DCPS Middle School problem in the Washington Post

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about why they are building a $50million (and then some due to the "unknown" gas line) middle school in Brookland for 550 students when the demographic trends in Brookland are sending fewer and fewer InBounds kids to the local elementaries. They barely have half those numbers in feeder schools. How will they attract students to this school when they can't attract them to the local DCPS and everyone we know attends charters or privates.

I live in the Brookland area and if my child was not in a DCI feeder, I would consider the new Brookland school. It would be far better than the ridiculous PS-8 model. My question to you PP, is where should all the students who are in attendance at Langdon, Noyes, Burrells, Bunker Hill, etc send their children to obtain a MS education? Or, do you think that because you were fortunate enough to get into a decent charter, or have the financial means to pay private you couldn't give a rats ass about these children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is definitely a lot of waste in the DCPS organization, including the crony capitalism you're discussing -- but there's also staff bloat and inefficient planning. It's still old news -- DCPS has always been wasteful, but, strangely enough, it's better than it used to be! The Charters have been a godsend in terms of increasing available options to everyone in the City, especially Wards 7 and 8!! I know we have problems, but at least we're on the right path.

+1. If the emptying out of the DCPS middle schools is because those students are going somewhere that actually educates them perhaps the hand wringing isn't necessary.

[Anonymous]

This boils down to an issue that DCPS needs to address: Why is it that some parents don't want their kids to go to school with the kids in their neighborhood and instead spend all their efforts on charters and OOB?

[Anonymous]

^^ because real estate is so expensive in DC. People don't mind living in rough or even somewhat scary neighborhoods (and the crime rate in DC has improved a lot in the last 15 years), but they don't want their kids picked-on/shunned in neighborhood DCPS. They also want their child to be on an educational trajectory that will include college and be able to read and write at grade level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This boils down to an issue that DCPS needs to address: Why is it that some parents don't want their kids to go to school with the kids in their neighborhood and instead spend all their efforts on charters and OOB?

The focus of this question is wrong-backwards; how to help the kids is the main question. Plus, it's completely bleeding obvious why parents across the entire city are looking for better schools than the what's going on at some of the local schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This boils down to an issue that DCPS needs to address: Why is it that some parents don't want their kids to go to school with the kids in their neighborhood and instead spend all their efforts on charters and OOB?

This boils down to an issue that DCPS needs to address: Why is it that some parents don't want their kids to go to school with the kids in their neighborhood who are part of the long-time families who lived there before their own relatively recent arrival / or who live in subsidized housing ... and instead spend all their efforts on charters and OOB?

Fixed this for you. With the fix, you can see that this is something the public SCHOOL system cannot fix successfully. It could try, by abolishing neighborhood school boundaries and going to a 100% lottery enrollment model (as has been discussed on DCUM already, so I won't).

[Anonymous]

100% lottery? Do this to my DC with unacceptable results and DC will not be enrolling in DCPS, period. More middle-class flight ensues, unless there are test-in possibilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:100% lottery? Do this to my DC with unacceptable results and DC will not be enrolling in DCPS, period. More middle-class flight ensues, unless there are test-in possibilities.

Yes, we've had 271 threads on your exact point in the past month. Please let's not derail this thread on a super-recent article with the 272nd thread on the red herring lottery topic.

[Anonymous]

Any efforts to keep DCPS middle schools vibrant will fail if those making decisions don't acknowledge the hard truth that we have vast differences in the preparation, motivation and acheivement levels of students. Well-prepared, motivated and achieving students need a way to find one another in the same school, not be spread out among schools largely populated by the opposite kind of student. Both ends of the spectrum need attention, care and focus but not acknowledging that the spectrum exists and is the cause of families not choosing DCPS middle schools is self defeating. DCPS should establish magnet schools, specialized programs. Academies and the like to find a way to concentrate academically well-prepared cohorts of kids and give equal or greater funding, attention and quality programming to those who are struggling. It will be politically painful in the short term but should consolidate support and numbers for the public schools and eventually allow improvements in preparation in elementary schools to make all middle schools less about remediation and bare minimum literacy.

Yes, this is a pipe dream but no problem. The charter sector will do the same thing but with more negative effects on the DCPS middle schools left behind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:100% lottery? Do this to my DC with unacceptable results and DC will not be enrolling in DCPS, period. More middle-class flight ensues, unless there are test-in possibilities.

Yeah, but did you consider the possibility that your child would not be smart enough to test-in. I know, I know, everyone thinks their child is gifted.

[Anonymous]

...aaaaand the DCUM Snowflake Troll goes nuts...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:100% lottery? Do this to my DC with unacceptable results and DC will not be enrolling in DCPS, period. More middle-class flight ensues, unless there are test-in possibilities.

Yeah, but did you consider the possibility that your child would not be smart enough to test-in. I know, I know, everyone thinks their child is gifted.

Yes, I have considered that possibility, but DC is at grade level, which is better than most in DCPS. The bar can be set pretty low, imho. Ending social promotion in elementary school might light a fire under some union fannies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:100% lottery? Do this to my DC with unacceptable results and DC will not be enrolling in DCPS, period. More middle-class flight ensues, unless there are test-in possibilities.

Yeah, but did you consider the possibility that your child would not be smart enough to test-in. I know, I know, everyone thinks their child is gifted.

Yes, I have considered that possibility, but DC is at grade level, which is better than most in DCPS. The bar can be set pretty low, imho. Ending social promotion in elementary school might light a fire under some union fannies.

But magnet schools by implicit definition are for children who are advanced in learning. Why should the bar be set low? I don't have a problem with a magnet school, but if it to be a magnet school with advanced children, I don't want my advanced kid in class with your average learning kid. The curriculum would have to be slowed or dumbed down for your average kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:100% lottery? Do this to my DC with unacceptable results and DC will not be enrolling in DCPS, period. More middle-class flight ensues, unless there are test-in possibilities.

Yeah, but did you consider the possibility that your child would not be smart enough to test-in. I know, I know, everyone thinks their child is gifted.

Yes, I have considered that possibility, but DC is at grade level, which is better than most in DCPS. The bar can be set pretty low, imho. Ending social promotion in elementary school might light a fire under some union fannies.

I don't think this is a union thing. YY does not believe in holding children back, and to my knowledge has not failed to promote a child beyond K. The administration is on record as stating that "studies have shown that holding children back in elementary is much more detrimental than promotion to the next level". This was discussed ad nauseum several years ago when YY implemented its non-immersion track curriculum. The teachers at the school are not unionized. I can't imagine that YY is the only non-union school that believes the studies regarding this issue.

[Anonymous]

Another take away from the article: what the hell is going on at Ross? Eight fifth graders? Twenty-four fourth graders? What a waste of space and resources, and teachers. Those kids should be moved into a different elementary school and stop wasting all theory spent to operate that space to educate so few children. As a parent and tax payer I find that to be outrageous.