Ward Five Proposal
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Anonymous
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Langdon's not a great building, but I think it's pretty big. Might be able to accomodate the EC w renovations. Don't think Noyes or Burroughs could. Not sure about Brown.
The other factor is geography. Presumably they'll want to spread the open schools around. |
Anonymous
| Langdon will need substantial updating and a addition. I think they would close it..they are sitting on a lot of land that is worth a lot of money. The city could bribng in $$ by letting a charter in the building and allowing them to update it, build on the land and let not forget how much money they can get on rent and taxe. - just like Haynes and CCPCS (new location) |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
| Wheatley is also a newly renovated building, I believe. |
Anonymous
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Wheatley has a hot shot TFA principal who left Janney 3 years ago to transform Wheatley.
How's that working out? |
Anonymous
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As a ward 5 resident who not currently in the DCPS system (and I don't know many people in my Brookland/Woodridge neighborhood who are), my main questions are: will these proposals get more middle-class families into the system? Are these school options that will be attractive for families like mine? Since I know almost no one sending kids to Ward 5 schools, the schools that close are kind of irrelevant to me.
What do you think of the proposal? On its face it sounds interesting (language/arts, IB, and STEM all seem like good options). But the devil is in the details. |
Anonymous
| I vote for option 1- art/language focus. that would be awesome... |
Anonymous
| Having had some experience with an elementary IB program. I want nothing do with it. It will not keep my 5 year old in the Ward 5 schools. The option I would like is a Core Knowledge program. |
Anonymous
How come? |
Anonymous
| The new magnet program is the thing to watch here. |
Anonymous
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STAY OPEN
1. Langdon (75) 2. Buroughs (39) 4. Browne (29) 5. Noyes (28 ) CLOSE 3. Brookland (37) 6. Marshall (26) 7. Wheatley (20) |
Anonymous
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A Middle school IB program? http://www.ibo.org/myp/
IB isn't some trendy term you can throw around. International Baccalaureate is a rigorous, intense curriculum in which any students in DC scoring, at minimum, Proficient are going to be hard-pressed to succeed. I attended a full IB program in high school in another city and state - and it was intense... Much more than basic reading and writing skills are required. Good luck with this one, DCPS. I can't imagine any but the city's best & brightest succeeding here, much less 300 kids from Ward 5 where the majority of children do not achieve proficiency in basic reading tests. |
Anonymous
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PP, the IBO does not directly oversee an ES or MS (PYP or MYP) after accreditation the way it evaluates students at the HS program. In other words, at the PYP level, once the school is accredited, it is the teachers' evaluations and grades that determine success in the curriculum, just like any other ES school. So, what you get at the PYP level is just the IB framework. The same is true at the MYP level, although schools may opt to have their grades validated by IB external evaluators. Only at the HS level is it required that the assessments that determine the success of the student in IB be conducted by the IB evaluators to grant the Diploma.
So, if you, as a parent, are interested in IB as a rigorous, international diploma that validates your child's academic success beyond the public school environment, know that the before high school, you don't get rigorous assessment and evaluation, necessarily, in the early year IB programs. They are a curriculum framework, like many others, subject to the skills and perceptions of the individual school teacher. |
Anonymous
| A pp asked how come I hated the IB program. Yes I can see how IB really can be a challenging program for well off kids that have a lot of parental investment. That is why it works in places like Montgomery country and Washington International School. But it presumes a basis of skill and content knowledge that teachers can work with and expand. I was at a title one school and kids were lost, the teachers overwhelmed and the school under-resourced. The problem is that a lot of these kids are missing so many of the basics that the rigor that IB is supposed to bring is nearly impossible to implement with out more school hours in a day and a lot of money. Those same conditions would frame any school that they chose in ward 5. Just saying IB does not make a program rigorous. There is a lot more that needs to go into the mix and IB is really hard if not impossible to implement in the Ward 5 environment. |
Anonymous
13:12 here. Thank you for fleshing out my point. Success in IB does require a lot of precursor skills as well as parental involvement and support along the way. And yes, I realize the MYP and PYP are not externally and internationally evaluated as my final exams were in HS, so who knows how watered down the program on the ground in ward 5 might become... But it's unfair to ask parents to support such a plan for middle schools when, as evidenced by Elementary scores, such a program in its ideal could never be implemented successfully. I want to have optimism, but frankly, DCPS is failing children in Ward 5 on any number of levels, only one of which is not having a middle school. |