Maury Capitol Hill

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey all. Billy Lynch here, your local fair housing attorney who specializes in housing and school integration. Thought I’d drop some evidenced-based research into this riveting anonymous discussion. TLDR- integrated schools help all students and do not affect white student performance.

http://school-diversity.org/pdf/DiversityResearchBriefNo10.pdf

Integrationists in this thread: I see you and applaud you.

I do really appreciate you engaging non-anonymously.

Some of the studies referenced in this write-up seem to actually lend support to some of the concerns being aired. Here is one excerpt that really stuck out to me (though it's about high school students):

**

The results can also be used to show what would happen if students were redistributed among low-, middle-, and high-SES schools, assuming that nothing else about the schools changed, an assumption we relax below. First, moving students from low-SES to middle-SES schools appears to have little potential impact on their achievement. For example, the achievement growth of a disadvantaged Black student would likely increase by .3 points, or about 2 months of learning; the achievement growth of an average Black student would increase by .4 points, and the achievement growth of an advantaged Black student would increase by .8 points. Whites would experience similar small improvements. Second, much greater impact would occur by moving students to high-SES, or affluent, schools. For example, the achievement of an average Black student would increase by 2 points, or about 1 full year of learning. Whites would also experience substantial improvements, but less than Blacks (1.5 points for an average White student vs. 2 points for an average Black student). . . .

Although moving small numbers of students from middle- to high-SES schools would have little impact on the social composition and the advantages that they enjoy, any large-scale integration of high-SES schools would effectively lower their SES composition and could lower their achievement advantage relative to middle-class schools by altering the school processes that make them so successful (e.g., lowering teacher expectations). If this occurred (an issue we discuss below), the achievement advantages enjoyed by White students in high-SES schools could decline, whereas the potential benefits to Black students in moving to high-SES schools would be less than the present simulations suggest. In the extreme and unlikely case that all low-SES and all high-SES schools were integrated and consequently transformed into middle-class schools, the present analysis suggests that gains in achievement to predominantly minority students moving from low-SES to middle-class schools would be less than the declines in achievement of White students moving from high-SES to middle-class schools. This suggests that integration would lower the achievement gap between Whites and Blacks, but it could also lower overall achievement levels.

One important takeaway of this particular study was that the four school process variables listed below "explain all the estimated effects of socioeconomic composition on achievement growth in all subjects except science. That is, the estimated coefficients for school SES became nonsignificant in the final model, which means that there were no independent effects of school SES after controlling for this set of school-level predictors."

1. Teachers’ expectations about students’ ability to learn
2. The average hours of homework that students completed per week
3. The average number of advanced (college prep) courses taken by students in the school
4. The percentage of students who reported feeling unsafe at school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll follow Billy’s lead here. My name is Chris Deutsch and in the last seven years I’ve sent three kids through Miner. I moved recently for reasons beyond my control and not because of school. If any Maury parent wants to reach out for an honest conversation about Miner feel free, [e-mail]. Or just ask and as long as I can tolerate this thread, which won't be long, I'll answer.

Here’s the gist. Like many schools, Miner has had ups and downs the last few years. What never changed was my kids love of school and their teachers/classmates. My son was in 2nd grade during the shutdown and learned to read virtually because of the heroism of his teacher. I’ve never once worried they would fall behind or weren’t having a positive school experience. So I turned my attention to doing what I could to help other members of the school community.

I’d also caution that there is more to be learned in school than reading and math. Our experience at Miner led to conversations we may never have had, and a broadening of my boys' worldview that will serve them well.

Cities are all about connection and the contract you make when you choose to live here is that you are immediately interconnected with your community. That means success is not how your kids are doing but about how all the kids in the community are doing. It also means occasional sacrifice and discomfort in service of a greater good.

In other words, don’t move here and talk about diversity and equity in a general sense. Do the goddamn work. And always remember there were generations living here before you and they’ll be here after you leave. So try show some decency and respect.

Nobody said there was anything inherently wrong with Miner. We object taking apart two schools, creating a cluster model NOBODY asked for and which *is not working* at Watkins, in the name of creating equity on paper only. I’m glad you are happy at Miner and I think you should be supported by DCPS to continue strengthening Miner. Not have the school taken apart for no good reason.

