New opposition petition to the Maury-Miner boundary proposal from DME

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Demographics are (almost always) destiny sadly. Diluting the overall proportion of at-risk kids might in fact make thing easier for current teachers/staff at Miner, and I don’t think that’s an improper metric to consider.

But the impact on the academic outcomes of at-risk kids will likely be nil to negligible, as their problems stem from out-of-school factors that the school - no matter how structured - can’t be expected overcome.

On the other hand, UMC folks might find that things continue pretty much the same for their kids. Sure, maybe less convenient for some and maybe less narrowly “neighborhoody”, but I’m not sure those are factors DCPS should consider at the outset.

At any rate, howl loud enough and it’s probably dead in the water. Congratulations.

This is pretty spot on. I think the fear that many Maury parents seem to have is misplaced.

There are also whole conversations that I think we're sidestepping because they are uncomfortable. People like to fixate on test scores because they are "hard data" and so the conversation gets focused on whether the cluster would improve test scores for at risk kids, or drag down test scores for high-SES kids. I think this PP is likely correct that it would have minimal impact on either, and you'd wind up with a cluster school where the average test scores are lower than Maury and higher than Miner, but where individual outcomes are unchanged.

But there's also the question of culture, and that's what people don't really like to discuss. The truth is that there are nice things about having your kid at a relatively homogeneous school where most of the other families are similar to yours. It makes friendships easier, both between kids and between parents. It makes it easier for the school to set goals and reinforce culture, because people are more likely to be in agreement on what matters. I know I'm about to get people yowling at me about how diverse Maury is, but I'm not talking about racial diversity. I'm talking about life experience diversity. You can have a racially diverse school that is very homogenous, if the families at that school are all above a certain income and have similar educational and family backgrounds. And Maury is that.

The cluster school will be more genuinely diverse, at least if the populations of the separate schools remained in place. It would be a mix of UMC professional families on the Hill and in Hill East, middle class black families from Wards 7 and 8, low income families from housing projects in the current Miner zone as well as some from across the river. It is harder to make all those people happy and they won't all agree on what school is for or how it should be run. That's either a travesty or an opportunity, depending on your politics and your personal preferences (and just your energy levels, tbh -- it is more socially taxing to have kids at a truly diverse school because your personal interactions require more effort).

If we accept all of these things, the cluster makes even less sense, because there are less disruptive mechanisms to increase socio-economic diversity. At-risk set asides, boundary re-drawing, and choice sets could all increase socio-economic diversity with far less disruption to the school communities.

Why would you need those if you had a school with a boundary that is itself very socioeconomically diverse? A combined Miner-Maury cluster would include million dollar homes, more moderately priced homes, multi-family housing at a wide variety of price points, plus Section 8 and public housing. You don't need choice sets and at risk set asides if your in boundary population is already socioeconomically diverse.

You are talking about ways to make Maury more diverse than it currently is, because Maury presently sits on a little island of high cost, single family housing, something that is rare for school boundaries in this part of town. So if you want to make a school with Maury's boundary demographics more diverse, you have to look at redrawing the boundary lines, adding at-risk set asides in the lottery (though I really question how effective that would be at a school with high IB buy in that is already at capacity) or choice sets.

If you just combine the school boundaries, you don't need any of that. Instant diversity. We can argue over whether that's good or bad, or whether the implementation makes sense, or whether the resulting school cluster will be so large as to be unwieldy or bad for kids. But I think it's hard to argue that the cluster would result in LESS diversity than moving some boundary lines and adding at-risk set asides and choice sets. I think it's fairly obvious that the people suggesting those as an alternative like them specifically because they will not create as much socioeconomic diversity as a cluster would.

Hey, we could put more multifamily housing in the Maury zone but thay would mean repealing the Kingman Park historical designation, which the so-called progressives fought for.

No one is arguing in favor of putting more multifamily housing in the Maury zone. No one is upset that people live in single family houses. This conversation is just about how to allocate public school students within the city's public schools. Try to stay on topic.

The reason housing segregation exists is lack of affordable housing, in large part due to zoning restrictions.

Sure, generally. We are talking about a specific case, where one neighborhood actually has a decent amount of affordable housing (including low income and Section 8 housing) and a variety of zoning, including plenty of zoning for multifamily housing units.

The issue is not that affordable housing doesn't exist in the neighborhood, it's that the boundary for the elementary schools in the neighborhood neatly divides all the affordable housing away from Maury. Thus we are not talking about affordable housing, we are talking about school boundaries.

Again, try to keep up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Demographics are (almost always) destiny sadly. Diluting the overall proportion of at-risk kids might in fact make thing easier for current teachers/staff at Miner, and I don’t think that’s an improper metric to consider.

But the impact on the academic outcomes of at-risk kids will likely be nil to negligible, as their problems stem from out-of-school factors that the school - no matter how structured - can’t be expected overcome.

On the other hand, UMC folks might find that things continue pretty much the same for their kids. Sure, maybe less convenient for some and maybe less narrowly “neighborhoody”, but I’m not sure those are factors DCPS should consider at the outset.

At any rate, howl loud enough and it’s probably dead in the water. Congratulations.

This is pretty spot on. I think the fear that many Maury parents seem to have is misplaced.

There are also whole conversations that I think we're sidestepping because they are uncomfortable. People like to fixate on test scores because they are "hard data" and so the conversation gets focused on whether the cluster would improve test scores for at risk kids, or drag down test scores for high-SES kids. I think this PP is likely correct that it would have minimal impact on either, and you'd wind up with a cluster school where the average test scores are lower than Maury and higher than Miner, but where individual outcomes are unchanged.

But there's also the question of culture, and that's what people don't really like to discuss. The truth is that there are nice things about having your kid at a relatively homogeneous school where most of the other families are similar to yours. It makes friendships easier, both between kids and between parents. It makes it easier for the school to set goals and reinforce culture, because people are more likely to be in agreement on what matters. I know I'm about to get people yowling at me about how diverse Maury is, but I'm not talking about racial diversity. I'm talking about life experience diversity. You can have a racially diverse school that is very homogenous, if the families at that school are all above a certain income and have similar educational and family backgrounds. And Maury is that.

The cluster school will be more genuinely diverse, at least if the populations of the separate schools remained in place. It would be a mix of UMC professional families on the Hill and in Hill East, middle class black families from Wards 7 and 8, low income families from housing projects in the current Miner zone as well as some from across the river. It is harder to make all those people happy and they won't all agree on what school is for or how it should be run. That's either a travesty or an opportunity, depending on your politics and your personal preferences (and just your energy levels, tbh -- it is more socially taxing to have kids at a truly diverse school because your personal interactions require more effort).

If we accept all of these things, the cluster makes even less sense, because there are less disruptive mechanisms to increase socio-economic diversity. At-risk set asides, boundary re-drawing, and choice sets could all increase socio-economic diversity with far less disruption to the school communities.

Why would you need those if you had a school with a boundary that is itself very socioeconomically diverse? A combined Miner-Maury cluster would include million dollar homes, more moderately priced homes, multi-family housing at a wide variety of price points, plus Section 8 and public housing. You don't need choice sets and at risk set asides if your in boundary population is already socioeconomically diverse.

You are talking about ways to make Maury more diverse than it currently is, because Maury presently sits on a little island of high cost, single family housing, something that is rare for school boundaries in this part of town. So if you want to make a school with Maury's boundary demographics more diverse, you have to look at redrawing the boundary lines, adding at-risk set asides in the lottery (though I really question how effective that would be at a school with high IB buy in that is already at capacity) or choice sets.

If you just combine the school boundaries, you don't need any of that. Instant diversity. We can argue over whether that's good or bad, or whether the implementation makes sense, or whether the resulting school cluster will be so large as to be unwieldy or bad for kids. But I think it's hard to argue that the cluster would result in LESS diversity than moving some boundary lines and adding at-risk set asides and choice sets. I think it's fairly obvious that the people suggesting those as an alternative like them specifically because they will not create as much socioeconomic diversity as a cluster would.

Hey, we could put more multifamily housing in the Maury zone but thay would mean repealing the Kingman Park historical designation, which the so-called progressives fought for.

