Is Real Change Even Possible?

[Anonymous]

It’s genuinely hard to argue that DC schools haven’t improved immensely in the past 20 years.

That being said, Ward 5 is, frankly, a disaster, especially middle feeding into Dunbar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS won’t change until people are willing to make policy decisions without the fear of being called “racist.”

Example 1: “Gifted” programs would keep middle and upper income families in neighborhood schools, improving academic outcomes (and providing low income academically advanced children a better education).

Example 2: Feeder patterns that concentrate higher performing elementary schools to improve middle and high schools. Feed all the hill middle schools into one school … magically you have a second Deal. Bet you would get a second Wilson out of that too.

But we can’t do either of those things, because it’s “racist.”

Regarding the suggestion to feed all Hill elementariness into one HS, I think there are other obstacles as well. Currently they feed to three schools and to create a single MS, you'd need a huge building. You need at least two MSs there for space reasons.

Also, while I agree that there is some dogma involved that prevents pushing for more opportunities for high achieving kids on the Hill, I also think you have conflicting goals of a lot of parents in the neighborhood. Even among parents of high achieving kids, you also have this attachment to neighborhood schools and walkability, and when you look at how far apart Jefferson and Eliot-Hine currently are, you can see that a lot of families on the Hill would have to sacrifice walkable school commutes to make this happen. among the UMC families I know who are choosing to attend their IB MS on the Hill, a major selling point is keeping the walkable commutes they've had in elementary which really become part of the culture of the neighborhood, and also help a lot when you have kids in elementary and MS. I think this is one of the reasons that the school where you are seeing the most buy in from IB families presently is Stuart-Hobson -- it's very close to the feeder elementary that also has the most IB buy in in the zone (L-T) and also very close to JOW (still not a ton of IB buy in but improving and likely to make a big jump when they open their new campus in 2026), and that's appealing for families who have gotten used to short walking and biking commutes for the last 6 or 7 years.

Likewise one reason Jefferson has struggled so much with getting buy in is that the feeder with the most IB buy in, Brent, is also the least convenient to that MS campus. But buy in at Amidon-Bowen is improving and that has helped -- families see the benefit of a nearby school and want to keep the vibes going.

I don't think your premise is totally wrong -- I absolutely think the resistance to tracking and better opportunities for higher achieving kids is due to a misguided belief that supporting academic achievers is racist. But specifically regarding the idea of a unified Hill middle school, the resistance may once have been due to misguided equity beliefs, but I don't think it is anymore. As all three Hill MSs have increased their IB buy in, and as the Hill builds off the success of schools like Brent, Maury, and L-T with success at Payne, Chisolm, JOW, and Amidon-Bowen, I think you will continue to see increased buy in at all three MSs. Which might actually lead to a better trajectory than Deal, which has constant issues with overcrowding, if the result is three strong MSs instead of just one.

This. The single middle school idea is a clueless person's idea. The instant a high performance school was created, it would become overcrowded. People living IB would switch in, so it could happen fast. There is no building, and no real estate, big enough.

I suppose going down to just two rather than three might be doable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS won’t change until people are willing to make policy decisions without the fear of being called “racist.”

Example 1: “Gifted” programs would keep middle and upper income families in neighborhood schools, improving academic outcomes (and providing low income academically advanced children a better education).

Example 2: Feeder patterns that concentrate higher performing elementary schools to improve middle and high schools. Feed all the hill middle schools into one school … magically you have a second Deal. Bet you would get a second Wilson out of that too.

But we can’t do either of those things, because it’s “racist.”

Regarding the suggestion to feed all Hill elementariness into one HS, I think there are other obstacles as well. Currently they feed to three schools and to create a single MS, you'd need a huge building. You need at least two MSs there for space reasons.

Also, while I agree that there is some dogma involved that prevents pushing for more opportunities for high achieving kids on the Hill, I also think you have conflicting goals of a lot of parents in the neighborhood. Even among parents of high achieving kids, you also have this attachment to neighborhood schools and walkability, and when you look at how far apart Jefferson and Eliot-Hine currently are, you can see that a lot of families on the Hill would have to sacrifice walkable school commutes to make this happen. among the UMC families I know who are choosing to attend their IB MS on the Hill, a major selling point is keeping the walkable commutes they've had in elementary which really become part of the culture of the neighborhood, and also help a lot when you have kids in elementary and MS. I think this is one of the reasons that the school where you are seeing the most buy in from IB families presently is Stuart-Hobson -- it's very close to the feeder elementary that also has the most IB buy in in the zone (L-T) and also very close to JOW (still not a ton of IB buy in but improving and likely to make a big jump when they open their new campus in 2026), and that's appealing for families who have gotten used to short walking and biking commutes for the last 6 or 7 years.