[Anonymous]

One thing no one seems to be talking about is how disruptive this will be for kids in the transition years. Assuming Miner is the ECE campus, there will be kids spending a few years at Maury, going to Miner for one or two years and then coming back to a completely different Maury. That seems to place a lot of undue stress on young students, and all during what is likely to be a bumpy implementation period. I imagine a lot of parents will opt out of the transition phase if this goes through. In this scenario Miner kids would have fewer location changes, but would obviously also be dealing with other transition stresses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Miner does have parents that are trying their hardest to improve the school. All parents automatically join PTA and even donate their entire month’s salary to the PTA.
The PTA at Miner were able to obtain additional faculty because they paid their salary. These folks want the best for their child and their classmates no matter where they attend. So please, can we stop with the Miner parents don’t try hard enough stuff?

This is inaccurate. The Miner PTO has never raised enough money to fund staff.

I was told that the 2nd gym teacher was hired because of PTA funding.

That’s not accurate. He was hired several years ago when the District told the schools that k-5 students had to start having two PE classes a week. The LSAT made hiring that position a budget priority so even PreK students could have PE twice a week. The PTO works very hard but they do not raise $100k per year which is the approximate value assigned to a teacher salary.

Thank you, my apologies for spreading misinformation.
I will point out that it is a fact the PTA encourages its members to donate an equivalent to their monthly salary and parents do care and try hard to improve school.

Not the most important thing, but is this for real? I have never, ever heard of a school requesting that size of donation or even close. So like a family of two GS15s is supposed to be donating $25,000 to the PTA each year?!? WTAF. No, that is not the right way to grow community engagement in a school.

No, it's wrong. I had the same reaction but this PP misspoke-- the PTA encourages members with PK kids to give up to the equivalent of a month's tuition for a private daycare or preschool. So like $1-2k, which is a lot but not more than many Maury parents give and not an unreasonable amount to ask of a community's most well off members.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ludlow is 17% at risk and JOW is 59% at risk. Both feed to SH. They are 3 blocks away from each other. If clustering schools is the solution why aren't those also under consideration?

One thing they factored in was whether there was a major thoroughfare dividing the boundaries. I *think* H street qualifies.

No. They only looked at pairs of schools where the difference was 50%+, so they never considered LT and JOW. You can see this on one of the slides in the presentation DME did at Maury. They considered LT/WJ, which makes absolutely no sense in many respects… major thoroughfares, a large distance between schools & another school mostly in the middle (JOW) among them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey all. Billy Lynch here, your local fair housing attorney who specializes in housing and school integration. Thought I’d drop some evidenced-based research into this riveting anonymous discussion. TLDR- integrated schools help all students and do not affect white student performance.

http://school-diversity.org/pdf/DiversityResearchBriefNo10.pdf

Integrationists in this thread: I see you and applaud you.

I do really appreciate you engaging non-anonymously.

Some of the studies referenced in this write-up seem to actually lend support to some of the concerns being aired. Here is one excerpt that really stuck out to me (though it's about high school students):

**

The results can also be used to show what would happen if students were redistributed among low-, middle-, and high-SES schools, assuming that nothing else about the schools changed, an assumption we relax below. First, moving students from low-SES to middle-SES schools appears to have little potential impact on their achievement. For example, the achievement growth of a disadvantaged Black student would likely increase by .3 points, or about 2 months of learning; the achievement growth of an average Black student would increase by .4 points, and the achievement growth of an advantaged Black student would increase by .8 points. Whites would experience similar small improvements. Second, much greater impact would occur by moving students to high-SES, or affluent, schools. For example, the achievement of an average Black student would increase by 2 points, or about 1 full year of learning. Whites would also experience substantial improvements, but less than Blacks (1.5 points for an average White student vs. 2 points for an average Black student). . . .