No one is arguing in favor of putting more multifamily housing in the Maury zone. No one is upset that people live in single family houses. This conversation is just about how to allocate public school students within the city's public schools. Try to stay on topic.

Np, but do you really not understand the connection between the two? Why do you think Maury isn't economically diverse? Precisely because it doesn't have diverse housing stock. (I say economically diverse, because Maury actually is relatively racially diverse.)

The historic designation isn't really the issue, though. Only a few blocks in Maury are in either Capitol Hill or Kingman Park Historic Districts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Demographics are (almost always) destiny sadly. Diluting the overall proportion of at-risk kids might in fact make thing easier for current teachers/staff at Miner, and I don’t think that’s an improper metric to consider.

But the impact on the academic outcomes of at-risk kids will likely be nil to negligible, as their problems stem from out-of-school factors that the school - no matter how structured - can’t be expected overcome.

On the other hand, UMC folks might find that things continue pretty much the same for their kids. Sure, maybe less convenient for some and maybe less narrowly “neighborhoody”, but I’m not sure those are factors DCPS should consider at the outset.

At any rate, howl loud enough and it’s probably dead in the water. Congratulations.

This is pretty spot on. I think the fear that many Maury parents seem to have is misplaced.

There are also whole conversations that I think we're sidestepping because they are uncomfortable. People like to fixate on test scores because they are "hard data" and so the conversation gets focused on whether the cluster would improve test scores for at risk kids, or drag down test scores for high-SES kids. I think this PP is likely correct that it would have minimal impact on either, and you'd wind up with a cluster school where the average test scores are lower than Maury and higher than Miner, but where individual outcomes are unchanged.

But there's also the question of culture, and that's what people don't really like to discuss. The truth is that there are nice things about having your kid at a relatively homogeneous school where most of the other families are similar to yours. It makes friendships easier, both between kids and between parents. It makes it easier for the school to set goals and reinforce culture, because people are more likely to be in agreement on what matters. I know I'm about to get people yowling at me about how diverse Maury is, but I'm not talking about racial diversity. I'm talking about life experience diversity. You can have a racially diverse school that is very homogenous, if the families at that school are all above a certain income and have similar educational and family backgrounds. And Maury is that.

The cluster school will be more genuinely diverse, at least if the populations of the separate schools remained in place. It would be a mix of UMC professional families on the Hill and in Hill East, middle class black families from Wards 7 and 8, low income families from housing projects in the current Miner zone as well as some from across the river. It is harder to make all those people happy and they won't all agree on what school is for or how it should be run. That's either a travesty or an opportunity, depending on your politics and your personal preferences (and just your energy levels, tbh -- it is more socially taxing to have kids at a truly diverse school because your personal interactions require more effort).

If we accept all of these things, the cluster makes even less sense, because there are less disruptive mechanisms to increase socio-economic diversity. At-risk set asides, boundary re-drawing, and choice sets could all increase socio-economic diversity with far less disruption to the school communities.

Why would you need those if you had a school with a boundary that is itself very socioeconomically diverse? A combined Miner-Maury cluster would include million dollar homes, more moderately priced homes, multi-family housing at a wide variety of price points, plus Section 8 and public housing. You don't need choice sets and at risk set asides if your in boundary population is already socioeconomically diverse.

You are talking about ways to make Maury more diverse than it currently is, because Maury presently sits on a little island of high cost, single family housing, something that is rare for school boundaries in this part of town. So if you want to make a school with Maury's boundary demographics more diverse, you have to look at redrawing the boundary lines, adding at-risk set asides in the lottery (though I really question how effective that would be at a school with high IB buy in that is already at capacity) or choice sets.

If you just combine the school boundaries, you don't need any of that. Instant diversity. We can argue over whether that's good or bad, or whether the implementation makes sense, or whether the resulting school cluster will be so large as to be unwieldy or bad for kids. But I think it's hard to argue that the cluster would result in LESS diversity than moving some boundary lines and adding at-risk set asides and choice sets. I think it's fairly obvious that the people suggesting those as an alternative like them specifically because they will not create as much socioeconomic diversity as a cluster would.

Hey, we could put more multifamily housing in the Maury zone but thay would mean repealing the Kingman Park historical designation, which the so-called progressives fought for.

No one is arguing in favor of putting more multifamily housing in the Maury zone. No one is upset that people live in single family houses. This conversation is just about how to allocate public school students within the city's public schools. Try to stay on topic.

The reason housing segregation exists is lack of affordable housing, in large part due to zoning restrictions.

Sure, generally. We are talking about a specific case, where one neighborhood actually has a decent amount of affordable housing (including low income and Section 8 housing) and a variety of zoning, including plenty of zoning for multifamily housing units.

The issue is not that affordable housing doesn't exist in the neighborhood, it's that the boundary for the elementary schools in the neighborhood neatly divides all the affordable housing away from Maury. Thus we are not talking about affordable housing, we are talking about school boundaries.

Again, try to keep up.

Sounds like a good candidate for a boundary redraw.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Demographics are (almost always) destiny sadly. Diluting the overall proportion of at-risk kids might in fact make thing easier for current teachers/staff at Miner, and I don’t think that’s an improper metric to consider.

But the impact on the academic outcomes of at-risk kids will likely be nil to negligible, as their problems stem from out-of-school factors that the school - no matter how structured - can’t be expected overcome.

On the other hand, UMC folks might find that things continue pretty much the same for their kids. Sure, maybe less convenient for some and maybe less narrowly “neighborhoody”, but I’m not sure those are factors DCPS should consider at the outset.

At any rate, howl loud enough and it’s probably dead in the water. Congratulations.

This is pretty spot on. I think the fear that many Maury parents seem to have is misplaced.

There are also whole conversations that I think we're sidestepping because they are uncomfortable. People like to fixate on test scores because they are "hard data" and so the conversation gets focused on whether the cluster would improve test scores for at risk kids, or drag down test scores for high-SES kids. I think this PP is likely correct that it would have minimal impact on either, and you'd wind up with a cluster school where the average test scores are lower than Maury and higher than Miner, but where individual outcomes are unchanged.

But there's also the question of culture, and that's what people don't really like to discuss. The truth is that there are nice things about having your kid at a relatively homogeneous school where most of the other families are similar to yours. It makes friendships easier, both between kids and between parents. It makes it easier for the school to set goals and reinforce culture, because people are more likely to be in agreement on what matters. I know I'm about to get people yowling at me about how diverse Maury is, but I'm not talking about racial diversity. I'm talking about life experience diversity. You can have a racially diverse school that is very homogenous, if the families at that school are all above a certain income and have similar educational and family backgrounds. And Maury is that.

The cluster school will be more genuinely diverse, at least if the populations of the separate schools remained in place. It would be a mix of UMC professional families on the Hill and in Hill East, middle class black families from Wards 7 and 8, low income families from housing projects in the current Miner zone as well as some from across the river. It is harder to make all those people happy and they won't all agree on what school is for or how it should be run. That's either a travesty or an opportunity, depending on your politics and your personal preferences (and just your energy levels, tbh -- it is more socially taxing to have kids at a truly diverse school because your personal interactions require more effort).

If we accept all of these things, the cluster makes even less sense, because there are less disruptive mechanisms to increase socio-economic diversity. At-risk set asides, boundary re-drawing, and choice sets could all increase socio-economic diversity with far less disruption to the school communities.

Why would you need those if you had a school with a boundary that is itself very socioeconomically diverse? A combined Miner-Maury cluster would include million dollar homes, more moderately priced homes, multi-family housing at a wide variety of price points, plus Section 8 and public housing. You don't need choice sets and at risk set asides if your in boundary population is already socioeconomically diverse.

You are talking about ways to make Maury more diverse than it currently is, because Maury presently sits on a little island of high cost, single family housing, something that is rare for school boundaries in this part of town. So if you want to make a school with Maury's boundary demographics more diverse, you have to look at redrawing the boundary lines, adding at-risk set asides in the lottery (though I really question how effective that would be at a school with high IB buy in that is already at capacity) or choice sets.

