter.
No grade penalties for behavior, including being late every single day to class, going AWOL from class, class disruption.
Students can request a retake on any summative assignment at all. (Other than IB tests which are sent off to be graded, there is no exception to this – not AP, not preparatory assessments for IB, not DE.)
No more than 10% of any work may be assessed as a late penalty.
I have been teaching in Arlington County for over 25 years, and in the past 10-12 years I have watched a steady decline in rigorous standards and accountability measures for students. A recent “Student Opinion” in The New York Times (October 23, 2023) stated that “…GPAs have steadily risen – from an average of 2.68 in 1990 to 2.94 in 2000, 3.0 in 2009 and 3.11 in 2019….” And of course, standardized test scores have dropped. How can students be getting better grades, but have less ability to perform on these tests? We all fully realize that not all students are good test takers, but it is a question to grapple with, for certain.
Why is rigor decreasing? Simple answer – districts do not support holding students accountable, and the work involved in doing that is MASSIVE.
Counselors are extremely overworked; they are expected to plan student pathways, participate in master scheduling, schedule students into classes they want, listen to all student concerns, respond at the moment to any crisis with an individual student or one involving the entire school community, watch the progress of their students in all classes, and more. Currently, their course load is 200-250 students PER COUNSELOR. They simply do not have time to find out why a student is performing poorly or inadequately; many do not know their students well or have time to learn about each student’s learning style, or any variables in a student’s lives.
That brings the discussion to us, the teachers. I have approximately 100 students, which is average for high school teachers. We are expected to do a laundry list of activities, including making a SmartGoal, participating in numerous committees, sponsoring clubs, attending meetings, getting to know each and every student so that we know all of their strengths and weaknesses, and forming strategies to address every one of them. In return, the district passes policies that reduce consequences for attendance, lessen disciplinary action, and encourage teachers to give students multiple opportunities to miss work, redo work, and get students to an A, B, or C. Many teachers are blamed by administrators when a number of students do not do well in their classes or the classes seem to be “too hard.” Many teachers have gotten to the point where due dates are a thing of the past.
What does that mean for us, and for your children? If I have to give a retake, I either give the student the same test again (easy for me) or formulate a new one (more work). Many teachers opt to give the same test. If a teacher gives a great deal of work to the students to prepare them for college (think precalculus, anatomy and physiology, AP Physics, AP English, IB Sociology HL, etc.), students go to their counselors and try to drop the course or complain about stress, and the school then requires the teacher to address more “Social and Emotional Learning” in the class. The end result? Gives us more work.
Summing up, we need accountability in our system, in our policies, in our day-to-day activities. Teachers, I believe, try their best to do all the things they are required to do. When they can’t, they cut back on what they do. And rigor, in the truest sense of the word, is one casualty.
Parent's Corner: H-B Woodlawn, a Lottery for a Better Education
(Editor's Note: From time to time we will offer op-eds, which are the unedited perspectives of an APS parent or teacher on a topic of interest or concern to APS.)
As a progressive parent I support high quality public schools for all…low class sizes, supportive environments for teachers, and many opportunities for kids to learn and grow. But I keep being surprised that Arlington has “choice” schools i.e., option, where winning a lottery entitles a child to smaller class sizes. In particular, H-B Woodlawn (grades 6-12) entitles a child to SEVEN YEARS – more than half their enrollment in APS – with smaller class sizes and a smaller, more supportive environment. The lottery is continuously oversubscribed and is the choice for education for many elected officials in the County and the school system. Why does APS have this two-tiered education system?
Inequity in action:
H-B has 75 seats for incoming sixth graders. 671 students applied, meaning only 11% of applicants and 3.8% of total APS sixth graders received admittance.
According to APS’s website, there is NO priority given for need (either academic or economic), despite APS’s core equity value of: "Eliminate opportunity gaps and achieve excellence by providing access to schools, resources, and learning opportunities according to each student’s unique needs."
There are 26 seats for 9th graders, and 312 who applied.
Given the small size of each class and considering the requirements to offer a myriad of classes at the secondary level, how much more is APS paying per H-B student than per APS student at the comprehensive high schools?
Given the small size of H-B, how much more does APS pay for transportation per H-B student than per APS student at neighborhood middle and high schools?
Because of the regulated enrollment, class sizes are routinely significantly below that of neighborhood middle and high schools. I took a sample from last year’s class size report. In English 9 last year, the average class size was 26.5 at Wakefield, 20.6 at W&L, and 24 at Yorktown. What about H-B? 19. That’s 8, 2, and 5 fewer essays and papers to grade PER assignment for a teacher.
APS could make an immediate change to increase the opportunity for students to access this excellent education by increasing the number of 9-12 graders at H-B and eliminating the H-B middle school. Increasing the number of seats would enable fifty percent more APS students to receive this prized public good. That would result in 156 students in each grade, instead of 100.
APS should also consider a review of the H-B Woodlawn option program. How much are APS taxpayers paying for this education that’s only available to two percent of APS students? What is the difference in educational outcomes for students that attend H-B versus comprehensive high schools?