Although moving small numbers of students from middle- to high-SES schools would have little impact on the social composition and the advantages that they enjoy, any large-scale integration of high-SES schools would effectively lower their SES composition and could lower their achievement advantage relative to middle-class schools by altering the school processes that make them so successful (e.g., lowering teacher expectations). If this occurred (an issue we discuss below), the achievement advantages enjoyed by White students in high-SES schools could decline, whereas the potential benefits to Black students in moving to high-SES schools would be less than the present simulations suggest. In the extreme and unlikely case that all low-SES and all high-SES schools were integrated and consequently transformed into middle-class schools, the present analysis suggests that gains in achievement to predominantly minority students moving from low-SES to middle-class schools would be less than the declines in achievement of White students moving from high-SES to middle-class schools. This suggests that integration would lower the achievement gap between Whites and Blacks, but it could also lower overall achievement levels.

This lowering of overall achievement has occurred at several schools in DC, including Watkins. If anyone has access to the historical data (which is hard to find in DC - I used to have it more easily available when my children attended the school, but have since deleted most files; perhaps there are blogs that have it readily available), you can actually track the decline when the focus in teaching moved from teaching all kids evenly (which resulted in a relatively large number of high achievers and middle achievers) to focusing nearly entirely on at-risk students (and led to minimal gains for them, but a decline in overall achievement, particularly with high achievers). If anyone tells you this plan will lift all boats, they are lying.

+1

[Anonymous]

Billy: You seem like a good guy, but it seems weird to post what you did non-anonymously and not mention that you, yourself lotteried your kids out of Miner and into one of the “good Hill elementary schools.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll follow Billy’s lead here. My name is Chris Deutsch and in the last seven years I’ve sent three kids through Miner. I moved recently for reasons beyond my control and not because of school. If any Maury parent wants to reach out for an honest conversation about Miner feel free, [e-mail]. Or just ask and as long as I can tolerate this thread, which won't be long, I'll answer.

Here’s the gist. Like many schools, Miner has had ups and downs the last few years. What never changed was my kids love of school and their teachers/classmates. My son was in 2nd grade during the shutdown and learned to read virtually because of the heroism of his teacher. I’ve never once worried they would fall behind or weren’t having a positive school experience. So I turned my attention to doing what I could to help other members of the school community.

I’d also caution that there is more to be learned in school than reading and math. Our experience at Miner led to conversations we may never have had, and a broadening of my boys' worldview that will serve them well.

Cities are all about connection and the contract you make when you choose to live here is that you are immediately interconnected with your community. That means success is not how your kids are doing but about how all the kids in the community are doing. It also means occasional sacrifice and discomfort in service of a greater good.

In other words, don’t move here and talk about diversity and equity in a general sense. Do the goddamn work. And always remember there were generations living here before you and they’ll be here after you leave. So try show some decency and respect.

If your kid didn’t learn to read until 2nd grade that doesn’t speak very highly of Miner.

Curious if you think this comment speaks highly of you. But not that curious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll follow Billy’s lead here. My name is Chris Deutsch and in the last seven years I’ve sent three kids through Miner. I moved recently for reasons beyond my control and not because of school. If any Maury parent wants to reach out for an honest conversation about Miner feel free, [e-mail]. Or just ask and as long as I can tolerate this thread, which won't be long, I'll answer.

Here’s the gist. Like many schools, Miner has had ups and downs the last few years. What never changed was my kids love of school and their teachers/classmates. My son was in 2nd grade during the shutdown and learned to read virtually because of the heroism of his teacher. I’ve never once worried they would fall behind or weren’t having a positive school experience. So I turned my attention to doing what I could to help other members of the school community.

I’d also caution that there is more to be learned in school than reading and math. Our experience at Miner led to conversations we may never have had, and a broadening of my boys' worldview that will serve them well.

Cities are all about connection and the contract you make when you choose to live here is that you are immediately interconnected with your community. That means success is not how your kids are doing but about how all the kids in the community are doing. It also means occasional sacrifice and discomfort in service of a greater good.

In other words, don’t move here and talk about diversity and equity in a general sense. Do the goddamn work. And always remember there were generations living here before you and they’ll be here after you leave. So try show some decency and respect.

Nobody said there was anything inherently wrong with Miner.

Actually, yes, people have been saying that. And more troubling, they've been saying that about Miner kids and Miner families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll follow Billy’s lead here. My name is Chris Deutsch and in the last seven years I’ve sent three kids through Miner. I moved recently for reasons beyond my control and not because of school. If any Maury parent wants to reach out for an honest conversation about Miner feel free, [e-mail]. Or just ask and as long as I can tolerate this thread, which won't be long, I'll answer.