Likewise one reason Jefferson has struggled so much with getting buy in is that the feeder with the most IB buy in, Brent, is also the least convenient to that MS campus. But buy in at Amidon-Bowen is improving and that has helped -- families see the benefit of a nearby school and want to keep the vibes going.

I don't think your premise is totally wrong -- I absolutely think the resistance to tracking and better opportunities for higher achieving kids is due to a misguided belief that supporting academic achievers is racist. But specifically regarding the idea of a unified Hill middle school, the resistance may once have been due to misguided equity beliefs, but I don't think it is anymore. As all three Hill MSs have increased their IB buy in, and as the Hill builds off the success of schools like Brent, Maury, and L-T with success at Payne, Chisolm, JOW, and Amidon-Bowen, I think you will continue to see increased buy in at all three MSs. Which might actually lead to a better trajectory than Deal, which has constant issues with overcrowding, if the result is three strong MSs instead of just one.

Chisholm is actually less convenient than Brent is distance-wise to Jefferson, and there are more families from Chisholm attending Jefferson than Brent families. Also, Van Ness has (by far) the highest percentage of IB enrollment of the Jefferson feeder schools, but that may be considered different than IB buy-in.

But on the broader point, I agree it doesn't make sense to create one giant MS. There is definitely more buy-in at all three MS, and that's positive, but progress could be so much faster if this wasn't one giant collective action problem.

[Anonymous]

I think what bothers/worries me is not the demographics pushing the schools this way and that, it's more things like the Amplify science curriculum being incorrect, or Walls students staying that they aren't learning in class, or kids not reading real books in English.

In other words, the curriculum and the teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think what bothers/worries me is not the demographics pushing the schools this way and that, it's more things like the Amiplify science curriculum being iniciiiorrect, or Walls students staying tioooiiohat they aren't learning in class, or kids not readingkji real books in English.

In other words, the curriculum and the teaching.

Things like Amplify are chosen and required by someone at Central.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS won’t change until people are willing to make policy decisions without the fear of being called “racist.”

Example 1: “Gifted” programs would keep middle and upper income families in neighborhood schools, improving academic outcomes (and providing low income academically advanced children a better education).

Example 2: Feeder patterns that concentrate higher performing elementary schools to improve middle and high schools. Feed all the hill middle schools into one school … magically you have a second Deal. Bet you would get a second Wilson out of that too.

But we can’t do either of those things, because it’s “racist.”

Regarding the suggestion to feed all Hill elementariness into one HS, I think there are other obstacles as well. Currently they feed to three schools and to create a single MS, you'd need a huge building. You need at least two MSs there for space reasons.

Also, while I agree that there is some dogma involved that prevents pushing for more opportunities for high achieving kids on the Hill, I also think you have conflicting goals of a lot of parents in the neighborhood. Even among parents of high achieving kids, you also have this attachment to neighborhood schools and walkability, and when you look at how far apart Jefferson and Eliot-Hine currently are, you can see that a lot of families on the Hill would have to sacrifice walkable school commutes to make this happen. among the UMC families I know who are choosing to attend their IB MS on the Hill, a major selling point is keeping the walkable commutes they've had in elementary which really become part of the culture of the neighborhood, and also help a lot when you have kids in elementary and MS. I think this is one of the reasons that the school where you are seeing the most buy in from IB families presently is Stuart-Hobson -- it's very close to the feeder elementary that also has the most IB buy in in the zone (L-T) and also very close to JOW (still not a ton of IB buy in but improving and likely to make a big jump when they open their new campus in 2026), and that's appealing for families who have gotten used to short walking and biking commutes for the last 6 or 7 years.

Likewise one reason Jefferson has struggled so much with getting buy in is that the feeder with the most IB buy in, Brent, is also the least convenient to that MS campus. But buy in at Amidon-Bowen is improving and that has helped -- families see the benefit of a nearby school and want to keep the vibes going.

I don't think your premise is totally wrong -- I absolutely think the resistance to tracking and better opportunities for higher achieving kids is due to a misguided belief that supporting academic achievers is racist. But specifically regarding the idea of a unified Hill middle school, the resistance may once have been due to misguided equity beliefs, but I don't think it is anymore. As all three Hill MSs have increased their IB buy in, and as the Hill builds off the success of schools like Brent, Maury, and L-T with success at Payne, Chisolm, JOW, and Amidon-Bowen, I think you will continue to see increased buy in at all three MSs. Which might actually lead to a better trajectory than Deal, which has constant issues with overcrowding, if the result is three strong MSs instead of just one.

