Securing the Future for Washington DC Psd

DC PSD Analysis The author of this report will be focusing on the strategic plan for a given organization. The organization in question here is the Washington DC Public School District and the strategy summary in question is the 2017 Strategic Plan as authored by that school district. The first third of this report shall focus on the plan itself within its environmental context. There will be a summary and analysis of the key strategic choices as discussed and summarized in the plan.

The final two thirds of this report shall be a scholarly literature review of the implications and topics at hand. Specifically, there should be a focus on the fourth goal given in the report. That goal is the improving of satisfaction in a way that provides for the school district's future and sustainability. Indeed, the children of America are our future and their long-term successes or failures will have a ton of implications for how well this country does and how well these students perform within it.

While the "proper" way to serve and assist kids may be in debate, there is no question that the overall satisfaction of the children and their parents as well as how both of those relate to the school system's future and sustainability are all extremely important and thus should be taken seriously. Analysis When it comes to urban school systems like those in major metropolitan areas like New York, Los Angeles and Washington DC, just to name a few, there is truly a dual-edged problem that presents and manifests.

One side of that dastardly coin is that the United States is very much falling behind when it comes to performance in core subjects like math and science. The innovation and high-end skills that are craved by many top employers are often unmet by the students that are produced by the United States.

There is a devil's advocate argument that asserts that businesses are clamoring for foreign workers and H-1B Visas only because it is cheaper for those businesses to employ those workers as compared to their theoretical American counterparts. Be that as it may, it is clear that American schools are falling behind the curve set by the world and the public schools in particular are getting a lot of the ire and blame for that (National Governors Association, 2007).

The other side of the aforementioned proverbial coin is faced by urban areas like Washington DC. Indeed, there is a great amount of poverty, crime and squalor in the urban areas of America. Cities that stand out in this regard include Washington DC, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles, just to name the few.

Whether it be poverty in general, gun violence or other things, the amount of problems faced by inner city families and, by extension, inner city kids is monumental compared to most (but certainly not all) kids and families that are not in such areas.

Due to all of these things as well as the breakdown of the black family unit (in terms of the aggregate, anyway), the fear of being harmed or even killed by violence and family dysfunction in general, it is obviously not a surprise that kids in such areas do not perform well in school.

A lot of this is the conditions of the area and the culture surrounding the same but the schools themselves are using antiquated books and other resources a lot of the time and the culmination of these factors leads to high dropout rates, kids being graduated when they really should not be given that they are not at the high school level in the first place (let alone beyond it) and some other nasty effects. The totality of all of this shows a system that is clearly broken.

As such, the parental satisfaction in such a system is going to be poor to awful. This in turn can lead to a system that is not sustainable at an acceptable level, if at all, and thus the future of the system is entirely in doubt. The DC school system could absolutely see themselves looking like Detroit if they are not careful.

Detroit is having to shut down schools and condense students into those schools that remain due to a massive amount of people fleeing the area for the suburbs or other urban centers. Throw in the rampant crime that is often unsolved and a city infrastructure that is inherently dysfunctional and bankrupt, the future for Detroit kids would seem to be very bleak and any parent with any wisdom would do whatever is possible to get their child into another school system (Lake, Jochim, DeArmond, 2014).

The situation in Washington DC is not that bleak, at least not yet. However, the bad school performance and related social factors that do exist call for decisive action and sound strategy and that is the obvious goal of the 2017 strategic plan put forth by the DC PSD system.

The very first statement that comes out clearly from the strategic plan document is the phrase that there will be "better schools for all students by 2017." It is shown on the second page and it lays the groundwork for what is described on the second page of the document. Indeed, they state that the five-year period running from 2012 to 2007 will represent a huge shift and upgrade in outcomes for the students of the Washington DC school district.

The strategic plan is described on that second page as a "roadmap" that will transform the DC public schools into a "high-quality, vibrant school district that earns the confidence of our community" (DC PDS, 2015). Indeed, there will not be any modicum of satisfaction if there is not trust between the parents and the leaders of the school district. The bottom half of the second page lists seven overall stakeholder commitments.

Indeed, the satisfaction of the stakeholders is no small thing to attain for a school district because the depth, breadth and variety of stakeholders that exist when it comes to a school system are all expansive.

With that in mind, the stakeholders listed are the children of Washington DC, the teachers and staff of the Washington DC public school district, the school leaders of the Washington DC public school district, the parents of the children of the Washington DC public school district, the members of the Washington DC community, the potential employers, both within Washington DC and outside of it, that will be employing the kids that come out of the Washington DC school district and the city/state of Washington DC in general.

The stated purpose of the district on the top of the third page is to "ensure that every DCPS school provides a world-class education that prepares ALL of our students, regardless of background or circumstance, for success in college, career and life" (DC PSD, 2015). The sordid national-level reading and math performance scores mentioned earlier in this report are clearly represented when speaking of Washington DC. Indeed, the 2010/2011 proficiency rate for both reading and math were a paltry forty-three percent for both.

