New to looking at Capitol Hill DCPS. Any majority high SES schools?

[Anonymous]

Your kid will do fine there and get into a good high school. The fact that it hasn't become great in all these years causes me to wonder more about the leadership, the dcps curriculum, the physical building there being an issue more than the student body.

I think with the renovation and some way to unite graduates from Watkins, Brent and Maury PLUS a dynamic leader ( ala Melissa Kim at Deal ), we could have a great middle school smack in the middle of Capitol Hill, giving hope to Eastern.

The question is if we can get all those factors to come together. This is where we need some political leadership. Tommy? Anyone?

18:01 again. I appreciate your thoughts.

My shy first grader is already far ahead of the curve on reading, and playing piano, but behind on math. She would "do fine" at a fairly rowdy school like SH in which half the kids fail proficiency exams and, to my knowledge, there's no academic tracking other than for 8th grade algebra? She would be happy at Basis, if we can get in, where math giftedness is key to enjoying the experience and there's no music program to speak of?

I come from a small Midwestern town where honors humanities classes and arts programs were not in short supply in schools. There must be droves of upper-middle-class parents settling here who once attended similar schools are scratching their heads, wondering why such basic offerings are a tall order locally for those of us paying property tax on expensive homes.

I'm not clued into how Tommy Wells feels about keeping gentrifiers in Hill middle schools. Sounds like the Brent and Maury parents should rally to at least get a single-issue candidate on the ballot whom Wells must debate in 2014. Minimally, I want him compelled to explain why Stuart Hobson can't offer honors classes, primarily serve the Hill, or boast proficiency test pass rates a la Deal's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, BASIS seems to have become a de-facto "feeder" for the better Capitol Hill schools like Brent and St. Peters - though it needs to be at 5th grade. I believe BASIS won't be accepting many if any at the higher grades.

Considering it just opened, BASIS can't possibly be a de-facto feeder for anything. It's impossible to say whether it will be a good school.

From what I've seen, that's already a done deal. Like it or not, BASIS has already gotten the cream of the crop coming out of the Capitol Hill elementary schools.

Anonymous wrote:You think this? Really? And here I thought Hill parents were thoughtful about their actions. Apparently not. Think on it. BASIS gets the cream of the crop based on nothing more than the BASIS PR machine and Boosters' testimonials. In their first year. How do can they even assert they have captured these top students when those students have not shown they are at all top students? So far, the only parents at BASIS are ones with a dream, but no proof they can measure up to the model. It's really...well....stupid to extrapolate anything about future BASIS students based on the nothing that BASIS is able to produce to prove their model is well suited in DC.

That doesn't reflect well on the intellectual capabilities of Hill parents. Frankly, they look like sheep investing in a school that has no metrics, at all, to support their assertion of being an adequate school, forget an effective one. In DC. Because this is where it matters. In DC. Not Tucson.

It's only a done deal in the minds of people who don't think.

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, this is just silly.

Anonymous wrote:NP here, and no it is not silly. Just because someone isn't starstruck by the school the same way you are, doesn't mean they're silly, nor that their objections can be so easily dismissed.

As a Basis fluffer, you might not understand that, but it really isn't that difficult for everyone else to comprehend.

Anonymous wrote:Ah, the anti-Basis porn addict has returned, or at least is pretending to be a new poster yet again (har har). So what do you suppose the school that you are clearly an operative for would think of your obsession with filthy porn analogies?

Anonymous wrote:Not anti-Basis, but definitely anti-the-newest-shiniest "solution" just so that it fits your agenda, truth-be-damned.

OP wants an all-high SES school. She needs to move to Upper Caucasia or the suburbs, or go private.

Basis booster also wants all-high SES. That is not only difficult for a public charter school (no, it is not a magnet school no matter how desperately you want it to be), but more importantly, it may very well be crossing the line with respect to the legality of the charter. Like it or not "you get what you get and you don't get upset." You educate the students you have, not the ones you want.

At the last BASIS community meeting the Head of School indicated the school is applying for Title One status. And he described the achievement of students as being distributed across all demographics, and that achievement is stronger than they had expected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the last BASIS community meeting the Head of School indicated the school is applying for Title One status. And he described the achievement of students as being distributed across all demographics, and that achievement is stronger than they had expected.