Chisholm is actually less convenient than Brent is distance-wise to Jefferson, and there are more families from Chisholm attending Jefferson than Brent families. Also, Van Ness has (by far) the highest percentage of IB enrollment of the Jefferson feeder schools, but that may be considered different than IB buy-in.

But on the broader point, I agree it doesn't make sense to create one giant MS. There is definitely more buy-in at all three MS, and that's positive, but progress could be so much faster if this wasn't one giant collective action problem.

I think all of the middle schools couldn’t feed to one MS at this stage, but I also think that Jefferson is the one of those 3 that has basically stagnated in terms of IB UMC buy-in and it’s not unrelated to the racial politics that went into zoning Brent for it. If you zoned Brent for SH (and keep in mind that a corner of the zone already has proximity preference), you’d get more MS buy-in from Brent families and more from the UMC families in the other feeders… which would also drive additional IB families to Watkins & JOW and keep them there. Basically, I think you could improve SH, Brent and all 3 SH feeders while making a minimal impact on Jefferson. The only reason they don’t do it is racial politics/optics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS won’t change until people are willing to make policy decisions without the fear of being called “racist.”

Example 1: “Gifted” programs would keep middle and upper income families in neighborhood schools, improving academic outcomes (and providing low income academically advanced children a better education).

Example 2: Feeder patterns that concentrate higher performing elementary schools to improve middle and high schools. Feed all the hill middle schools into one school … magically you have a second Deal. Bet you would get a second Wilson out of that too.

But we can’t do either of those things, because it’s “racist.”

Regarding the suggestion to feed all Hill elementariness into one HS, I think there are other obstacles as well. Currently they feed to three schools and to create a single MS, you'd need a huge building. You need at least two MSs there for space reasons.

Also, while I agree that there is some dogma involved that prevents pushing for more opportunities for high achieving kids on the Hill, I also think you have conflicting goals of a lot of parents in the neighborhood. Even among parents of high achieving kids, you also have this attachment to neighborhood schools and walkability, and when you look at how far apart Jefferson and Eliot-Hine currently are, you can see that a lot of families on the Hill would have to sacrifice walkable school commutes to make this happen. among the UMC families I know who are choosing to attend their IB MS on the Hill, a major selling point is keeping the walkable commutes they've had in elementary which really become part of the culture of the neighborhood, and also help a lot when you have kids in elementary and MS. I think this is one of the reasons that the school where you are seeing the most buy in from IB families presently is Stuart-Hobson -- it's very close to the feeder elementary that also has the most IB buy in in the zone (L-T) and also very close to JOW (still not a ton of IB buy in but improving and likely to make a big jump when they open their new campus in 2026), and that's appealing for families who have gotten used to short walking and biking commutes for the last 6 or 7 years.

Likewise one reason Jefferson has struggled so much with getting buy in is that the feeder with the most IB buy in, Brent, is also the least convenient to that MS campus. But buy in at Amidon-Bowen is improving and that has helped -- families see the benefit of a nearby school and want to keep the vibes going.

I don't think your premise is totally wrong -- I absolutely think the resistance to tracking and better opportunities for higher achieving kids is due to a misguided belief that supporting academic achievers is racist. But specifically regarding the idea of a unified Hill middle school, the resistance may once have been due to misguided equity beliefs, but I don't think it is anymore. As all three Hill MSs have increased their IB buy in, and as the Hill builds off the success of schools like Brent, Maury, and L-T with success at Payne, Chisolm, JOW, and Amidon-Bowen, I think you will continue to see increased buy in at all three MSs. Which might actually lead to a better trajectory than Deal, which has constant issues with overcrowding, if the result is three strong MSs instead of just one.

I totally agree that having one middle school is a non starter. And both SH and EH are getting a lot more buy-in for various reasons. Both have feeder school boundaries that are close to the MS. In addition to distance, those two schools don't require you to go under/over a highway, cross busy streets, etc as many Jefferson walkers would need to do. As somebody who has lived in DC for 20+ and worked as an educator for more than a decade, I can 100% say that things have changed. Even within the last 10 years, at least on Capitol Hill, families used to sprint to get on waitlists for charters across the city starting in ECE. Now there are waitlists and IB buy in at most of all the elementary schools in the Eastern Boundary. Not sure if that is the same in other parts of the city.
All of the middle schools are supposed to offer at least algebra by 8th and some offer geometry by 8th - which is new. Also after (understandable) push back, many if not all DCPS schools are actually reading novels now instead of just shorter excerpts. And not just locally, but there is a national shift to teaching reading instruction based on actual science/data informed practices. So much damage was done by the decades of improper reading/phonics instruction.
So yes, there are definitely areas where things aren't going well, and being part of a large school system (whose funding can get held up because of national politics) is going to create tension, there are more families staying in DC schools than previous decades, which is a positive sign and means increased budgets for the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS won’t change until people are willing to make policy decisions without the fear of being called “racist.”