Here’s the gist. Like many schools, Miner has had ups and downs the last few years. What never changed was my kids love of school and their teachers/classmates. My son was in 2nd grade during the shutdown and learned to read virtually because of the heroism of his teacher. I’ve never once worried they would fall behind or weren’t having a positive school experience. So I turned my attention to doing what I could to help other members of the school community.

I’d also caution that there is more to be learned in school than reading and math. Our experience at Miner led to conversations we may never have had, and a broadening of my boys' worldview that will serve them well.

Cities are all about connection and the contract you make when you choose to live here is that you are immediately interconnected with your community. That means success is not how your kids are doing but about how all the kids in the community are doing. It also means occasional sacrifice and discomfort in service of a greater good.

In other words, don’t move here and talk about diversity and equity in a general sense. Do the goddamn work. And always remember there were generations living here before you and they’ll be here after you leave. So try show some decency and respect.

Nobody said there was anything inherently wrong with Miner.

Actually, yes, people have been saying that. And more troubling, they've been saying that about Miner kids and Miner families.

+1, some highlights of this thread:

- Maury parents think if their kids share classrooms with Miner kids, their educations will be ruined
- Maury parents think if the schools combined, everyone will expect only them to work on the PTO or do anything for the school, because the assumption is that Miner parents are totally uninvolved and won't lift a finger
- Maury parents think DCPS "needs" parents like them more than it needs families like those who attend Miner

And so on. This thread has been disgusting. It's also abundantly clear that none of these people has ever set foot on the Miner campus, which I think is weird because I've been to all the schools near where I live, to visit playgrounds and attend community events. My kids don't go to Miner or Maury, but I've been to Miner's Christmas tree sale and my kids have played on the playground, and they've also done a few weeks of camp with Polite Piggies at Maury and played on that playground. So I've interacted with parents from Miner's PTA and Maury ECE families. Earlier in the thread there were Maury parents saying they never went to the Rosedale pool or library -- we live further west than any Maury family and we've been to both many times.

My advice to Maury families is (1) get out more, there is more to this neighborhood than Lincoln Park and Eastern Market, and (2) be careful about the assumptions you make before you have any facts. That's a basic tenet of careful research that my kid learned in 1st grade. Does Maury not teach that kind of thing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll follow Billy’s lead here. My name is Chris Deutsch and in the last seven years I’ve sent three kids through Miner. I moved recently for reasons beyond my control and not because of school. If any Maury parent wants to reach out for an honest conversation about Miner feel free, [e-mail]. Or just ask and as long as I can tolerate this thread, which won't be long, I'll answer.

Here’s the gist. Like many schools, Miner has had ups and downs the last few years. What never changed was my kids love of school and their teachers/classmates. My son was in 2nd grade during the shutdown and learned to read virtually because of the heroism of his teacher. I’ve never once worried they would fall behind or weren’t having a positive school experience. So I turned my attention to doing what I could to help other members of the school community.

I’d also caution that there is more to be learned in school than reading and math. Our experience at Miner led to conversations we may never have had, and a broadening of my boys' worldview that will serve them well.

Cities are all about connection and the contract you make when you choose to live here is that you are immediately interconnected with your community. That means success is not how your kids are doing but about how all the kids in the community are doing. It also means occasional sacrifice and discomfort in service of a greater good.

In other words, don’t move here and talk about diversity and equity in a general sense. Do the goddamn work. And always remember there were generations living here before you and they’ll be here after you leave. So try show some decency and respect.

Nobody said there was anything inherently wrong with Miner.

Actually, yes, people have been saying that. And more troubling, they've been saying that about Miner kids and Miner families.