It appears that if you want the highest level of education for your student, you should cross your fingers for the H-B lottery. It’s only a 3.8% chance, but you would win seven years of a private-school-level education in terms of class size. That’s worth between $245,000 and $336,000 for your family, so please, cross your toes as well!
Want to Monitor Your Child's
DreamBox Usage? Here's How.
DreamBox offers parents the ability to monitor both (i) what content your child is reviewing on DreamBox, including how they’re doing with it, and (ii) how much time your child is spending on DreamBox.
The setup for parents is easy. Using your own personal laptop or phone (i.e., not a student’s iPad):
1. Have your child access his or her Clever account (login is here).
2. Have your child open the DreamBox app within Clever.
3. Go the bottom right of the DreamBox home screen and click on Setup Parent Access.
4. Follow the instructions to:
Create a login (email) and password (12 characters) if you
haven’t already; orAdd a child to your existing parent access account (e.g., if you have 2 or more children who use DreamBox and already had a parental account).
5. If you would like regular email notifications on your children's DreamBox progress (instead of having to log in to the portal to see it), you can do so via the following steps:
Go to the drop down DreamBox Learning Family in the upper right corner, click on Account Settings;
Click on My Notification Preferences;
Click on Enable notifications;
Click on Filter; and
Choose the notification to receive "emails on your children's academic and game progress".
October 26th School Board Meeting Recap
The SB meeting started with recognition of Williamsburg Middle School for being awarded the National Blue Ribbon Award for Exemplary High-Performing Schools. Key takeaways from the October 26th School Board Meeting are:
Facility Study and Pre-CIP Update – staff presented the Facilities Condition Assessment report, a systemwide assessment of 41 facilities; the proposal to use Nottingham as swing space will not be included in the 2025-2034 CIP. Further direction on CIP will come from Ms. Harber on Nov 9th.
Public comment overwhelmingly focused on frustration surrounding the APS' health insurance change and the plan to close Nottingham Elementary for swing space, which is no longer being pursued.
The Board voted to authorize $2.4M for "All-In Tutoring", as recommended by the state. $1.3M was also approved for compensation adjustment of 2% raise for all employees.
Read the full recap here.
APS Seeks Feedback on the Following Policies.
Feedback on policies currently being considered by the School Board should be sent to engage@apsva.us.
Source: APS
Applications are open! Apply to Serve on a School Board Advisory Council or Committee for SY 2023-24
Information about all advisory groups and the application to join an advisory group is available on the School Board Advisory Councils and Committees webpage.
What We’re Reading and Listening To
Follow the link above to see more of what we are reading and listening to this week!
Schooling vs. Learning: How Lax Standards Hurt the Lowest-Performing Students (The 74)
A new working paper from Brown University…[looked] at what happened when a state, North Carolina, lowered its standards…[The study] found that…student grades went up a lot…Students in the top half of the performance distribution were the main beneficiaries of the easier grading scale, and students with incoming test scores below the median saw no GPA increases at all…
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Texas at San Antonio were able to take a look at the consequences of another type of academic leniency in a study based on a natural experiment: The North Carolina board of education decided that every school in the state would shift its metrics to a 10-point grading scale starting in the 2015-16 school year, which meant for most schools, in practice, each letter grade had a lower floor… The more lenient grading policy really benefited only students who were already doing well. And the additional absences had knock-on effects for lower-performing students.
Why Aren’t America’s Students Showing Up? (Bloomberg)
During the 2021-22 academic year, 28% of schoolchildren were “chronically” absent — defined as missing at least 10% of the 180-day school year, or three and a half weeks. That’s up from a rate of 15% in the last full year before the pandemic. An analysis by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers found that absenteeism was responsible for 27% of the drop in fourth-grade reading scores on the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress and 45% of the decline in math…Reversing these trends will require school districts to employ a range of strategies.
Which students get into advanced math? Texas is using test scores to limit bias (The Toronto Star)
A new Texas law calls for every student who performs in the top 40% on a fifth-grade math assessment to be enrolled automatically in advanced math for sixth grade… Instead of having families opt in to advanced math, they are instead given the choice to opt out...More Dallas students have been enrolling in advanced math, and the classrooms have been more diverse. In 2018, prior to the opt-out policy, about 17% of Black students in sixth grade and one-third of Hispanic students were in honors math, compared to half of white students. Now, 43% of Black students are in honors math when they enter middle school and nearly six in 10 Hispanic students are.
California’s Math Misadventure Is About to Go National (The Atlantic)
Armed with trendy buzzwords and false promises of greater equity, California is promoting an approach to math instruction that’s likely to reduce opportunities for disadvantaged students. ...the CMF is notably skeptical of efforts to group students in math class according to ability, out of a fear that disadvantaged students will be placed in low-expectation tracks that they can never escape. ...shunting them away from advanced math is portrayed as progress. …The students who are most reliant upon public schools are the most harmed when districts embrace policies based on superficial appeals to equity or false promises about future job opportunities.
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