New to DC - what's wrong with the Public Schools?

[Anonymous]

We just moved here and we always assumed we would need to go private in this city - people told us the public schools were "awful". My parents have been visiting and as we drove through Georgetown and the area near Key elementary school (Foxhall?)........my mother commented that how could the public schools be so bad in an area of obvious wealth and sophistication. Who attends these schools? You have to assume that all the local families that can afford to live in these areas are educated. Or does everyone do private and the schools are filed with kids bussed in from other areas? Forgive me for being so naive - but I'm just curious.......

[Anonymous]

Public elementary schools in the areas you mentioned are quite good and have many neighborhood families that attend them. Hyde, Key, Mann, Janney , Eaton, Murch, and Stoddert are elementary schools in Wards 2 and 3. Some families leave for private school after elementary and some choose to use our public middle and high schools. I have kids currently in public schools, elementary through high school, with one who just graduated from hs. For the most part, we have been very happy with our choice.

[Anonymous]

Well, yes, Key Elementary (in the Palisades) serves local kids and lots of families do use it but most then move on the private. A few go to the public middle and high (Deal and Wilson) but those schools draw from a much larger geographic area than just the immediate neighborhoods. Hyde Elementary, is also good and in Georgetown on 32nd St, NW. It also gets some neighborhood kids but it also gets lots of kids from out of district. Mann Elementry serves kids in Wesley Heights (which you would have passed as its north of and between Georgetown and Palisades up Foxhall Rd) and Spring Valley and is also an excellent public school. The problem is what to do after elementary because lots of people do not want to have their kids in the public middle and highschools where the demographics change and discipline becomes an issue as do socio-economics. Of course, some people do use those schools and it works for their families. I think the reasons that you hear "only private, DC publics are terrible" is threefold: 1.) the majority of DC public elementaries, middles, & highs are of poor quality and its much easier to generalize than to explain the socio economics and geographics of the public school system in DC as it sounds elitist and very un-PC so most people just generalize; 2.) Lots of people never even look at the publics and start out at private for Preschool and go through the entire system in private because its easier to start as you plan to continue (its hard to get in to privates and gets harder with every grade); and 3.) Lots of people move to Montgomery County or Arlington or Fairfax because the public schools there are some of the best in the nation and make the DC schools look even worse in comparision.

So, there you go, three reasons for the "common wisdom" which actually is not so wise. Oh, in the interest of full disclosure, we live in DC and my kids go to private and would even if we lived in MD or VA.

[Anonymous]

Oooh I messed up. I meant to say Key feeds into Hardy and Wilson (not Deal) sorry!!

[Anonymous]

OP, those two PPs have given a good analysis of the public school situation. There are families who will never go near them and there are families who are happy with the education their kids have gotten in public school. My kid has attended both public and private school in DC. My advice is to look at the schools individually. Observe a class. Talk to parents. Look at your kid and decide what's a good match.

[Anonymous]

Long-time DC resident here. Agree with PPs and would like to add something about Deal and Wilson. Both schools, but more so Wilson, have very unofficial schools-within-schools. These would be your rigorous chemistry classes, AP classes and so forth taught by veteran teachers.

If you are the kind of teen who can self-direct somewhat in a large public school that has its share of well-publicized issues, and (this is key) you are already smart to begin with, and your parents are themselves bright and involved, you can get a nice education at Wilson. You can then be admitted to prestigious universities and carry on like your DC neighbor teens who went to Maret.

It's not the dominant model, no. But this happens a lot more than I think most DCUMers with toddlers realize.

[Anonymous]

10:58 here again -- Also, don't forget Banneker. I've always been disappointed at how little mention Banneker gets on these boards. It's a top public magnet school that offers an IB program. I was quite impressed with their open house. In comparison to the other public magnet schools in DC, they were extremely well organized. Faculty, administrators, and students all showed up on a Saturday to give tours of the school. The students were quite impressive and talked a lot about how rigorous their program is. And in fact, my kid, who is no slouch in the academics area, made it to the interview stage but no further because, I suspect, they didn't think she could handle the workload.