+1, some highlights of this thread:

- Maury parents think if their kids share classrooms with Miner kids, their educations will be ruined
- Maury parents think if the schools combined, everyone will expect only them to work on the PTO or do anything for the school, because the assumption is that Miner parents are totally uninvolved and won't lift a finger
- Maury parents think DCPS "needs" parents like them more than it needs families like those who attend Miner

And so on. This thread has been disgusting. It's also abundantly clear that none of these people has ever set foot on the Miner campus, which I think is weird because I've been to all the schools near where I live, to visit playgrounds and attend community events. My kids don't go to Miner or Maury, but I've been to Miner's Christmas tree sale and my kids have played on the playground, and they've also done a few weeks of camp with Polite Piggies at Maury and played on that playground. So I've interacted with parents from Miner's PTA and Maury ECE families. Earlier in the thread there were Maury parents saying they never went to the Rosedale pool or library -- we live further west than any Maury family and we've been to both many times.

My advice to Maury families is (1) get out more, there is more to this neighborhood than Lincoln Park and Eastern Market, and (2) be careful about the assumptions you make before you have any facts. That's a basic tenet of careful research that my kid learned in 1st grade. Does Maury not teach that kind of thing?

Look, I'll grant you there may be a couple of outliers, but on the whole this "summary" is not at all an accurate reflection of what has been said on the thread.

- Maury parents think if their kids share classrooms with Miner kids, their educations will be ruined

Some people have brought up fair questions about what the academic experience will look like if this cluster happens. The entire premise of this proposal is that large numbers of at-risk or below grade level students creates very challenging conditions for a school; people are concerned this factor will continue to be a problem if the cluster plan is executed, and people are naturally concerned about what that means for their kids (as are the 72% of families living in the Miner boundary that send their kids to a different school). Many comments have in fact proposed at-risk preferences or set-asides that would bring more at-risk kids into Maury in a more manageable way, which directly contradicts your contention that "Maury parents think if their kids share classrooms with Miner kids, their educations will be ruined."

- Maury parents think if the schools combined, everyone will expect only them to work on the PTO or do anything for the school, because the assumption is that Miner parents are totally uninvolved and won't lift a finger

There have been comments by (I assume) Miner parents pointing to the schools' PTAs as inequitable due to both financial differences and due to challenges that make it harder for some Miner families to participate in them to the extent many Maury parents can. I have seen comments trying to make the point that the proposed cluster won't result in a combined school with a PTA with the same strength as Maury's current PTA; I made one of them, and I think I imprecisely said something about the Maury PTA not being able to "double" their efforts/funds, but it was not at all my intention to suggest that "Miner parents are totally uninvolved and won't lift a finger." I will grant you that I have also seen some wrongheaded comments about how Miner parents should "just do the work" or whatever, but I fundamentally don't think that is a widely held sentiment.

- Maury parents think DCPS "needs" parents like them more than it needs families like those who attend Miner

Again, this is a really ungenerous twisting of what has actually been said. What I have seen is people saying that DC is a public school system that owes everyone in DC -- high SES and low SES alike -- a good education and environment, and that it is objectively good for the system to keep high SES buy-in. I don't think I've seen the "more than it needs families like those who attend Miner" at all, but if there was one it was clearly an outlier.

I don't really think I'm going to talk anyone out of being hurt. It is obviously hard, once you start to feel attacked, to perceive things in a neutral way. And there certainly have been some comments (on both sides of the discussion, I think) that do not reflect the best of what either school community has to offer -- but it would serve everyone to remember that the comments you haven't liked on this thread could be just one parent. Heck, it could be just one Russian troll for all we know. But in real life, we are all just people who want what's best for our kids, and we are all people who have a big personal stake in DCPS and our schools and who would be best served by DC/DCPS figuring out how to do a lot better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll follow Billy’s lead here. My name is Chris Deutsch and in the last seven years I’ve sent three kids through Miner. I moved recently for reasons beyond my control and not because of school. If any Maury parent wants to reach out for an honest conversation about Miner feel free, [e-mail]. Or just ask and as long as I can tolerate this thread, which won't be long, I'll answer.

Here’s the gist. Like many schools, Miner has had ups and downs the last few years. What never changed was my kids love of school and their teachers/classmates. My son was in 2nd grade during the shutdown and learned to read virtually because of the heroism of his teacher. I’ve never once worried they would fall behind or weren’t having a positive school experience. So I turned my attention to doing what I could to help other members of the school community.

I’d also caution that there is more to be learned in school than reading and math. Our experience at Miner led to conversations we may never have had, and a broadening of my boys' worldview that will serve them well.