Really? Basis DC is 40% FARMS (the qualifying threshold)? Do tell.

[Anonymous]

You educate the students you have, not the ones you want.

So create the students you want with improved long-term planning and the requisite inputs. Start up gifted programs in mainly low SES schools and vote out politicians who won't go to bat for test-in middle schools with a city-wide draw, programs catering to 11 to 14 year-old advanced learners across the socio-economic spectrum.

Fifth grade at Basis or Latin via lottery admissions is too little too late. Many of us on these boards have little kids - we've got ten years to push the city to educate the students we want.

OP doesn't want an ALL high SES school from the sounds of it, she wants a suitable school for her upper-middle-class kid for the elementary grades and, presumably, through senior year in high school. For her tax dollar, give her one.

[Anonymous]

The only "agenda" is to fill the need for a school with a rigorous curriculum to challenge students. The handful of decent DCPS schools and charters were already overflowing with demand even before BASIS came along.

And, who said anything about "all high SES" in BASIS? Nobody - whatever the OP said about SES doesn't have anything to do with BASIS or what BASIS wants.

The reality is that BASIS is filled with kids from every demographic and every ward in the city AND THAT'S FINE. Spare us the paranoid fantasies about "what they want" or "crossing the line of legality" because none of that has any real merit or grounding in reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You educate the students you have, not the ones you want.

So create the students you want with improved long-term planning and the requisite inputs. Start up gifted programs in mainly low SES schools and vote out politicians who won't go to bat for test-in middle schools with a city-wide draw, programs catering to 11 to 14 year-old advanced learners across the socio-economic spectrum.

Fifth grade at Basis or Latin via lottery admissions is too little too late. Many of us on these boards have little kids - we've got ten years to push the city to educate the students we want.

OP doesn't want an ALL high SES school from the sounds of it, she wants a suitable school for her upper-middle-class kid for the elementary grades and, presumably, through senior year in high school. For her tax dollar, give her one.

To read that, one might reasonably suppose you don't understand charter school legislation.

[Anonymous]

Never mind charter legislation for a minute. No denying that every city middle school but Deal has had a terrible time attracting mostly strong, well-prepped students, both AA and non-AA. With gifted programs in elementary schools, you'd have more self-selecting families with strong students willing to enter the future Basis lottery, with more kids able to cope with the STEM curriculum through high school. No brainer. Hint: Tuscon has gifted elementary school programs.

[Anonymous]

+1. PPs speak of lack of leadership at Stuart Hobson when lack of vision on the part of paretns/voters is as great a problem. Does nobody get sick of most of the high SES families quietly voting with their feet from both DC Charter and DCPS? Sheesh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks for the replies. What boundaries/ demographics will SWS serve now that they have moved? If they go to lottery likely the quality will decline. Do others agree that Maury will soon have a low (below 20%) FARMS level and high scores? Per Brent, do students there go on many field trips? How often do they have music and art? How much outside time? Can the teachers focus on higher achieving students instead of being weighed down with behavior and remedial issues? Do many Brent students go to St. Peter's for middle school? We would be interested in St. Peter's too. Look forward to hearing more!

You're serious? You sound like a troll. If you are bound and determined to keep your snowflake away from anyone of low-SES, then you're an idiot for pretending to be interested in DC. Go to MacLean. You are not going to happy in DC, Princess.

Totally. My kid is at SWS, and OP makes my blood run cold. The only thing I don't love about SWS is that it isn't particularly representative of the neighborhood. It's a great school but anything that will make it more diverse, not less, I will support. And the teachers feel the same way, it seems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wait Eastern was a city wide project, so the hope was not solely dependent on having Jefferson, S-H and E-H as their only feeder schools. Please note, that Eastern was the only high-school that had feedback of the entire city to make it attractive as a high-school. Such the case, the majority of DCPS is AA and hence the attraction was for that demographic. It was pretty evident that DCPS thought beyond Cap-Hill in the thought process of relaunching of Eastern and it is kinda too late to turn back now.