Example 1: “Gifted” programs would keep middle and upper income families in neighborhood schools, improving academic outcomes (and providing low income academically advanced children a better education).

Example 2: Feeder patterns that concentrate higher performing elementary schools to improve middle and high schools. Feed all the hill middle schools into one school … magically you have a second Deal. Bet you would get a second Wilson out of that too.

But we can’t do either of those things, because it’s “racist.”

Regarding the suggestion to feed all Hill elementariness into one HS, I think there are other obstacles as well. Currently they feed to three schools and to create a single MS, you'd need a huge building. You need at least two MSs there for space reasons.

Also, while I agree that there is some dogma involved that prevents pushing for more opportunities for high achieving kids on the Hill, I also think you have conflicting goals of a lot of parents in the neighborhood. Even among parents of high achieving kids, you also have this attachment to neighborhood schools and walkability, and when you look at how far apart Jefferson and Eliot-Hine currently are, you can see that a lot of families on the Hill would have to sacrifice walkable school commutes to make this happen. among the UMC families I know who are choosing to attend their IB MS on the Hill, a major selling point is keeping the walkable commutes they've had in elementary which really become part of the culture of the neighborhood, and also help a lot when you have kids in elementary and MS. I think this is one of the reasons that the school where you are seeing the most buy in from IB families presently is Stuart-Hobson -- it's very close to the feeder elementary that also has the most IB buy in in the zone (L-T) and also very close to JOW (still not a ton of IB buy in but improving and likely to make a big jump when they open their new campus in 2026), and that's appealing for families who have gotten used to short walking and biking commutes for the last 6 or 7 years.

Likewise one reason Jefferson has struggled so much with getting buy in is that the feeder with the most IB buy in, Brent, is also the least convenient to that MS campus. But buy in at Amidon-Bowen is improving and that has helped -- families see the benefit of a nearby school and want to keep the vibes going.

I don't think your premise is totally wrong -- I absolutely think the resistance to tracking and better opportunities for higher achieving kids is due to a misguided belief that supporting academic achievers is racist. But specifically regarding the idea of a unified Hill middle school, the resistance may once have been due to misguided equity beliefs, but I don't think it is anymore. As all three Hill MSs have increased their IB buy in, and as the Hill builds off the success of schools like Brent, Maury, and L-T with success at Payne, Chisolm, JOW, and Amidon-Bowen, I think you will continue to see increased buy in at all three MSs. Which might actually lead to a better trajectory than Deal, which has constant issues with overcrowding, if the result is three strong MSs instead of just one.

On the one hand, I think this seems overly optimistic; on the other, I can't help but note how quickly change came to Brent, Maury and L-T in that order once it came. I do think it is harder at the MS level, however, especially where none of these MSes is part of a MS feeder pattern with all gentrified or even steadily improving schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think what bothers/worries me is not the demographics pushing the schools this way and that, it's more things like the Amiplify science curriculum being iniciiiorrect, or Walls students staying tioooiiohat they aren't learning in class, or kids not readingkji real books in English.

In other words, the curriculum and the teaching.

Things like Amplify are chosen and required by someone at Central.

I teach in DCPS and I assure you that DCPS curricular materials are just awful. To the extent that teachers rely on them, it diminishes student learning.

And administrators at my school never embrace rigorous and challenging teaching. Not all teachers are great, but serious, impactful, creative teachers are almost never encouraged and supported. Administrators truly don’t care about education. What they care about is control (of students and teachers) and assembling positive metrics (which are almost always so manipulated that they’re practically or entirely useless). They never model curiosity, imagination, creativity, or engagement with learning. This is a broad generalization, but I’ve found it true for 90-95% of administrators I’ve encountered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think what bothers/worries me is not the demographics pushing the schools this way and that, it's more things like the Amiplify science curriculum being iniciiiorrect, or Walls students staying tioooiiohat they aren't learning in class, or kids not readingkji real books in English.

In other words, the curriculum and the teaching.

Things like Amplify are chosen and required by someone at Central.

I teach in DCPS and I assure you that DCPS curricular materials are just awful. To the extent that teachers rely on them, it diminishes student learning.