If you just combine the school boundaries, you don't need any of that. Instant diversity. We can argue over whether that's good or bad, or whether the implementation makes sense, or whether the resulting school cluster will be so large as to be unwieldy or bad for kids. But I think it's hard to argue that the cluster would result in LESS diversity than moving some boundary lines and adding at-risk set asides and choice sets. I think it's fairly obvious that the people suggesting those as an alternative like them specifically because they will not create as much socioeconomic diversity as a cluster would.

Hey, we could put more multifamily housing in the Maury zone but thay would mean repealing the Kingman Park historical designation, which the so-called progressives fought for.

No one is arguing in favor of putting more multifamily housing in the Maury zone. No one is upset that people live in single family houses. This conversation is just about how to allocate public school students within the city's public schools. Try to stay on topic.

Np, but do you really not understand the connection between the two? Why do you think Maury isn't economically diverse? Precisely because it doesn't have diverse housing stock. (I say economically diverse, because Maury actually is relatively racially diverse.)

What is easier? Trying to diversify the housing stock in the existing Maury zone, an area largely comprised of individually owned single family housing and limited available empty lots or buildings, or areas well suited for multi-use development or large-scale multifamily housing? OR changing school boundaries so that Maury's boundary includes any of the plentiful affordable housing that already exists in the neighborhood?

Look, we all know what you are doing. You think that if every time someone makes an argument that in any way justifies either the cluster or changing Maury's boundary lines, you create an argument over some spurious issue like affordable housing, Ludlow-Taylor, whether the DME is specifically targeting Maury for punishment, etc., you can distract everyone. But you can't.

Maury is not socioeconomically diverse. Neither is Miner. Combining them would make both schools socioeconomically diverse. Changing zoning on some of the housing within the Maury boundary would not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Demographics are (almost always) destiny sadly. Diluting the overall proportion of at-risk kids might in fact make thing easier for current teachers/staff at Miner, and I don’t think that’s an improper metric to consider.

But the impact on the academic outcomes of at-risk kids will likely be nil to negligible, as their problems stem from out-of-school factors that the school - no matter how structured - can’t be expected overcome.

On the other hand, UMC folks might find that things continue pretty much the same for their kids. Sure, maybe less convenient for some and maybe less narrowly “neighborhoody”, but I’m not sure those are factors DCPS should consider at the outset.

At any rate, howl loud enough and it’s probably dead in the water. Congratulations.

This is pretty spot on. I think the fear that many Maury parents seem to have is misplaced.

There are also whole conversations that I think we're sidestepping because they are uncomfortable. People like to fixate on test scores because they are "hard data" and so the conversation gets focused on whether the cluster would improve test scores for at risk kids, or drag down test scores for high-SES kids. I think this PP is likely correct that it would have minimal impact on either, and you'd wind up with a cluster school where the average test scores are lower than Maury and higher than Miner, but where individual outcomes are unchanged.

But there's also the question of culture, and that's what people don't really like to discuss. The truth is that there are nice things about having your kid at a relatively homogeneous school where most of the other families are similar to yours. It makes friendships easier, both between kids and between parents. It makes it easier for the school to set goals and reinforce culture, because people are more likely to be in agreement on what matters. I know I'm about to get people yowling at me about how diverse Maury is, but I'm not talking about racial diversity. I'm talking about life experience diversity. You can have a racially diverse school that is very homogenous, if the families at that school are all above a certain income and have similar educational and family backgrounds. And Maury is that.

The cluster school will be more genuinely diverse, at least if the populations of the separate schools remained in place. It would be a mix of UMC professional families on the Hill and in Hill East, middle class black families from Wards 7 and 8, low income families from housing projects in the current Miner zone as well as some from across the river. It is harder to make all those people happy and they won't all agree on what school is for or how it should be run. That's either a travesty or an opportunity, depending on your politics and your personal preferences (and just your energy levels, tbh -- it is more socially taxing to have kids at a truly diverse school because your personal interactions require more effort).

If we accept all of these things, the cluster makes even less sense, because there are less disruptive mechanisms to increase socio-economic diversity. At-risk set asides, boundary re-drawing, and choice sets could all increase socio-economic diversity with far less disruption to the school communities.

Why would you need those if you had a school with a boundary that is itself very socioeconomically diverse? A combined Miner-Maury cluster would include million dollar homes, more moderately priced homes, multi-family housing at a wide variety of price points, plus Section 8 and public housing. You don't need choice sets and at risk set asides if your in boundary population is already socioeconomically diverse.

You are talking about ways to make Maury more diverse than it currently is, because Maury presently sits on a little island of high cost, single family housing, something that is rare for school boundaries in this part of town. So if you want to make a school with Maury's boundary demographics more diverse, you have to look at redrawing the boundary lines, adding at-risk set asides in the lottery (though I really question how effective that would be at a school with high IB buy in that is already at capacity) or choice sets.

If you just combine the school boundaries, you don't need any of that. Instant diversity. We can argue over whether that's good or bad, or whether the implementation makes sense, or whether the resulting school cluster will be so large as to be unwieldy or bad for kids. But I think it's hard to argue that the cluster would result in LESS diversity than moving some boundary lines and adding at-risk set asides and choice sets. I think it's fairly obvious that the people suggesting those as an alternative like them specifically because they will not create as much socioeconomic diversity as a cluster would.

Hey, we could put more multifamily housing in the Maury zone but thay would mean repealing the Kingman Park historical designation, which the so-called progressives fought for.

No one is arguing in favor of putting more multifamily housing in the Maury zone. No one is upset that people live in single family houses. This conversation is just about how to allocate public school students within the city's public schools. Try to stay on topic.

The reason housing segregation exists is lack of affordable housing, in large part due to zoning restrictions.

Sure, generally. We are talking about a specific case, where one neighborhood actually has a decent amount of affordable housing (including low income and Section 8 housing) and a variety of zoning, including plenty of zoning for multifamily housing units.

The issue is not that affordable housing doesn't exist in the neighborhood, it's that the boundary for the elementary schools in the neighborhood neatly divides all the affordable housing away from Maury. Thus we are not talking about affordable housing, we are talking about school boundaries.

Again, try to keep up.

Sounds like a good candidate for a boundary redraw.

That's what is being proposed. A boundary redraw in which the boundary expands to include all of the Miner zone and PK-1st students attend Miner to accommodate the larger zone. The cluster IS a boundary redraw.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Demographics are (almost always) destiny sadly. Diluting the overall proportion of at-risk kids might in fact make thing easier for current teachers/staff at Miner, and I don’t think that’s an improper metric to consider.

But the impact on the academic outcomes of at-risk kids will likely be nil to negligible, as their problems stem from out-of-school factors that the school - no matter how structured - can’t be expected overcome.

On the other hand, UMC folks might find that things continue pretty much the same for their kids. Sure, maybe less convenient for some and maybe less narrowly “neighborhoody”, but I’m not sure those are factors DCPS should consider at the outset.

At any rate, howl loud enough and it’s probably dead in the water. Congratulations.

This is pretty spot on. I think the fear that many Maury parents seem to have is misplaced.

There are also whole conversations that I think we're sidestepping because they are uncomfortable. People like to fixate on test scores because they are "hard data" and so the conversation gets focused on whether the cluster would improve test scores for at risk kids, or drag down test scores for high-SES kids. I think this PP is likely correct that it would have minimal impact on either, and you'd wind up with a cluster school where the average test scores are lower than Maury and higher than Miner, but where individual outcomes are unchanged.

But there's also the question of culture, and that's what people don't really like to discuss. The truth is that there are nice things about having your kid at a relatively homogeneous school where most of the other families are similar to yours. It makes friendships easier, both between kids and between parents. It makes it easier for the school to set goals and reinforce culture, because people are more likely to be in agreement on what matters. I know I'm about to get people yowling at me about how diverse Maury is, but I'm not talking about racial diversity. I'm talking about life experience diversity. You can have a racially diverse school that is very homogenous, if the families at that school are all above a certain income and have similar educational and family backgrounds. And Maury is that.