City wide or not, Eastern needs some great middle schools feeding in to it to make it a success, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks for the replies. What boundaries/ demographics will SWS serve now that they have moved? If they go to lottery likely the quality will decline. Do others agree that Maury will soon have a low (below 20%) FARMS level and high scores? Per Brent, do students there go on many field trips? How often do they have music and art? How much outside time? Can the teachers focus on higher achieving students instead of being weighed down with behavior and remedial issues? Do many Brent students go to St. Peter's for middle school? We would be interested in St. Peter's too. Look forward to hearing more!

You're serious? You sound like a troll. If you are bound and determined to keep your snowflake away from anyone of low-SES, then you're an idiot for pretending to be interested in DC. Go to MacLean. You are not going to happy in DC, Princess.

Totally. My kid is at SWS, and OP makes my blood run cold. The only thing I don't love about SWS is that it isn't particularly representative of the neighborhood. It's a great school but anything that will make it more diverse, not less, I will support. And the teachers feel the same way, it seems.

Agreed the original post quoted above is obnoxious.

For better or worse SWS is mostly representative of the neighborhood, and where it's not you may be surprised to learn that the modest number of OOB families are also higher SES. The program is somewhat specialized, small, and not on everyone's radar. It also only covers 3 grade levels at the moment, so its not relevant to everyone. FWIW -- Peabody and the Cluster may have been the prefered OOB option for some families when SWS went independent.

[Anonymous]

Disagree, OP sounds practical and forthright. If you value diversity over high SES representation, more power to you. If she doesn't, and wants her kid in a majority high SES school like Brent, more power to her. To each her own in a free society.

Re the middle school feeder situation - high SES Hill'ites must adjust the reality that their middle schools are now Latin, Basis and privates and will be for many years. The only other option with appeal to upper-middle-class families will be a test-in DCPS middle school program, started maybe five years from now. DCPS clearly isn't up to the challenge of offering neighborhood middle school programs that more than a small minority of upper-middle-class Hill residents feel comfortable with.

I'm not sure what reality we'll need to adjust to for high school. Probably nothing more inspiring than middle school as space to save for privates, other than for an adventurous few at Latin, Basis, Banneker and SWW. When Basis becomes oversubscribed, they will surely open a second city branch, as they've done in Tuscon. There will be room for us all if we're OK with what they do.

[Anonymous]

Some pps seem to think Tommy Wells has a lot of power and he is declining to use it. Folks, the Chancellor is appointed by the Mayor. You need to take this to Gray. Wells has little say so over the school system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some pps seem to think Tommy Wells has a lot of power and he is declining to use it. Folks, the Chancellor is appointed by the Mayor. You need to take this to Gray. Wells has little say so over the school system.

Agree to some degree that ultimately the Mayor and Chancellor are in mostly control of DC public education.

But Wells has a pulpit from which to advocate and coalesce a movement that will affect change. The thing is he has a few constituencies that strongly diverge, and he's taking a muddy middle path as he plots a path to be mayor.

He needs to appeal to old school African American interests (in Ward Six many voted for Kelvin Robinson).

Meanwhile he needs to keep his Ward Six base in tact - and that group does not agree on school reform. The old school traditional Ward Six liberals are anti-charter, and amongst them there is not agreement on how to proceed. Other Ward Six progressives just want something that works -- be it charter, DCPS, whatever -- and so they are generally pro-charter.

Wells does not have a silver bullet at his disposal. What he has is disparate groups stuck in a dysfunctional system who lack consensus. Plus, urban school reform in teh US has few success stories to model how DC can fix things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Disagree, OP sounds practical and forthright. If you value diversity over high SES representation, more power to you. If she doesn't, and wants her kid in a majority high SES school like Brent, more power to her. To each her own in a free society.

OP equates school success with SES, which is an ecological fallacy. You can diversity in more than skin color, and I'll tell you from experience that you may be surprised at what you learn from the "other" kids. "Diversity" "high SES" -- in this context these are thinly veiled coded statements for saying you don't want your kid in a school with any significant African American representation. Everyone on this board knows exactly what that means.

Private schools are full of high "SES" families -- why not just take the obvious route? There's always CHDS for $30K/yr. You won't have to worry about "rowdy" classrooms there. Unless of course OP is just a CHEAP status seeker.

OP isn't concerned with what's best for kid educationally -- OP is concerned with what's best for status conscious self. It's pretty sad.