Controversy Over Rhee Now to Include Sex, Congress
The Manhattan Project
Report: CCDC Split From UDC Is "Critical To Success"
Increased Urban Walkability For The Win
D.C. United Icon Ben Olsen To Retire
Time for holiday reading. Sara Mead of the Early Education Watch blog digs into the Five-Year Action Plan for the District of Columbia Schools and finds that in at least one respect, schools czar Michelle Rhee's plan comes up wanting:
There's a lot of good stuff in there, but one glaring omission that really troubled me: A total lack of attention to early education. The word "preschool" appears exactly once in the document, as part of a series of early education programs given a passing mention in a section dealing with parental engagement. Pre-kindergarten or early childhood education? Not a mention. Kindergarten? Nope. On the upside, early literacy does get mentioned twice, and Rhee is proposing a solid, research-based approach to early literacy, including increased use of tiered interventions for struggling readers.Matthew Yglesias observes, "A certain type of person isn't interested in any education improvements that don't involve picking fights with teacher's unions, and this seems to me like perhaps an example of Rhee suffering from that affliction." Certainly the schoolteachers seem to think so.
Mead zeroes in on one aspect of the plan that might sow some confusion. "[T]he District of Columbia Council recently passed ambitious universal pre-k legislation to expand access to pre-k programs and to improve their quality," she writes.
Does that mean that the D.C. Council and Michelle Rhee are working toward different mandates for school education? While it should not surprise anyone that the executive and legislative branches share responsibilities within a field as broad as the public school system, it seems that it would behoove both efforts if both the actors involved shared the same priority. If the Council decides that pre-K is where it's at but Rhee barely mentions it, whose focus obtains?
Photo of educupcakes borrowed with permission under a Creative Commons license with Flickr user clevercupcakes
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
You can't have any pudding until you eat your meat! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat! You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds! Stand still, laddy!
Are you Effing kidding me? Seriously? I don't mean to be beligerent, let's chalk it up to my likely plummeting blood sugar, but we're going to nit-pick, aren't we?
A whole post on Rhee's plan, and all four pages get fluffed off as "some pretty good stuff"? I know nothing more after reading except a blogger's mad about pre-school: the title of the website is www.k12.dc.us!!! pre-school is pre-kindergarten, no?
...crazy pills! I know folks love to demonize the Chancellor but give her a break!
Doesn't DCPS offer pre-K at all elementary schools this year?
Good lord, Rhee hasn't fixed everything by now?
Jeez louise...fire the beyotch, Fenty. Be done with her and let someone else fiddle with pre-K while Rome burns.
Preschool is 3-year-olds; Pre-Kindergarten is 4-year-olds.
yes, my point exactly. if the plan in question was for k thru 12, then why get upset about lack of discussion of pre-school? that should be excluded by definition/discussed at another time.
Numerous studies have shown that while preschool can greatly increase the competency of students as they enter K-3rd, it is also very common for the non-preschool students to make up the difference and catch up in the same early education period.
So *maybe* preschool is the positive school influence that marginalized students in the DC area need to succeed further on down the line. But in reality, the resources and attention would be better spent on the higher grades.
Oh fercrissakes!
Preschool?
Do any of you have any idea what kind of garbage passes for FIFTH GRADE in DCPS?
I met a fifth grade teacher who had no problem telling me she did PCP as a teenager. You worry about potential for literacy while I wonder about the boathead who isn't encouraging their class to stay away from PCP.
Anyone whining about preschool in a document that's titled "K-12" is clearly NOT SOMEONE WE SHOULD BE LISTENING TO because they are incapable of reading at an adult level.