The cluster school will be more genuinely diverse, at least if the populations of the separate schools remained in place. It would be a mix of UMC professional families on the Hill and in Hill East, middle class black families from Wards 7 and 8, low income families from housing projects in the current Miner zone as well as some from across the river. It is harder to make all those people happy and they won't all agree on what school is for or how it should be run. That's either a travesty or an opportunity, depending on your politics and your personal preferences (and just your energy levels, tbh -- it is more socially taxing to have kids at a truly diverse school because your personal interactions require more effort).

If we accept all of these things, the cluster makes even less sense, because there are less disruptive mechanisms to increase socio-economic diversity. At-risk set asides, boundary re-drawing, and choice sets could all increase socio-economic diversity with far less disruption to the school communities.

Why would you need those if you had a school with a boundary that is itself very socioeconomically diverse? A combined Miner-Maury cluster would include million dollar homes, more moderately priced homes, multi-family housing at a wide variety of price points, plus Section 8 and public housing. You don't need choice sets and at risk set asides if your in boundary population is already socioeconomically diverse.

You are talking about ways to make Maury more diverse than it currently is, because Maury presently sits on a little island of high cost, single family housing, something that is rare for school boundaries in this part of town. So if you want to make a school with Maury's boundary demographics more diverse, you have to look at redrawing the boundary lines, adding at-risk set asides in the lottery (though I really question how effective that would be at a school with high IB buy in that is already at capacity) or choice sets.

If you just combine the school boundaries, you don't need any of that. Instant diversity. We can argue over whether that's good or bad, or whether the implementation makes sense, or whether the resulting school cluster will be so large as to be unwieldy or bad for kids. But I think it's hard to argue that the cluster would result in LESS diversity than moving some boundary lines and adding at-risk set asides and choice sets. I think it's fairly obvious that the people suggesting those as an alternative like them specifically because they will not create as much socioeconomic diversity as a cluster would.

Hey, we could put more multifamily housing in the Maury zone but thay would mean repealing the Kingman Park historical designation, which the so-called progressives fought for.

No one is arguing in favor of putting more multifamily housing in the Maury zone. No one is upset that people live in single family houses. This conversation is just about how to allocate public school students within the city's public schools. Try to stay on topic.

The reason housing segregation exists is lack of affordable housing, in large part due to zoning restrictions.

Sure, generally. We are talking about a specific case, where one neighborhood actually has a decent amount of affordable housing (including low income and Section 8 housing) and a variety of zoning, including plenty of zoning for multifamily housing units.

The issue is not that affordable housing doesn't exist in the neighborhood, it's that the boundary for the elementary schools in the neighborhood neatly divides all the affordable housing away from Maury. Thus we are not talking about affordable housing, we are talking about school boundaries.

Again, try to keep up.

No, you try to keep up. We’re talking about progressive policies that are based on “vibes” and slogans rather than actually improving the basics. Kingman Park and other parts of the Maury zone is blocked from developing more affordable housing because of misguided progressive policies. Now similarly vapid thinking is going to disrupt the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Demographics are (almost always) destiny sadly. Diluting the overall proportion of at-risk kids might in fact make thing easier for current teachers/staff at Miner, and I don’t think that’s an improper metric to consider.

But the impact on the academic outcomes of at-risk kids will likely be nil to negligible, as their problems stem from out-of-school factors that the school - no matter how structured - can’t be expected overcome.

On the other hand, UMC folks might find that things continue pretty much the same for their kids. Sure, maybe less convenient for some and maybe less narrowly “neighborhoody”, but I’m not sure those are factors DCPS should consider at the outset.

At any rate, howl loud enough and it’s probably dead in the water. Congratulations.

This is pretty spot on. I think the fear that many Maury parents seem to have is misplaced.

There are also whole conversations that I think we're sidestepping because they are uncomfortable. People like to fixate on test scores because they are "hard data" and so the conversation gets focused on whether the cluster would improve test scores for at risk kids, or drag down test scores for high-SES kids. I think this PP is likely correct that it would have minimal impact on either, and you'd wind up with a cluster school where the average test scores are lower than Maury and higher than Miner, but where individual outcomes are unchanged.

But there's also the question of culture, and that's what people don't really like to discuss. The truth is that there are nice things about having your kid at a relatively homogeneous school where most of the other families are similar to yours. It makes friendships easier, both between kids and between parents. It makes it easier for the school to set goals and reinforce culture, because people are more likely to be in agreement on what matters. I know I'm about to get people yowling at me about how diverse Maury is, but I'm not talking about racial diversity. I'm talking about life experience diversity. You can have a racially diverse school that is very homogenous, if the families at that school are all above a certain income and have similar educational and family backgrounds. And Maury is that.

The cluster school will be more genuinely diverse, at least if the populations of the separate schools remained in place. It would be a mix of UMC professional families on the Hill and in Hill East, middle class black families from Wards 7 and 8, low income families from housing projects in the current Miner zone as well as some from across the river. It is harder to make all those people happy and they won't all agree on what school is for or how it should be run. That's either a travesty or an opportunity, depending on your politics and your personal preferences (and just your energy levels, tbh -- it is more socially taxing to have kids at a truly diverse school because your personal interactions require more effort).

If we accept all of these things, the cluster makes even less sense, because there are less disruptive mechanisms to increase socio-economic diversity. At-risk set asides, boundary re-drawing, and choice sets could all increase socio-economic diversity with far less disruption to the school communities.

Why would you need those if you had a school with a boundary that is itself very socioeconomically diverse? A combined Miner-Maury cluster would include million dollar homes, more moderately priced homes, multi-family housing at a wide variety of price points, plus Section 8 and public housing. You don't need choice sets and at risk set asides if your in boundary population is already socioeconomically diverse.

You are talking about ways to make Maury more diverse than it currently is, because Maury presently sits on a little island of high cost, single family housing, something that is rare for school boundaries in this part of town. So if you want to make a school with Maury's boundary demographics more diverse, you have to look at redrawing the boundary lines, adding at-risk set asides in the lottery (though I really question how effective that would be at a school with high IB buy in that is already at capacity) or choice sets.

If you just combine the school boundaries, you don't need any of that. Instant diversity. We can argue over whether that's good or bad, or whether the implementation makes sense, or whether the resulting school cluster will be so large as to be unwieldy or bad for kids. But I think it's hard to argue that the cluster would result in LESS diversity than moving some boundary lines and adding at-risk set asides and choice sets. I think it's fairly obvious that the people suggesting those as an alternative like them specifically because they will not create as much socioeconomic diversity as a cluster would.

Hey, we could put more multifamily housing in the Maury zone but thay would mean repealing the Kingman Park historical designation, which the so-called progressives fought for.

No one is arguing in favor of putting more multifamily housing in the Maury zone. No one is upset that people live in single family houses. This conversation is just about how to allocate public school students within the city's public schools. Try to stay on topic.

Np, but do you really not understand the connection between the two? Why do you think Maury isn't economically diverse? Precisely because it doesn't have diverse housing stock. (I say economically diverse, because Maury actually is relatively racially diverse.)

The historic designation isn't really the issue, though. Only a few blocks in Maury are in either Capitol Hill or Kingman Park Historic Districts.

Well, you try to tear down your SFH in the Maury zone and replace it with a 4 plex. See what fun will result!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Demographics are (almost always) destiny sadly. Diluting the overall proportion of at-risk kids might in fact make thing easier for current teachers/staff at Miner, and I don’t think that’s an improper metric to consider.

But the impact on the academic outcomes of at-risk kids will likely be nil to negligible, as their problems stem from out-of-school factors that the school - no matter how structured - can’t be expected overcome.

On the other hand, UMC folks might find that things continue pretty much the same for their kids. Sure, maybe less convenient for some and maybe less narrowly “neighborhoody”, but I’m not sure those are factors DCPS should consider at the outset.

At any rate, howl loud enough and it’s probably dead in the water. Congratulations.

This is pretty spot on. I think the fear that many Maury parents seem to have is misplaced.

There are also whole conversations that I think we're sidestepping because they are uncomfortable. People like to fixate on test scores because they are "hard data" and so the conversation gets focused on whether the cluster would improve test scores for at risk kids, or drag down test scores for high-SES kids. I think this PP is likely correct that it would have minimal impact on either, and you'd wind up with a cluster school where the average test scores are lower than Maury and higher than Miner, but where individual outcomes are unchanged.