That said, the goals of the Washington DC district are lofty as they seek to have proficiency rates of seventy percent for both by the 2016/2017 school year. Even the strategy document itself admits that their goals are "ambitious." Similar goals exist when it comes to the overall number of advanced students that exist within the district. In the 2010/2011 school year, the school district had 1,907 advanced reading students and 2,382 advanced math students. The school district wants to raise those numbers to 3,814 and 4,764, respectively, by the 2016/2017 school year.

The starting point is bleaker when it comes to the forty worst schools in the district form a current score standpoint. Indeed, those forty schools had proficiency rates of 23% in reading and 22% in math as of the 2010/2011 school year. While the district is very ambitious with raising those scores as well, their goals for those school is dialed back a bit as compared to the district as a whole. Indeed, their goals for reading and math proficiency is 63 and 62, respectively, by the 2016/2017 school year.

Also extremely concerning is that the high school graduation rate in 2010/2011 was a meager 53%. By 2015, the goal is have that number to three fourths. This is not exactly success for "every" student as mentioned before. However, increasing the graduation rate by half would be a huge feat to accomplish in five years and it is indeed as starting point. The district wants no less than 90% of their students to say that they like being and going there. This is also a good thing to strive for (DC PSD, 2015).

Literature Review If there is a takeaway and point of emphasis to focus on from the analysis above, it would be that schools in urban areas have to be beacons of hope and sources of opportunity for kids that face dire poverty, rampant crime and dwindling hopes of "making it." Schools can only do much as the parents (or parent, as is the case in many instances) have to be partners in the learning of each child.

Even so, there are a lot of things the school can do and these positive things build a bridge to the future once the trust and satisfaction of the parents and the broader community are attained and retained. With that in mind, one has to bump the goal being focused on in this report, that being parental/student satisfaction, against the factors and conditions that exist in the wider DC area.

As noted already, the challenges are many and they are even more numerous when speaking of schools that are among the worse or at least the most chaotic. One factor that has to be addressed when it comes to addressing and raising satisfaction while building a path to the future are the urban factors involved including crime, gangs and other things that can derail or at least distract students when it comes to their learning performance and process.

One source conducted for this literature review takes things a bit further and focuses on some other things that can arise in school-age children including dating violence, risky sexual behavior, consumption of alcohol and the use of illicit drugs. One of the scariest facets of these behaviors is that they absolutely not limited to high school children. Indeed, even elementary and middle school children are now manifesting these behaviors to some degree or another.

Beyond that, these behaviors are present in areas that are high-minority, which is something that can obviously be said about Washington DC. The rates of these risky and/or violent behaviors are rather alarming. About one in five students report some sort of date-related violence. Very close to a half of all respondents in a recent study assert that they were victimized in non-physical ways such as vocal intimidation and threats.

It was also noted in that study that there is a strong correlation between being victimized and engaging in risky sexual and/or drug-related behavior. If the Washington DC school district is truly serious about stopping these trends and outcomes before they start, they need to start no later than middle school and some interventions may even be needed at the elementary school level. Once the cycle of victimhood starts, it can be never-ending and extremely harmful.

Even worse, it can be very hard to break these patterns and trends once the proverbial die is cast (Lormand et al., 2013). Another topic that is obviously and completely related to the satisfaction goal being focused on in this report is how to improve math and reading scores, not to mention graduate rates in general, in high school once the proverbial bar has fallen as low as it has in DC. Indeed, a graduate rate of a half is essentially pathetic.

One very effective method that has been discovered is incorporating the two into a single lesson plan. For example, there are some innovative middle school math curriculums that are fusing both math and children's literature together when it comes to teaching the former of those two subjects. Indeed, it would seem that the efficacy and performance of students tends to go up quite a bit when there is a relationship made between the learning at hand and the culture of the children in question.

For example, a high-Latino district might be assisted with learning math whilst using the lens of characters and subjects that are near and dear to Latin culture. When it comes to areas like Washington DC, a good many of the kids involved are African-American. This is not to say that the curriculum needs to be monopolized and limited only to African-American culture. Indeed, there should be a good variety of cultural lessons taught. However, the overall demography and cultural traits of an area should not be dismissed or ignored.

If using cultural and literature-based lessons in math and other complex subjects (from a child's point-of-view) helps the students learn the subject more effectively and more quickly, then this all the more reason to use that method. Further, effective use of this methodology can cause positive social change on a grand scale and this would be no small thing in an area like Washington DC (Green, 2013).

One thing that has to be mentioned because it is practically unavoidable in the academic circles made up of the public schools and the children within them would be Common Core. Common Core has not been around that long but it has raised the attention and ire of a lot of people. Some people assert that the Common Core system is effective and proper and thus should be the blueprint used for all schools, urban ones in particular.

Others assert that the system is politically slanted and/or that its overall efficacy is lacking. It has gotten to the point where cities and states are actively leaving and avoiding the system and going with other methods. A major staple of Common Core as well as many other current and prior system is standardized testing. Indeed, it was one of the more derided aspects of the fairly recent No Child Left Behind Act during the tenure of former President George W. Bush.