People go on about Washington Latin on these boards -- but there's already a "Washington Latin" -- and in fact you have to take Latin your first year at Banneker. I can only assume it doesn't get much attention because NW DC residents don't want to send their kids to school near Howard University -- or that white parents don't want to send their kids to a school that's over 95% black. But I would have been delighted if my child had been accepted at Banneker.

[Anonymous]

or that white parents don't want to send their kids to a school that's over 95% black.

That is a really rude and presumptious statement.

[Anonymous]

I don't think it's rude or presumptuous. I think it's true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

or that white parents don't want to send their kids to a school that's over 95% black.

That is a really rude and presumptious statement.

12:14 here again -- Actually it's based on fact. When discussing high schools with a white friend of mine, she asked me in a hushed tone if I knew that Banneker was almost all black. I was completely taken aback by this and asked if they discriminated against white students there. She said she didn't know but that she just couldn't handle it.

I was completely surprised by her comment. It was the last thing I expected to hear from her. So I do wonder if it is a factor in the decisions that some white people make about where to send their kids to school. But I should have said "some" white parents. Obviously not all white parents would feel that way and I hope that most don't.

But I have been wondering for awhile why there is such a lack of interest in Banneker by white educated parents in DC when it is quite a rigorous school whose graduates go to top colleges. I'm not trying to be rude. Can anyone enlighten me on this? Is it just the location? (Wilson, Walls, and Ellington are more accessible to the upper NW by metro.) Or is there something else going on?

[Anonymous]

I think the reasons are complex. I don't think most white parents would come out and say that it's because Banneker is 95% black, but I'm sure any parent would be concerned about their child being the only or one of a few of their race at a school. I'm black and I know it's an issue that many black parents consider in considering schools for their children. So it's not as simple as racism. BUT, that being said, I do think that many parents consider anything that is majority black, especially when it comes to education, as inferior. As in, if it's so good, how come no white people are there? And that's a form of biased thinking. Add to the fact that Banneker is in a part of town that they may be less familiar with, that it's a DCPS institution, and that they just may not know much about how good a school it is, and I can see why many white people may not send their kids there. And by the way, I'm not about to condemn anyone for their school choices. My kids went DCPS for elementary, and are in private now, but I'll keep Banneker in mind for high school. The kids there really seem to do very well.

[Anonymous]

16:13 again -- good nuanced analysis, PP. I think you are correct in that there are many factors involved -- some of which have to do with things that have evolved out of racial segregation (e.g., lack of familiarity with the neighborhood) that now may not be fundamentally racist in nature but do have the effect of perpetuating racial division.

[Anonymous]

Thanks 16:13; I thought the same of your post!

[Anonymous]

I agree with previous posters as well. Also from my observations as a white parent whose child has been one of two white children in her class for the last couple of years, I notice that it doesn't seem to be an issue when kids are little, but that older middle school age kids and esp teenagers often don't want to be the only different one. Personally, I would opt for Wilson over Banneker not because I don't think Banneker isn't an excellent school (I know many students who have graduated from Banneker who have been admitted to top colleges and are extremely smart), but because I have seen enough of the interactions between kids as they get older that I think a school that is truly diverse would allow a greater social and emotional comfort for my children. I think it is hard to be the only different one be it a black child in a school that is 95% white, or a white child in a school that is 95% black. That is why I personally prefer integrated school versus segregated schools and would also not want to send my child to a school that is 95% white.

[Anonymous]

Good observations here. I'd also like to point out that sadly, once in middle and high school, most kids really do segregate. This might be partly due to the fact that students come from different elementary schools and different socio-economic classes, but whatever the reason, the different racial groups keep pretty much to themselves. This is one reason why many upper middle class African American parents opt out of those schools; many of us believe that minority kids are held to lower academic standards at Wilson and Deal. Maybe it's true at the private schools too (although that hasn't been my experience), but they tend to be more responsive when you're paying them $$$.