But there's also the question of culture, and that's what people don't really like to discuss. The truth is that there are nice things about having your kid at a relatively homogeneous school where most of the other families are similar to yours. It makes friendships easier, both between kids and between parents. It makes it easier for the school to set goals and reinforce culture, because people are more likely to be in agreement on what matters. I know I'm about to get people yowling at me about how diverse Maury is, but I'm not talking about racial diversity. I'm talking about life experience diversity. You can have a racially diverse school that is very homogenous, if the families at that school are all above a certain income and have similar educational and family backgrounds. And Maury is that.

The cluster school will be more genuinely diverse, at least if the populations of the separate schools remained in place. It would be a mix of UMC professional families on the Hill and in Hill East, middle class black families from Wards 7 and 8, low income families from housing projects in the current Miner zone as well as some from across the river. It is harder to make all those people happy and they won't all agree on what school is for or how it should be run. That's either a travesty or an opportunity, depending on your politics and your personal preferences (and just your energy levels, tbh -- it is more socially taxing to have kids at a truly diverse school because your personal interactions require more effort).

If we accept all of these things, the cluster makes even less sense, because there are less disruptive mechanisms to increase socio-economic diversity. At-risk set asides, boundary re-drawing, and choice sets could all increase socio-economic diversity with far less disruption to the school communities.

Why would you need those if you had a school with a boundary that is itself very socioeconomically diverse? A combined Miner-Maury cluster would include million dollar homes, more moderately priced homes, multi-family housing at a wide variety of price points, plus Section 8 and public housing. You don't need choice sets and at risk set asides if your in boundary population is already socioeconomically diverse.

You are talking about ways to make Maury more diverse than it currently is, because Maury presently sits on a little island of high cost, single family housing, something that is rare for school boundaries in this part of town. So if you want to make a school with Maury's boundary demographics more diverse, you have to look at redrawing the boundary lines, adding at-risk set asides in the lottery (though I really question how effective that would be at a school with high IB buy in that is already at capacity) or choice sets.

If you just combine the school boundaries, you don't need any of that. Instant diversity. We can argue over whether that's good or bad, or whether the implementation makes sense, or whether the resulting school cluster will be so large as to be unwieldy or bad for kids. But I think it's hard to argue that the cluster would result in LESS diversity than moving some boundary lines and adding at-risk set asides and choice sets. I think it's fairly obvious that the people suggesting those as an alternative like them specifically because they will not create as much socioeconomic diversity as a cluster would.

Hey, we could put more multifamily housing in the Maury zone but thay would mean repealing the Kingman Park historical designation, which the so-called progressives fought for.

No one is arguing in favor of putting more multifamily housing in the Maury zone. No one is upset that people live in single family houses. This conversation is just about how to allocate public school students within the city's public schools. Try to stay on topic.

Np, but do you really not understand the connection between the two? Why do you think Maury isn't economically diverse? Precisely because it doesn't have diverse housing stock. (I say economically diverse, because Maury actually is relatively racially diverse.)

What is easier? Trying to diversify the housing stock in the existing Maury zone, an area largely comprised of individually owned single family housing and limited available empty lots or buildings, or areas well suited for multi-use development or large-scale multifamily housing? OR changing school boundaries so that Maury's boundary includes any of the plentiful affordable housing that already exists in the neighborhood?

Look, we all know what you are doing. You think that if every time someone makes an argument that in any way justifies either the cluster or changing Maury's boundary lines, you create an argument over some spurious issue like affordable housing, Ludlow-Taylor, whether the DME is specifically targeting Maury for punishment, etc., you can distract everyone. But you can't.

Maury is not socioeconomically diverse. Neither is Miner. Combining them would make both schools socioeconomically diverse. Changing zoning on some of the housing within the Maury boundary would not.

Some of us have been around long enough now to identify repeated patterns of policy dysfunction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Demographics are (almost always) destiny sadly. Diluting the overall proportion of at-risk kids might in fact make thing easier for current teachers/staff at Miner, and I don’t think that’s an improper metric to consider.

But the impact on the academic outcomes of at-risk kids will likely be nil to negligible, as their problems stem from out-of-school factors that the school - no matter how structured - can’t be expected overcome.

On the other hand, UMC folks might find that things continue pretty much the same for their kids. Sure, maybe less convenient for some and maybe less narrowly “neighborhoody”, but I’m not sure those are factors DCPS should consider at the outset.

At any rate, howl loud enough and it’s probably dead in the water. Congratulations.

This is pretty spot on. I think the fear that many Maury parents seem to have is misplaced.

There are also whole conversations that I think we're sidestepping because they are uncomfortable. People like to fixate on test scores because they are "hard data" and so the conversation gets focused on whether the cluster would improve test scores for at risk kids, or drag down test scores for high-SES kids. I think this PP is likely correct that it would have minimal impact on either, and you'd wind up with a cluster school where the average test scores are lower than Maury and higher than Miner, but where individual outcomes are unchanged.

But there's also the question of culture, and that's what people don't really like to discuss. The truth is that there are nice things about having your kid at a relatively homogeneous school where most of the other families are similar to yours. It makes friendships easier, both between kids and between parents. It makes it easier for the school to set goals and reinforce culture, because people are more likely to be in agreement on what matters. I know I'm about to get people yowling at me about how diverse Maury is, but I'm not talking about racial diversity. I'm talking about life experience diversity. You can have a racially diverse school that is very homogenous, if the families at that school are all above a certain income and have similar educational and family backgrounds. And Maury is that.

The cluster school will be more genuinely diverse, at least if the populations of the separate schools remained in place. It would be a mix of UMC professional families on the Hill and in Hill East, middle class black families from Wards 7 and 8, low income families from housing projects in the current Miner zone as well as some from across the river. It is harder to make all those people happy and they won't all agree on what school is for or how it should be run. That's either a travesty or an opportunity, depending on your politics and your personal preferences (and just your energy levels, tbh -- it is more socially taxing to have kids at a truly diverse school because your personal interactions require more effort).

If we accept all of these things, the cluster makes even less sense, because there are less disruptive mechanisms to increase socio-economic diversity. At-risk set asides, boundary re-drawing, and choice sets could all increase socio-economic diversity with far less disruption to the school communities.

Why would you need those if you had a school with a boundary that is itself very socioeconomically diverse? A combined Miner-Maury cluster would include million dollar homes, more moderately priced homes, multi-family housing at a wide variety of price points, plus Section 8 and public housing. You don't need choice sets and at risk set asides if your in boundary population is already socioeconomically diverse.

You are talking about ways to make Maury more diverse than it currently is, because Maury presently sits on a little island of high cost, single family housing, something that is rare for school boundaries in this part of town. So if you want to make a school with Maury's boundary demographics more diverse, you have to look at redrawing the boundary lines, adding at-risk set asides in the lottery (though I really question how effective that would be at a school with high IB buy in that is already at capacity) or choice sets.

If you just combine the school boundaries, you don't need any of that. Instant diversity. We can argue over whether that's good or bad, or whether the implementation makes sense, or whether the resulting school cluster will be so large as to be unwieldy or bad for kids. But I think it's hard to argue that the cluster would result in LESS diversity than moving some boundary lines and adding at-risk set asides and choice sets. I think it's fairly obvious that the people suggesting those as an alternative like them specifically because they will not create as much socioeconomic diversity as a cluster would.

Hey, we could put more multifamily housing in the Maury zone but thay would mean repealing the Kingman Park historical designation, which the so-called progressives fought for.

No one is arguing in favor of putting more multifamily housing in the Maury zone. No one is upset that people live in single family houses. This conversation is just about how to allocate public school students within the city's public schools. Try to stay on topic.

The reason housing segregation exists is lack of affordable housing, in large part due to zoning restrictions.

Sure, generally. We are talking about a specific case, where one neighborhood actually has a decent amount of affordable housing (including low income and Section 8 housing) and a variety of zoning, including plenty of zoning for multifamily housing units.

The issue is not that affordable housing doesn't exist in the neighborhood, it's that the boundary for the elementary schools in the neighborhood neatly divides all the affordable housing away from Maury. Thus we are not talking about affordable housing, we are talking about school boundaries.

