Not only does Woodbridge Elementary (shown in red) have a high percentage of disadvantaged students, it does worse than schools with comparable students.
Woodville Elementary School in Richmond is by some measures the poorest-performing school district in the school system. To be sure, the school has one of the highest percentage of economically disadvantaged students, but even then, it’s still the worst, as can be seen in the chart above. Performance that bad can’t be blamed on just the students’ socioeconomic status, contends John Butcher over at Cranky’s Blog.
Having flunked accreditation for three years running, the school has applied for “reconstituted” status. The plan calls for adding an administrative dean to the staff, implementing a new reading program, engaging families of students, and reducing suspensions by creating “a more positive climate and environment.”
Butcher does a take-down of the plan: “Never mind the incompetent use of the Mother Tongue by people who purport to teach English to our children. Never mind the confused and vacuous proposals that fail to deal with the incompetent teachers and administrators who sank Woodville into a quagmire of failure. The application is defective on its face.” Read the whole thing. It’s depressing.
If Cranky is right, nothing fundamental will change. Captive to the platitudes of the educational bureaucracy, Woodville’s leadership is doubling down on the same strategies that failed before. Another cohort of impoverished poor school children, born into economic disadvantage at birth, will fall further behind. One has to ask, is Richmond’s educational system — is Virginia’s educational system — capable of reforming itself, or are poor children just doomed?
— JAB