One of the reasons that the testing is derided, whether it be from No Child Left Behind or Common Core, is that an over-reliance on the testing and/or an over-emphasis on the results can lead to gaming the system, an improper skewing of the curriculum and so on. Beyond that, there is an assertion by many that African-American and other minority students tend to perform much more poorly on testing in general and this would in turn skew their results on standardized tests.

Given the high number of blacks, especially as compared to the national population of the United States, in the Washingon DC area, this subject is obviously a very sensitive one when it comes to the overall subject matter of this report. If the testing in the Washington DC area is perceived not to be helpling the students truly get better, then the satisfaction levels of the parents will fall and the use of testing over time and in the future will become problematic at best.

Even so, standardized testing has its place and should absolutely happen because that is how students are measured in the aggregate. There has to be some sort of system whereby the wider group of students are assessed in terms of how they do as a group. Just as a sub-fifty percent graduation rate is dire, so too is a sub-fifty percent proficiency rate when it comes to reading or math, let alone both.

As such, the same test should generally be used year in and year out and there should be a straight year-over-year comparison made and/or comparisons made over longer time horizons to see how students are or are not progressing over time (Almagor, 2014). Another subject that has to be mentioned when it comes to Washington DC, the public schools in general and the racial composition of school districts like Washington DC is the concept of disparate impact and lesser outcomes in general for minority students.

However, there is also the possibility of over-correcting and actually making things worse. Indeed, some assert that civil rights enforcement has gone "haywire" and is not accomplishing what it is ostensibly meant to accomplish. It can be very tricky trying to protect the civil rights of those that are at risk of being victimized and forgotten and offending or hurting those that have done nothing wrong and thus do not deserve the derision and negativity that they are sometimes subject to.

That all being said, the federal government and others have levied some concerns that are certainly legitimate. On the good side, there was concern about whether minority students were receiving harsher punishments than whites for the same infractions. On the bad side, there were "zero tolerance" policies that sometimes end up punishing kids very harshly for seemingly minor offenses. Indeed, a student possessing a Tylenol tablet that their parents gave to them to use as needed is not the same thing as a child possessing marijuana or other illicit drugs.

One of those "infractions" is worthy of a suspension but the other is not. Also, the term "disparate impact" gets thrown around a lot. Indeed, it should be concerning if a bad social phenomenon is impact black or other minorities in a disproportionate fashion. However, there should not be an overreaction if there is a factual or statistical trend that explains the reason for such variance. For example, it should be looked into if blacks are not hired for jobs at the same rate as their white counterparts.

However, if whites are typically more likely to be graduates from high school and/or college or if whites are less likely to have a criminal record, that cannot be ignored when trying to figure out why the hiring rates are so off-kilter when comparing the two races. Those little details matter a great deal because those are real (and almost always legal) things that cause some people to be hired over another regardless of the race of the people involved.

The parents and teachers of the school system in Washington have to be made to understand that finishing high school and doing so at the highest level possible should be the highest priority when it comes to raising a child to be an adult.

If a student fails to finish high school and/or gains a criminal record due to involvement with drugs and/or gangs, their chances of living fruitful and happy lives as adults become increasingly slim as wide society do not view felons or dropouts in a favorable light and the people that are racist just make things worse (Epstein, 2014). When it comes to the community that is Washington DC, the teachers and other educational professionals play a vital role.

As noted earlier in this report, parents play a pivotal role in the prospects and upbringing of a child. So often, black families are missing a parent and it is usually the father. Beyond that, there is also a good amount of abuse that occurs against children. Given their exposure to the children, it makes sense that teachers are what is known as mandated reporters when it comes to the same.

If they notice marks or bruises on a child or the child makes a statement that indicates abuse is happening, the teacher usually has a legally binding mandate to say something to the proper authorities. However, there are some alarming trends when it comes to mandated reporters in school systems doing what they do and the racial trends that are seen from the same. This would have obviously implications on Washington DC given its demographics.

At issue is the fact that abuse reports seem to be disproportionately high when it comes to blacks and other minorities. This could mean one or two things. It could mean that abuse rates are higher with blacks and other minorities or it could mean that mandated reporters are being a little touchy when it comes to what is reported and for who. Perhaps there is a possibility that abuse is higher in the black community. However, this is far from something that should be assumed or taken to heart.

Teachers and other officials in the Washington DC district should absolutely report things that seem fishy or suspicious. However, they should also remember that kids have accidents including slips, falls and roughhousing (Krase, 2015). Even so, patterns of "accidents" should probably be cause for concern and there are certain accusations and injuries that should always be reported no matter what. For example, injuries to the genitals should always be taken seriously and any verbalized accusation of sexual or physical abuse should be fully investigated.

However, a bruise on a child's shin is probably going to be nothing a lot of the time. It is important to protect kids but it is also important to not be over-reactive or presuming that people of certain cultures or groups are more abusive and/or are poorer parents than others. Black people in particular are victimized by this happenstance all the time and it has led to a lot of bitterness and lack of trust.

This is the antithesis of what the DC school district wants and thus they should proceed with caution (Krase, 2015). Keeping with the racial subject, there is something else that can be mentioned. Some kids across the nation have been subjected to what is known as the "no pass, no play" system. This is when students are precluded from extracurricular activities like sports and such when they are not passing their classes.