Again, try to keep up.

No, you try to keep up. We’re talking about progressive policies that are based on “vibes” and slogans rather than actually improving the basics. Kingman Park and other parts of the Maury zone is blocked from developing more affordable housing because of misguided progressive policies. Now similarly vapid thinking is going to disrupt the schools.

This is not the subject of this thread and is not at issue in the boundary study or in the DME's proposals. So no, we are not talking about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Demographics are (almost always) destiny sadly. Diluting the overall proportion of at-risk kids might in fact make thing easier for current teachers/staff at Miner, and I don’t think that’s an improper metric to consider.

But the impact on the academic outcomes of at-risk kids will likely be nil to negligible, as their problems stem from out-of-school factors that the school - no matter how structured - can’t be expected overcome.

On the other hand, UMC folks might find that things continue pretty much the same for their kids. Sure, maybe less convenient for some and maybe less narrowly “neighborhoody”, but I’m not sure those are factors DCPS should consider at the outset.

At any rate, howl loud enough and it’s probably dead in the water. Congratulations.

This is pretty spot on. I think the fear that many Maury parents seem to have is misplaced.

There are also whole conversations that I think we're sidestepping because they are uncomfortable. People like to fixate on test scores because they are "hard data" and so the conversation gets focused on whether the cluster would improve test scores for at risk kids, or drag down test scores for high-SES kids. I think this PP is likely correct that it would have minimal impact on either, and you'd wind up with a cluster school where the average test scores are lower than Maury and higher than Miner, but where individual outcomes are unchanged.

But there's also the question of culture, and that's what people don't really like to discuss. The truth is that there are nice things about having your kid at a relatively homogeneous school where most of the other families are similar to yours. It makes friendships easier, both between kids and between parents. It makes it easier for the school to set goals and reinforce culture, because people are more likely to be in agreement on what matters. I know I'm about to get people yowling at me about how diverse Maury is, but I'm not talking about racial diversity. I'm talking about life experience diversity. You can have a racially diverse school that is very homogenous, if the families at that school are all above a certain income and have similar educational and family backgrounds. And Maury is that.

The cluster school will be more genuinely diverse, at least if the populations of the separate schools remained in place. It would be a mix of UMC professional families on the Hill and in Hill East, middle class black families from Wards 7 and 8, low income families from housing projects in the current Miner zone as well as some from across the river. It is harder to make all those people happy and they won't all agree on what school is for or how it should be run. That's either a travesty or an opportunity, depending on your politics and your personal preferences (and just your energy levels, tbh -- it is more socially taxing to have kids at a truly diverse school because your personal interactions require more effort).

If we accept all of these things, the cluster makes even less sense, because there are less disruptive mechanisms to increase socio-economic diversity. At-risk set asides, boundary re-drawing, and choice sets could all increase socio-economic diversity with far less disruption to the school communities.

Why would you need those if you had a school with a boundary that is itself very socioeconomically diverse? A combined Miner-Maury cluster would include million dollar homes, more moderately priced homes, multi-family housing at a wide variety of price points, plus Section 8 and public housing. You don't need choice sets and at risk set asides if your in boundary population is already socioeconomically diverse.

You are talking about ways to make Maury more diverse than it currently is, because Maury presently sits on a little island of high cost, single family housing, something that is rare for school boundaries in this part of town. So if you want to make a school with Maury's boundary demographics more diverse, you have to look at redrawing the boundary lines, adding at-risk set asides in the lottery (though I really question how effective that would be at a school with high IB buy in that is already at capacity) or choice sets.

If you just combine the school boundaries, you don't need any of that. Instant diversity. We can argue over whether that's good or bad, or whether the implementation makes sense, or whether the resulting school cluster will be so large as to be unwieldy or bad for kids. But I think it's hard to argue that the cluster would result in LESS diversity than moving some boundary lines and adding at-risk set asides and choice sets. I think it's fairly obvious that the people suggesting those as an alternative like them specifically because they will not create as much socioeconomic diversity as a cluster would.

Hey, we could put more multifamily housing in the Maury zone but thay would mean repealing the Kingman Park historical designation, which the so-called progressives fought for.

No one is arguing in favor of putting more multifamily housing in the Maury zone. No one is upset that people live in single family houses. This conversation is just about how to allocate public school students within the city's public schools. Try to stay on topic.

The reason housing segregation exists is lack of affordable housing, in large part due to zoning restrictions.

Sure, generally. We are talking about a specific case, where one neighborhood actually has a decent amount of affordable housing (including low income and Section 8 housing) and a variety of zoning, including plenty of zoning for multifamily housing units.

The issue is not that affordable housing doesn't exist in the neighborhood, it's that the boundary for the elementary schools in the neighborhood neatly divides all the affordable housing away from Maury. Thus we are not talking about affordable housing, we are talking about school boundaries.

Again, try to keep up.

No, you try to keep up. We’re talking about progressive policies that are based on “vibes” and slogans rather than actually improving the basics. Kingman Park and other parts of the Maury zone is blocked from developing more affordable housing because of misguided progressive policies. Now similarly vapid thinking is going to disrupt the schools.

This is not the subject of this thread and is not at issue in the boundary study or in the DME's proposals. So no, we are not talking about it.

+1 and as a KP resident, the entire historic district thing wasn't exactly a "progressive vs. not progressive" thing. I say this as a general progressive who opposed the historic district.

[Anonymous]

I'm in-bound for Miner and wholeheartedly support the proposal to pair the schools. I get why Maury parents would oppose it - you paid a premium for your rowhomes with a specific understanding that you could send your children to a majority-white and high-SES elementary school and here comes DME wanting to essentially reverse the gentrifying effects that made Maury the school it is today and throw open the gates to the grandkids of the starburst crowd. I'd be gnashing my teeth too, but that doesn't mean this doesn't make sense for the neighborhood as a whole, or for the children in our little pocket of Northeast as a whole, which is where DME's greatest duty lies.

I've never been one for the "In this house we believe..." signs like many of the folks blowing a gasket over this proposal, but hoo boy y'all's opposition to this (especially in that 140+ page thread, which was locked by the time I finished reading it) has led to a lot of hysterics and bizarre takes.

Imagine my surprise in that first thread to hear that my neighborhood is "controlled by gangs" and "might as well be Baltimore." Yes, the concentrated poverty and crime in Azeeze-Bates and the Pentacle Apartments is unfortunate, but the bottom line is that this proposal is the best option for the neighborhood as a whole. The neighborhood is not scary and the starburst doesn't really intersect with the comings and goings at Miner. It's on the other side of a four lane road and a world away. The schools are not far apart - hearing all this woe-is-me stuff about terrible commutes is comical, as well as these preposterous proposals to do a public housing gerrymander or foist Miner's kids on faraway Ludlow-Taylor instead. Then in desperation y'all say "just throw money at it, just hire a superstar principal, anything but putting my kids in the same building with them.

I believe the ugly truth is that a lot of these low-SES at-risk children are beyond saving. No amount of money spent on smart boards or tutoring or enrichment is going to cure what ails them, because it's bone deep. It's a cyclical tragedy and a Gordian knot I don't pretend to be qualified to dissect. There is, of course, some variation in performance between schools with lots of at-risk kids, but on the whole I'd argue that schools like Maury or LT didn't improve just because the parents just cared so very much more than Miner parents or what have you...it's because the students of yesteryear got body-snatched and replaced with high-SES, Type-A-mommy, white kids.

The biggest benefit of this proposal to me is - unfortunately somewhat dependent on to what degree y'all pack up your yard signs and catch the next D6 to the Palisades - that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened, you get a truly diverse student body that still has a solid percentage of UMC parents and theoretically less OOB students coming in from EOTR. That isn't going to "fix" education for most of the in-bound at-risk kids growing up in Ward 7 without fathers and/or who never get spoken to unless it's a yell or a slap, but it can be a rising tide that lifts all ships and perhaps set a few of those unfortunates on a better path and leads to a student body that isn't just concentrated poverty. Every other idea I've seen proposed here really just boils down to Maury protectionism and keeping Miner's plight out of sight out of mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Demographics are (almost always) destiny sadly. Diluting the overall proportion of at-risk kids might in fact make thing easier for current teachers/staff at Miner, and I don’t think that’s an improper metric to consider.