And administrators at my school never embrace rigorous and challenging teaching. Not all teachers are great, but serious, impactful, creative teachers are almost never encouraged and supported. Administrators truly don’t care about education. What they care about is control (of students and teachers) and assembling positive metrics (which are almost always so manipulated that they’re practically or entirely useless). They never model curiosity, imagination, creativity, or engagement with learning. This is a broad generalization, but I’ve found it true for 90-95% of administrators I’ve encountered.

Does your characterization of administrators apply specifically to DCPS or to schools elsewhere too?

[Anonymous]

Has anyone going on and on about MS IB buy in actually looked at the IB percentages at these schools? Eliot-Hine and Jefferson have been steadily growing over time - both from around 40% IB four years ago to over 50% now. Meanwhile Stuart-Hobson has hovered around 25-30%. At the elementary schools, IB percentages over time largely mirror the middle schools they feed into.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone going on and on about MS IB buy in actually looked at the IB percentages at these schools? Eliot-Hine and Jefferson have been steadily growing over time - both from around 40% IB four years ago to over 50% now. Meanwhile Stuart-Hobson has hovered around 25-30%. At the elementary schools, IB percentages over time largely mirror the middle schools they feed into.

I think you need to look at the IB capture rate rather than the percent of students that are IB.

And also, SH attracts OOB students to its feeders and itself directly *because* it is a desirable school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone going on and on about MS IB buy in actually looked at the IB percentages at these schools? Eliot-Hine and Jefferson have been steadily growing over time - both from around 40% IB four years ago to over 50% now. Meanwhile Stuart-Hobson has hovered around 25-30%. At the elementary schools, IB percentages over time largely mirror the middle schools they feed into.

I think you need to look at the IB capture rate rather than the percent of students that are IB.

And also, SH attracts OOB students to its feeders and itself directly *because* it is a desirable school.

I feel like this reaction was defensive… I think both points are valid. More families from feeder elementary schools are choosing to go to their inbounds middle school. Also some families choose to go to the schools because they are viewed as higher quality than where ever they are in bounds for. Also with the strange gerrymandered looking boundaries of some of the Capitol Hill schools, some of the out of bounds kids might actually live right nearby, but have gotten into feeders with proximity preference. So while technically out of bounds, they are still nearby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think what bothers/worries me is not the demographics pushing the schools this way and that, it's more things like the Amiplify science curriculum being iniciiiorrect, or Walls students staying tioooiiohat they aren't learning in class, or kids not readingkji real books in English.

In other words, the curriculum and the teaching.

Things like Amplify are chosen and required by someone at Central.

I teach in DCPS and I assure you that DCPS curricular materials are just awful. To the extent that teachers rely on them, it diminishes student learning.

And administrators at my school never embrace rigorous and challenging teaching. Not all teachers are great, but serious, impactful, creative teachers are almost never encouraged and supported. Administrators truly don’t care about education. What they care about is control (of students and teachers) and assembling positive metrics (which are almost always so manipulated that they’re practically or entirely useless). They never model curiosity, imagination, creativity, or engagement with learning. This is a broad generalization, but I’ve found it true for 90-95% of administrators I’ve encountered.

Yes, thank you, this is what I was talking about and why I'm concerned. I was all about DCPS in elementary, but as my kids aged into middle school I feel really disheartened by the lack of rigorous and challenging teaching. We moved to a charter. This validating to hear.

So many amazing teachers in the system, and kids with so much potential. I wish they were better supported by the administrators at DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think what bothers/worries me is not the demographics pushing the schools this way and that, it's more things like the Amiplify science curriculum being iniciiiorrect, or Walls students staying tioooiiohat they aren't learning in class, or kids not readingkji real books in English.

In other words, the curriculum and the teaching.

Things like Amplify are chosen and required by someone at Central.

I teach in DCPS and I assure you that DCPS curricular materials are just awful. To the extent that teachers rely on them, it diminishes student learning.

And administrators at my school never embrace rigorous and challenging teaching. Not all teachers are great, but serious, impactful, creative teachers are almost never encouraged and supported. Administrators truly don’t care about education. What they care about is control (of students and teachers) and assembling positive metrics (which are almost always so manipulated that they’re practically or entirely useless). They never model curiosity, imagination, creativity, or engagement with learning. This is a broad generalization, but I’ve found it true for 90-95% of administrators I’ve encountered.

Does your characterization of administrators apply specifically to DCPS or to schools elsewhere too?

PP here. It’s not limited to DCPS by any stretch but it’s more prevalent and uniform here, as compared with the Maryland suburbs.