Cities are all about connection and the contract you make when you choose to live here is that you are immediately interconnected with your community. That means success is not how your kids are doing but about how all the kids in the community are doing. It also means occasional sacrifice and discomfort in service of a greater good.

In other words, don’t move here and talk about diversity and equity in a general sense. Do the goddamn work. And always remember there were generations living here before you and they’ll be here after you leave. So try show some decency and respect.

2nd grade!?!?!

Sounds like you should have noticed he was already behind. No wonder Miner parents are desperate for this move.

[Anonymous]

The dilute comment that I will take on good faith was said.

It is an undeniable fact that this move will dilute the number of children who meet expectations in reading a math. This is the whole reason why DCPS is considering this move!

Why are you big mad about someone saying exactly what The DME is saying?

[Anonymous]

Chris,

To what type of school are your kids moving to?

Suburban Virginia?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey all. Billy Lynch here, your local fair housing attorney who specializes in housing and school integration. Thought I’d drop some evidenced-based research into this riveting anonymous discussion. TLDR- integrated schools help all students and do not affect white student performance.

http://school-diversity.org/pdf/DiversityResearchBriefNo10.pdf

Integrationists in this thread: I see you and applaud you.

I do really appreciate you engaging non-anonymously.

Some of the studies referenced in this write-up seem to actually lend support to some of the concerns being aired. Here is one excerpt that really stuck out to me (though it's about high school students):

**

The results can also be used to show what would happen if students were redistributed among low-, middle-, and high-SES schools, assuming that nothing else about the schools changed, an assumption we relax below. First, moving students from low-SES to middle-SES schools appears to have little potential impact on their achievement. For example, the achievement growth of a disadvantaged Black student would likely increase by .3 points, or about 2 months of learning; the achievement growth of an average Black student would increase by .4 points, and the achievement growth of an advantaged Black student would increase by .8 points. Whites would experience similar small improvements. Second, much greater impact would occur by moving students to high-SES, or affluent, schools. For example, the achievement of an average Black student would increase by 2 points, or about 1 full year of learning. Whites would also experience substantial improvements, but less than Blacks (1.5 points for an average White student vs. 2 points for an average Black student). . . .

Although moving small numbers of students from middle- to high-SES schools would have little impact on the social composition and the advantages that they enjoy, any large-scale integration of high-SES schools would effectively lower their SES composition and could lower their achievement advantage relative to middle-class schools by altering the school processes that make them so successful (e.g., lowering teacher expectations). If this occurred (an issue we discuss below), the achievement advantages enjoyed by White students in high-SES schools could decline, whereas the potential benefits to Black students in moving to high-SES schools would be less than the present simulations suggest. In the extreme and unlikely case that all low-SES and all high-SES schools were integrated and consequently transformed into middle-class schools, the present analysis suggests that gains in achievement to predominantly minority students moving from low-SES to middle-class schools would be less than the declines in achievement of White students moving from high-SES to middle-class schools. This suggests that integration would lower the achievement gap between Whites and Blacks, but it could also lower overall achievement levels.

One important takeaway of this particular study was that the four school process variables listed below "explain all the estimated effects of socioeconomic composition on achievement growth in all subjects except science. That is, the estimated coefficients for school SES became nonsignificant in the final model, which means that there were no independent effects of school SES after controlling for this set of school-level predictors."

1. Teachers’ expectations about students’ ability to learn
2. The average hours of homework that students completed per week
3. The average number of advanced (college prep) courses taken by students in the school
4. The percentage of students who reported feeling unsafe at school

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Hanover-Research-2015-Impacts-of-School-and-Class-Size-on-Student-Outcomes.pdf
This literature review of the impact of school size on student achievement is also interesting. Findings are generally that larger schools have poorer outcomes in all metrics (academic achievement, absenteeism, participation in extracurriculars), particularly for low income student. This is attributed in part to low teacher and student morale, which makes sense. Teachers on a team with three other teachers can collaborate and focus on individual students more easily than a team of 8. Plus the school can follow students over time. Those students may get lost, and may feel lost in a larger school. There will also inevitably be more bureaucracy in a larger school. For reference, Peabody-Watkins is half the size of this proposed cluster. No elementary school in DC is near this big (800-900 students).