But the impact on the academic outcomes of at-risk kids will likely be nil to negligible, as their problems stem from out-of-school factors that the school - no matter how structured - can’t be expected overcome.

On the other hand, UMC folks might find that things continue pretty much the same for their kids. Sure, maybe less convenient for some and maybe less narrowly “neighborhoody”, but I’m not sure those are factors DCPS should consider at the outset.

At any rate, howl loud enough and it’s probably dead in the water. Congratulations.

This is pretty spot on. I think the fear that many Maury parents seem to have is misplaced.

There are also whole conversations that I think we're sidestepping because they are uncomfortable. People like to fixate on test scores because they are "hard data" and so the conversation gets focused on whether the cluster would improve test scores for at risk kids, or drag down test scores for high-SES kids. I think this PP is likely correct that it would have minimal impact on either, and you'd wind up with a cluster school where the average test scores are lower than Maury and higher than Miner, but where individual outcomes are unchanged.

But there's also the question of culture, and that's what people don't really like to discuss. The truth is that there are nice things about having your kid at a relatively homogeneous school where most of the other families are similar to yours. It makes friendships easier, both between kids and between parents. It makes it easier for the school to set goals and reinforce culture, because people are more likely to be in agreement on what matters. I know I'm about to get people yowling at me about how diverse Maury is, but I'm not talking about racial diversity. I'm talking about life experience diversity. You can have a racially diverse school that is very homogenous, if the families at that school are all above a certain income and have similar educational and family backgrounds. And Maury is that.

The cluster school will be more genuinely diverse, at least if the populations of the separate schools remained in place. It would be a mix of UMC professional families on the Hill and in Hill East, middle class black families from Wards 7 and 8, low income families from housing projects in the current Miner zone as well as some from across the river. It is harder to make all those people happy and they won't all agree on what school is for or how it should be run. That's either a travesty or an opportunity, depending on your politics and your personal preferences (and just your energy levels, tbh -- it is more socially taxing to have kids at a truly diverse school because your personal interactions require more effort).

If we accept all of these things, the cluster makes even less sense, because there are less disruptive mechanisms to increase socio-economic diversity. At-risk set asides, boundary re-drawing, and choice sets could all increase socio-economic diversity with far less disruption to the school communities.

Why would you need those if you had a school with a boundary that is itself very socioeconomically diverse? A combined Miner-Maury cluster would include million dollar homes, more moderately priced homes, multi-family housing at a wide variety of price points, plus Section 8 and public housing. You don't need choice sets and at risk set asides if your in boundary population is already socioeconomically diverse.

You are talking about ways to make Maury more diverse than it currently is, because Maury presently sits on a little island of high cost, single family housing, something that is rare for school boundaries in this part of town. So if you want to make a school with Maury's boundary demographics more diverse, you have to look at redrawing the boundary lines, adding at-risk set asides in the lottery (though I really question how effective that would be at a school with high IB buy in that is already at capacity) or choice sets.

If you just combine the school boundaries, you don't need any of that. Instant diversity. We can argue over whether that's good or bad, or whether the implementation makes sense, or whether the resulting school cluster will be so large as to be unwieldy or bad for kids. But I think it's hard to argue that the cluster would result in LESS diversity than moving some boundary lines and adding at-risk set asides and choice sets. I think it's fairly obvious that the people suggesting those as an alternative like them specifically because they will not create as much socioeconomic diversity as a cluster would.

Hey, we could put more multifamily housing in the Maury zone but thay would mean repealing the Kingman Park historical designation, which the so-called progressives fought for.

No one is arguing in favor of putting more multifamily housing in the Maury zone. No one is upset that people live in single family houses. This conversation is just about how to allocate public school students within the city's public schools. Try to stay on topic.

Np, but do you really not understand the connection between the two? Why do you think Maury isn't economically diverse? Precisely because it doesn't have diverse housing stock. (I say economically diverse, because Maury actually is relatively racially diverse.)

What is easier? Trying to diversify the housing stock in the existing Maury zone, an area largely comprised of individually owned single family housing and limited available empty lots or buildings, or areas well suited for multi-use development or large-scale multifamily housing? OR changing school boundaries so that Maury's boundary includes any of the plentiful affordable housing that already exists in the neighborhood?

Look, we all know what you are doing. You think that if every time someone makes an argument that in any way justifies either the cluster or changing Maury's boundary lines, you create an argument over some spurious issue like affordable housing, Ludlow-Taylor, whether the DME is specifically targeting Maury for punishment, etc., you can distract everyone. But you can't.

Maury is not socioeconomically diverse. Neither is Miner. Combining them would make both schools socioeconomically diverse. Changing zoning on some of the housing within the Maury boundary would not.

It’s very obvious that for people like this (and presumably the DME), it has nothing to do with improving schools, only juking the stats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm in-bound for Miner and wholeheartedly support the proposal to pair the schools. I get why Maury parents would oppose it - you paid a premium for your rowhomes with a specific understanding that you could send your children to a majority-white and high-SES elementary school and here comes DME wanting to essentially reverse the gentrifying effects that made Maury the school it is today and throw open the gates to the grandkids of the starburst crowd. I'd be gnashing my teeth too, but that doesn't mean this doesn't make sense for the neighborhood as a whole, or for the children in our little pocket of Northeast as a whole, which is where DME's greatest duty lies.

I've never been one for the "In this house we believe..." signs like many of the folks blowing a gasket over this proposal, but hoo boy y'all's opposition to this (especially in that 140+ page thread, which was locked by the time I finished reading it) has led to a lot of hysterics and bizarre takes.

Imagine my surprise in that first thread to hear that my neighborhood is "controlled by gangs" and "might as well be Baltimore." Yes, the concentrated poverty and crime in Azeeze-Bates and the Pentacle Apartments is unfortunate, but the bottom line is that this proposal is the best option for the neighborhood as a whole. The neighborhood is not scary and the starburst doesn't really intersect with the comings and goings at Miner. It's on the other side of a four lane road and a world away. The schools are not far apart - hearing all this woe-is-me stuff about terrible commutes is comical, as well as these preposterous proposals to do a public housing gerrymander or foist Miner's kids on faraway Ludlow-Taylor instead. Then in desperation y'all say "just throw money at it, just hire a superstar principal, anything but putting my kids in the same building with them.

I believe the ugly truth is that a lot of these low-SES at-risk children are beyond saving. No amount of money spent on smart boards or tutoring or enrichment is going to cure what ails them, because it's bone deep. It's a cyclical tragedy and a Gordian knot I don't pretend to be qualified to dissect. There is, of course, some variation in performance between schools with lots of at-risk kids, but on the whole I'd argue that schools like Maury or LT didn't improve just because the parents just cared so very much more than Miner parents or what have you...it's because the students of yesteryear got body-snatched and replaced with high-SES, Type-A-mommy, white kids.

The biggest benefit of this proposal to me is - unfortunately somewhat dependent on to what degree y'all pack up your yard signs and catch the next D6 to the Palisades - that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened, you get a truly diverse student body that still has a solid percentage of UMC parents and theoretically less OOB students coming in from EOTR. That isn't going to "fix" education for most of the in-bound at-risk kids growing up in Ward 7 without fathers and/or who never get spoken to unless it's a yell or a slap, but it can be a rising tide that lifts all ships and perhaps set a few of those unfortunates on a better path and leads to a student body that isn't just concentrated poverty. Every other idea I've seen proposed here really just boils down to Maury protectionism and keeping Miner's plight out of sight out of mind.

Explain again why an at-risk set-aside at Maury plus a boundary adjustment to send some Maury kids to Miner wouldn't have the desired impact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm in-bound for Miner and wholeheartedly support the proposal to pair the schools. I get why Maury parents would oppose it - you paid a premium for your rowhomes with a specific understanding that you could send your children to a majority-white and high-SES elementary school and here comes DME wanting to essentially reverse the gentrifying effects that made Maury the school it is today and throw open the gates to the grandkids of the starburst crowd. I'd be gnashing my teeth too, but that doesn't mean this doesn't make sense for the neighborhood as a whole, or for the children in our little pocket of Northeast as a whole, which is where DME's greatest duty lies.

