Should DCPS eliminate Application Only Public Selective High schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems like an attempt to create a private school reality in a city that is straining to fix its public schools.

If a student is academically talented, shouldn't they get a shot at their neighborhood school?

Seems like concentrating all of the semi-talented kids at three schools would be a talent suck on the neighborhood high schools.

You are so naive. If you eliminated the schools, families would go private, charter, or move. They are not going to send their kid to their poorly performing IB neighborhood school.

I mean, we see this at the elementary level at charters already, where stakes are not nearly as high as middle and high school and where the achievement gap is not nearly as profound.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They do have a shot at their neighborhood school. Which they are choosing not to attend. Maybe it's because they want to be around other students who are on grade level, I dunno.

If you think DC selective schools are a private school experience you have a lot to learn about private schools.

I have a child who attended private and another at an application school. They are very different. My kid at an application school was too advanced for private. Privates are for rich kids, not necessarily smart/academically advanced kids. There are often not enough kids to make an advance class in privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:eastern does have a school within a school ib program. it hasnt substantially increased the in-boundary enrollment. the application high schools are not just walls and they help w middle school buy-in.

They need a group of white kids to attend. If there was a cohort of white kids other white people would be ok with it. I think this is a legacy of segregated schools. I find it very annoying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:eastern does have a school within a school ib program. it hasnt substantially increased the in-boundary enrollment. the application high schools are not just walls and they help w middle school buy-in.

They need a group of white kids to attend. If there was a cohort of white kids other white people would be ok with it. I think this is a legacy of segregated schools. I find it very annoying.

Or maybe they just need the program to be more successful and more students will seek it out? Sounds like the IB pass rates are abysmal so far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:eastern does have a school within a school ib program. it hasnt substantially increased the in-boundary enrollment. the application high schools are not just walls and they help w middle school buy-in.

They need a group of white kids to attend. If there was a cohort of white kids other white people would be ok with it. I think this is a legacy of segregated schools. I find it very annoying.

What they need is to get some of their students-- any of them-- to perform on grade level. And to guarantee grade-level work to all who can handle it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:eastern does have a school within a school ib program. it hasnt substantially increased the in-boundary enrollment. the application high schools are not just walls and they help w middle school buy-in.

They need a group of white kids to attend. If there was a cohort of white kids other white people would be ok with it. I think this is a legacy of segregated schools. I find it very annoying.

As a white parent, I don't care how many white students are at a school if only 2% are at grade level. Never gonna attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They do have a shot at their neighborhood school. Which they are choosing not to attend. Maybe it's because they want to be around other students who are on grade level, I dunno.

If you think DC selective schools are a private school experience you have a lot to learn about private schools.

I have a child who attended private and another at an application school. They are very different. My kid at an application school was too advanced for private. Privates are for rich kids, not necessarily smart/academically advanced kids. There are often not enough kids to make an advance class in privates.

Then your child attended a 3rd or 4th tier private—the dregs.

[Anonymous]

To the contrary, DCPS should add more application-only selective high schools - create a true magnate school system.

[Anonymous]

Answer to the post question: absolutely not for the myriad reasons offered by other PPs. The question is so naïve.

[Anonymous]

It is also inefficient to spread specialized resources across every high school. Duke Ellington is a palace for performing arts. It has teachers and facilities geared towards the specialized interests of arts-focused students. Why would those kids want to go to a generic high school with a minimal arts focus over a magnet program?

[Anonymous]

I'm in Richmond, which is similar. Most UMC families either leave for private/the suburbs or apply to the governor's schools or application only schools.

Even giving our zoned elementary school a chance was an exercise in faith for me, bringing up a lot of (partly irrational) anxiety. But listening to the Nikole Hannah Jones series' The Problem We All Live With and other similar material helped me get over myself.

Middle school is where people start fleeing or using the lottery. I know parents who are similarly supportive of school integration but once you get to high school, it's a choice that your high schooler should have a lot of say in. "Hey kid, sure you could apply to these specialty schools but we're going to make you go to the zoned school" is a hard sell. So I've made peace with supporting my kids, who will almost certainly have many public choices other than their zoned school.

[Anonymous]

You already have this with Charters as they tend to kick kids out which leaves them going back to their IB school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If each public school had an academically talented program, (Think School within a School) couldn't it raise the profile of other neighborhood schools (Roosevelt, Cardozo, Dunbar, Coolidge, Eastern)

There aren't enough high-performing kids to have the math work out-- the averages wouldn't go up by much, the programs would be too small to have an appealing offering, and it would be really costly to operate because the programs would be small. And if it did happen, the racial disparities would be so painfully obvious, it just isn't doable.

I think nothing gets better until they make a massive investment into middle school and remediation.

Dunbar has a Pre-Engineering program and also Eastern has an IB program.

And Coolidge has an Early College school within...just waiting for that profile to come up. Great armchair quarterbacking, OP! The answer is a hard no, unless DCPS wants to tank it's most successful enrollment grade span among the other issues noted in this thread.

[Anonymous]

Prioritizing equity means everyone gets nothing