Another Brent question

[Anonymous]

It was about turning over the administration and entire staff of the school and trying to set a new culture. Standard practice in turning around failing schools and it can take a while to have results (I.e. the first year is often about nothing more than changing the culture, behavior expectations and norms of the school. Second year more about trying to get academic traction). Again, Jefferson Academy was not a bad move for improving that school. But it was the absolute slowest and least effective way to get a critical mass of on federal level students in there. Same slow moving, incremental change idea happening at Eliot Hine. May pay off in 5 to 10 years.

[Anonymous]

Um, on grade level students. Not whatever that said.

[Anonymous]

Tommy Wells did not have the political capital to fix the MS issue for his Hill constituents while serving as a councilman and school board member. If he is contemplating mounting a campaign for mayor, pushing for something that would be perceived as catering to privileged, white voters. People are still bitching about Rhee kowtowing to white voters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I will say in defence of Tommy Wells that when I asked him 7 years ago why Brent, etc. didn't have preK 3 as at Two Rivers and other charters, he did look into it and ran with it (Perhaps I am not part of this younger generation of which you speak! :wink. So I recommend trying to work with Tommy rather than giving up on him. Let's see what he does when the scores for ward 6 schools come out with more detail. Plus, he seems like he considering running for mayor, so there may yet be an opening for ward 6 without impolitic campaigning against Tommy.

What have Wellls' reasons been for not supporting a SH feed for Brent? How can he allow DCPS to leave Brent, Tyler Spanish Immersion and Maury middle-class parents without a remotely acceptable MS feed for 5-10 years, and possibly indefinitely? No political fallout in the cards for him if he conintues to tread water on the issue?

Do posters really feel like assuring him that voters would back radical change in school will motivate him to change his tune? I can't see that, from what I've heard him say about Hill schools. He would surely lose in a mayoral race, but if that got him out of the way. Perhaps a new warm body on the council for Ward 6 would take the bull by the horns on the middle schools reform front.

[Anonymous]

DCPS staunchly maintains that SH has no room for Brent and Maury Hill students, and that any sort of selective admissions school-within-a-school program, an alternative route to accomodating them, will not be considered. Rhee and Henderson couldn't get away with this nonsense in NW, using an IB MS school to primarily educate OOB kids (although they come from Hill feeders) for the forseeable future. Concerned parents are nowhere near a big enough slice of the electoral pie for Wells to worry about us. Wish that the feeder issue would draw more media attention since it's bad for the Hill is so many ways. The stand the Brent parents are quietly taking against cooperating with their assigned feeders isn't necessarily public knowledge, but should be.

[Anonymous]

If enough middle school charters like BASIS and rocketship open, then DCPS won't have to worry about high SES parents demanding a middle school option. THe high SES kids' parents can sign up for the academically demanding charters and the rest of the kids will go to the neighborhood DCPS schools as usual. Or perhaps some of their enterprising parents can get them into the charters, but then the kids will get sent back to DCPS if they can't keep up academically.

Not a good solution, in my view, but I can see it happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If enough middle school charters like BASIS and rocketship open, then DCPS won't have to worry about high SES parents demanding a middle school option. THe high SES kids' parents can sign up for the academically demanding charters and the rest of the kids will go to the neighborhood DCPS schools as usual. Or perhaps some of their enterprising parents can get them into the charters, but then the kids will get sent back to DCPS if they can't keep up academically.

Not a good solution, in my view, but I can see it happening.

Except that, as has been frequently mentioned on this board, Basis and Rocketship do not have selective admissions. How those programs will fare with kids who are unprepared for their rigor remains an open question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Except that, as has been frequently mentioned on this board, Basis and Rocketship do not have selective admissions. How those programs will fare with kids who are unprepared for their rigor remains an open question.

I fully expect Basis to do well. From what I can tell it is full of high SES kids from the Hill, whose parents are very involved. (For the record, I am not sending my kid there -- we are already happy at Latin and are unwilling to take a chance on a new school). That will get it far. Even if that demographic makes up 50% of the student body, it will have a high chance of doing what it says it will do -- and of course, the school will take credit for stellar test scores.

I totally agree with what other posters have said -- the hill needs a single middle school (like Deal) that takes kids from Brent, Maury, Watkins, Tyler, etc. It makes me angry that I have to send my kid across town to get a decent middle school education (and I will vote for anyone who will take on this issue -- Wells certainly has not).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If enough middle school charters like BASIS and rocketship open, then DCPS won't have to worry about high SES parents demanding a middle school option. THe high SES kids' parents can sign up for the academically demanding charters and the rest of the kids will go to the neighborhood DCPS schools as usual. Or perhaps some of their enterprising parents can get them into the charters, but then the kids will get sent back to DCPS if they can't keep up academically.

Not a good solution, in my view, but I can see it happening.

Except that, as has been frequently mentioned on this board, Basis and Rocketship do not have selective admissions. How those programs will fare with kids who are unprepared for their rigor remains an open question.