I've never been one for the "In this house we believe..." signs like many of the folks blowing a gasket over this proposal, but hoo boy y'all's opposition to this (especially in that 140+ page thread, which was locked by the time I finished reading it) has led to a lot of hysterics and bizarre takes.

Imagine my surprise in that first thread to hear that my neighborhood is "controlled by gangs" and "might as well be Baltimore." Yes, the concentrated poverty and crime in Azeeze-Bates and the Pentacle Apartments is unfortunate, but the bottom line is that this proposal is the best option for the neighborhood as a whole. The neighborhood is not scary and the starburst doesn't really intersect with the comings and goings at Miner. It's on the other side of a four lane road and a world away. The schools are not far apart - hearing all this woe-is-me stuff about terrible commutes is comical, as well as these preposterous proposals to do a public housing gerrymander or foist Miner's kids on faraway Ludlow-Taylor instead. Then in desperation y'all say "just throw money at it, just hire a superstar principal, anything but putting my kids in the same building with them.

I believe the ugly truth is that a lot of these low-SES at-risk children are beyond saving. No amount of money spent on smart boards or tutoring or enrichment is going to cure what ails them, because it's bone deep. It's a cyclical tragedy and a Gordian knot I don't pretend to be qualified to dissect. There is, of course, some variation in performance between schools with lots of at-risk kids, but on the whole I'd argue that schools like Maury or LT didn't improve just because the parents just cared so very much more than Miner parents or what have you...it's because the students of yesteryear got body-snatched and replaced with high-SES, Type-A-mommy, white kids.

The biggest benefit of this proposal to me is - unfortunately somewhat dependent on to what degree y'all pack up your yard signs and catch the next D6 to the Palisades - that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened, you get a truly diverse student body that still has a solid percentage of UMC parents and theoretically less OOB students coming in from EOTR. That isn't going to "fix" education for most of the in-bound at-risk kids growing up in Ward 7 without fathers and/or who never get spoken to unless it's a yell or a slap, but it can be a rising tide that lifts all ships and perhaps set a few of those unfortunates on a better path and leads to a student body that isn't just concentrated poverty. Every other idea I've seen proposed here really just boils down to Maury protectionism and keeping Miner's plight out of sight out of mind.

Putting aside the blatant racism running through this post, it is misguided. As the DME has said repeatedly, Miner's IB population mirrors its current population. Increasing IB participation won't change Miner's demographics. Moreover, Miner has pretty good UMC buy-in for the early years. It doesn't for upper grades. Maury also loses some IB kids in the upper grades. Looking to the only other cluster on the Hill, we can expect this IB exodus in the upper grades to increase if the school is spread across two campuses.

Also, it's not "just protectionism" if families are advocating for a boundary redraw knowing they'll likely be zoned out. No one expects the boundary to encompass Azeeze-Bates, but remain otherwise unchanged.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Demographics are (almost always) destiny sadly. Diluting the overall proportion of at-risk kids might in fact make thing easier for current teachers/staff at Miner, and I don’t think that’s an improper metric to consider.

But the impact on the academic outcomes of at-risk kids will likely be nil to negligible, as their problems stem from out-of-school factors that the school - no matter how structured - can’t be expected overcome.

On the other hand, UMC folks might find that things continue pretty much the same for their kids. Sure, maybe less convenient for some and maybe less narrowly “neighborhoody”, but I’m not sure those are factors DCPS should consider at the outset.

At any rate, howl loud enough and it’s probably dead in the water. Congratulations.

This is pretty spot on. I think the fear that many Maury parents seem to have is misplaced.

There are also whole conversations that I think we're sidestepping because they are uncomfortable. People like to fixate on test scores because they are "hard data" and so the conversation gets focused on whether the cluster would improve test scores for at risk kids, or drag down test scores for high-SES kids. I think this PP is likely correct that it would have minimal impact on either, and you'd wind up with a cluster school where the average test scores are lower than Maury and higher than Miner, but where individual outcomes are unchanged.

But there's also the question of culture, and that's what people don't really like to discuss. The truth is that there are nice things about having your kid at a relatively homogeneous school where most of the other families are similar to yours. It makes friendships easier, both between kids and between parents. It makes it easier for the school to set goals and reinforce culture, because people are more likely to be in agreement on what matters. I know I'm about to get people yowling at me about how diverse Maury is, but I'm not talking about racial diversity. I'm talking about life experience diversity. You can have a racially diverse school that is very homogenous, if the families at that school are all above a certain income and have similar educational and family backgrounds. And Maury is that.

The cluster school will be more genuinely diverse, at least if the populations of the separate schools remained in place. It would be a mix of UMC professional families on the Hill and in Hill East, middle class black families from Wards 7 and 8, low income families from housing projects in the current Miner zone as well as some from across the river. It is harder to make all those people happy and they won't all agree on what school is for or how it should be run. That's either a travesty or an opportunity, depending on your politics and your personal preferences (and just your energy levels, tbh -- it is more socially taxing to have kids at a truly diverse school because your personal interactions require more effort).

If we accept all of these things, the cluster makes even less sense, because there are less disruptive mechanisms to increase socio-economic diversity. At-risk set asides, boundary re-drawing, and choice sets could all increase socio-economic diversity with far less disruption to the school communities.

Why would you need those if you had a school with a boundary that is itself very socioeconomically diverse? A combined Miner-Maury cluster would include million dollar homes, more moderately priced homes, multi-family housing at a wide variety of price points, plus Section 8 and public housing. You don't need choice sets and at risk set asides if your in boundary population is already socioeconomically diverse.

You are talking about ways to make Maury more diverse than it currently is, because Maury presently sits on a little island of high cost, single family housing, something that is rare for school boundaries in this part of town. So if you want to make a school with Maury's boundary demographics more diverse, you have to look at redrawing the boundary lines, adding at-risk set asides in the lottery (though I really question how effective that would be at a school with high IB buy in that is already at capacity) or choice sets.

If you just combine the school boundaries, you don't need any of that. Instant diversity. We can argue over whether that's good or bad, or whether the implementation makes sense, or whether the resulting school cluster will be so large as to be unwieldy or bad for kids. But I think it's hard to argue that the cluster would result in LESS diversity than moving some boundary lines and adding at-risk set asides and choice sets. I think it's fairly obvious that the people suggesting those as an alternative like them specifically because they will not create as much socioeconomic diversity as a cluster would.

Hey, we could put more multifamily housing in the Maury zone but thay would mean repealing the Kingman Park historical designation, which the so-called progressives fought for.

No one is arguing in favor of putting more multifamily housing in the Maury zone. No one is upset that people live in single family houses. This conversation is just about how to allocate public school students within the city's public schools. Try to stay on topic.

Np, but do you really not understand the connection between the two? Why do you think Maury isn't economically diverse? Precisely because it doesn't have diverse housing stock. (I say economically diverse, because Maury actually is relatively racially diverse.)

What is easier? Trying to diversify the housing stock in the existing Maury zone, an area largely comprised of individually owned single family housing and limited available empty lots or buildings, or areas well suited for multi-use development or large-scale multifamily housing? OR changing school boundaries so that Maury's boundary includes any of the plentiful affordable housing that already exists in the neighborhood?

Look, we all know what you are doing. You think that if every time someone makes an argument that in any way justifies either the cluster or changing Maury's boundary lines, you create an argument over some spurious issue like affordable housing, Ludlow-Taylor, whether the DME is specifically targeting Maury for punishment, etc., you can distract everyone. But you can't.

Maury is not socioeconomically diverse. Neither is Miner. Combining them would make both schools socioeconomically diverse. Changing zoning on some of the housing within the Maury boundary would not.

It is not a given that combining the schools makes them more diverse. See: Peabody/Watkins, which has a pretty solid demographic split between the two schools. There is too much school choice in DC to expect students to move like widgets — lots of parents will opt out of uncertainty and inconvenience.