Right - the kids will be self-selected to be ready for tough academic courses and the school (at least BASIS) is set up to weed out kids who can't cut it academically. This will be a boon for capable, low SES kids and a bane for any kids who can't handle the academics. They'll be flushed out and sent back to the undesirable DCPS middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Except that, as has been frequently mentioned on this board, Basis and Rocketship do not have selective admissions. How those programs will fare with kids who are unprepared for their rigor remains an open question.

Right - the kids will be self-selected to be ready for tough academic courses and the school (at least BASIS) is set up to weed out kids who can't cut it academically. This will be a boon for capable, low SES kids and a bane for any kids who can't handle the academics. They'll be flushed out and sent back to the undesirable DCPS middle school.

Rocketship will be an alternative to KIPP for low and moderate-income children of color, if they ever come to DC. It sounds like they don't take upper-middle-class kids at their schools in CA and MN.

I'm optimistic that Basis will work fairly well for middle school, but not for high school, just like Latin, which is losing at least 2/3 of its middle class families somewhere between 7th and 9th grades (although a bit less all the time).

Basis may even end up opening a second branch in DC (it has 5 in AZ). The city will probably also see DC International School open at Walter Reed, a Yu Ying initiative, shortly, which should attract some Hill parents, far away as it will be.

As long as both DCPS and DC charter shun competitive selective admissions, the grave middle school feeder problems on the Hill will simply generate more serious high school feeder problems. For some of us, high school isn't all that far away and privates are too expensive. SWW is small and isn't all that great, leading to lackluster college admissions results by the standards of many upper-middle-class families with young kids currently in DCPS. And Banneker, where average SAT scores are no better than the national average, doesn't seem interested in attracting non-AA or upper-middle-class families.

Where are Hill kids in DCPS supposed to go to high school in 5 or 10 years? Rockville? McClean?

[Anonymous]

fwiw -- for those concerned about the plight of high SES families, you do realize that Rocketship only serves elementary school and primarily FARM kids? In DC they'd have to open it to all comers like other charters, but the ES market is less open than MS.

Personally, I'll pass on school that uses computers to drill rote learning for 1/4 of the day. I'd rather develop critical thinking

[Anonymous]

I totally agree with the analysis presented by 9:40. We too have this dilemma. We are hoping that Latin's new facility will lead to an increase in more academically advanced kids electing to stay through high school---we would certainly consider it, as we have loved the Latin middle school curriculum and community. And such a high school option is definitely needed. We can't afford private for high school and would really hate to move away from our close-knit neighborhood, but our IB high school option is completely unacceptable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I totally agree with the analysis presented by 9:40. We too have this dilemma. We are hoping that Latin's new facility will lead to an increase in more academically advanced kids electing to stay through high school---we would certainly consider it, as we have loved the Latin middle school curriculum and community. And such a high school option is definitely needed. We can't afford private for high school and would really hate to move away from our close-knit neighborhood, but our IB high school option is completely unacceptable.

New poster. Sorry, you disagree with what? That most white kids drop out of Latin before HS? The on-line stats say that the MS is around 40% white while the HS is 10% white. Is that inaccurate? Changing quickly or what?

Even if Latin improves academically, what good will that do most Brent, Tyler and Maury families in the future when, apparently, the school took less than 20% of the kids without siblings putting their names in the hat for 5th grade this spring? The numbers crunch grows bleaker with popular charters as the years pass, right? At least with privates, families with very bright and disciplined kids can plan to enroll, if they have the dough or get good fi aid.

[Anonymous]

Don't let posters fool you about Latin - open lottery admissions in a city such a troubled school system doesn't attract strong students in droves. My family has a long relationship with Boston Latin (Washington Latin's model, see the web site) which has always had highly selective admissions.

We just left Latin after 8th, for a private. Most of my DC's friends are also leaving, mainly for SWW and Wilson. A good quarter of the middle school students struggle with fairly basic skills, particularly in math (the weakest link in DCPS). If your kid is truly advanced, Latin remains mediocre compared to suburban GT programs and the better privates, nice as the parent group is, and as committed as the teachers and administrators are. The teachers are mostly young/inexperienced, poorly paid compared to DCPS teachers, and under pressure to focus on helping slow kids. It's a much better school that S-H but still mired in relativism.

Our second child is at Brent and we're planning to move to the burbs for his MS and our eldest's last two years of HS. It's hit and miss with DCPS and DC charter - too much bouncing around for the kids as a result. But then we'd like ours to attend the top technology universities we did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
.... As long as both DCPS and DC charter shun competitive selective admissions, the grave middle school feeder problems on the Hill will simply generate more serious high school feeder problems. For some of us, high school isn't all that far away and privates are too expensive. SWW is small and isn't all that great, leading to lackluster college admissions results by the standards of many upper-middle-class families with young kids currently in DCPS. And Banneker, where average SAT scores are no better than the national average, doesn't seem interested in attracting non-AA or upper-middle-class families.

Where are Hill kids in DCPS supposed to go to high school in 5 or 10 years? Rockville? McClean?

Wilson -- except there probably won't be room for them. Do keep in mind, though, that the high SES kids at Wilson (many of whom are IB) do just as well as their counterparts in private schools and get into the same excellent colleges.