School Integration in Manhattan piece in the Atlantic

[Anonymous]

I think the former President was just fine with school choice. In that family's case, they chose Sidwell. I'm fine with school choice, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Same. I don't need a separate program for its own sake, but it seems like the only way to get DD adrquately challenged. If DCPS and the mayor were willing to spend an adequate amount of money on schools overall, we might not have this problem. But they will not retain high SES families and have enough integration until that happens.

DCPS is clearly willing to adjust its course offerings in MS and HS to challenge kids appropriately. Elementary school is less about challenge and more about learning the basics. If you would just send your kid to your local schools, the schools would adjust.

How so? 2/3 of jefferson kids start school well below grade level. and you wonder why high SES famileis from brent won't send their kid there. There is just no to differentiate when kids are so far behind. Smart parents know this and unless the school as separated classes (and NOT the BS "honors classes for all" at Wilson in 9th grade)-they get out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Same. I don't need a separate program for its own sake, but it seems like the only way to get DD adrquately challenged. If DCPS and the mayor were willing to spend an adequate amount of money on schools overall, we might not have this problem. But they will not retain high SES families and have enough integration until that happens.

DCPS is clearly willing to adjust its course offerings in MS and HS to challenge kids appropriately. Elementary school is less about challenge and more about learning the basics. If you would just send your kid to your local schools, the schools would adjust.

How so? 2/3 of jefferson kids start school well below grade level. and you wonder why high SES famileis from brent won't send their kid there. There is just no to differentiate when kids are so far behind. Smart parents know this and unless the school as separated classes (and NOT the BS "honors classes for all" at Wilson in 9th grade)-they get out.

So please enlighten me : are there no separate level classes? Is tracked education just out of fashion, or what? That would seem to be a big problem if so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Same. I don't need a separate program for its own sake, but it seems like the only way to get DD adrquately challenged. If DCPS and the mayor were willing to spend an adequate amount of money on schools overall, we might not have this problem. But they will not retain high SES families and have enough integration until that happens.

DCPS is clearly willing to adjust its course offerings in MS and HS to challenge kids appropriately. Elementary school is less about challenge and more about learning the basics. If you would just send your kid to your local schools, the schools would adjust.

How so? 2/3 of jefferson kids start school well below grade level. and you wonder why high SES famileis from brent won't send their kid there. There is just no to differentiate when kids are so far behind. Smart parents know this and unless the school as separated classes (and NOT the BS "honors classes for all" at Wilson in 9th grade)-they get out.

So please enlighten me : are there no separate level classes? Is tracked education just out of fashion, or what? That would seem to be a big problem if so.

There are tracked classes at Hardy and SH.

Jefferson doesn't yet offer them because there aren't enough children for whom it would be appropriate. Yet. They have never said that they won't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Same. I don't need a separate program for its own sake, but it seems like the only way to get DD adrquately challenged. If DCPS and the mayor were willing to spend an adequate amount of money on schools overall, we might not have this problem. But they will not retain high SES families and have enough integration until that happens.

DCPS is clearly willing to adjust its course offerings in MS and HS to challenge kids appropriately. Elementary school is less about challenge and more about learning the basics. If you would just send your kid to your local schools, the schools would adjust.

How so? 2/3 of jefferson kids start school well below grade level. and you wonder why high SES famileis from brent won't send their kid there. There is just no to differentiate when kids are so far behind. Smart parents know this and unless the school as separated classes (and NOT the BS "honors classes for all" at Wilson in 9th grade)-they get out.

So please enlighten me : are there no separate level classes? Is tracked education just out of fashion, or what? That would seem to be a big problem if so.

There are tracked classes at Hardy and SH.

Jefferson doesn't yet offer them because there aren't enough children for whom it would be appropriate. Yet. They have never said that they won't.

Even in the tracked classes the academics are below what they should be. And you still have to deal with behavior issues in the untracked classes and cafeteria etc.

[Anonymous]

I read the article. Agree with PP that it sounds so much like DC. Whenever someone has invested in a community by consciously buying a home in a particular school boundary and it gets changed, that represents a broken promise and most families with means will not accept the lower quality alternative offered. There is study upon study and we hear the same reasonable arguments with the data behind it again and again, but at the end of the day, you want to provide for your child the best way you can so families of means will always refuse a less ideal solution if they have alternatives. It's not rocket science. As someone said above, if you really want to force integration (whether its racial or socio economic) you'll have to force it...and even when you force it, people will still refuse by going private or moving.

And solutions like "controlled-choice" would just be new opportunities to work the system in DC.

[Anonymous]

For example, I believe Hardy only has advanced classes for English and Math, and even those classes are too large because DCPS can't fund another teacher for an extra class. Then you've got general social studies and history classes, among others that all the students take, that would flat-out suck for an advanced kid. And, as another poster mentioned, advanced 9th graders at Wilson have to suffer through a lost year until they get their advanced classes starting in 10th grade. There seems no real fix for the problem of supporting advanced (which in DC means "performing at grade level") students' needs when 85% of the student body is performing under grade level and DCPS has limited funds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read the article. Agree with PP that it sounds so much like DC. Whenever someone has invested in a community by consciously buying a home in a particular school boundary and it gets changed, that represents a broken promise and most families with means will not accept the lower quality alternative offered. There is study upon study and we hear the same reasonable arguments with the data behind it again and again, but at the end of the day, you want to provide for your child the best way you can so families of means will always refuse a less ideal solution if they have alternatives. It's not rocket science. As someone said above, if you really want to force integration (whether its racial or socio economic) you'll have to force it...and even when you force it, people will still refuse by going private or moving.

And solutions like "controlled-choice" would just be new opportunities to work the system in DC.

i think people are willing to accept some compromise for the common good, or at least for the good of their neighborhood friends with younger children who would benefit. But the quality gap and problems are just too great. DCPS, unfortunately, is not meeting us as a partner in our efforts, and in some ways is actively adversarial. And the bottom line is without adequate funding, it just won't work. Quality isn't cheap and calling people racist won't change that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For example, I believe Hardy only has advanced classes for English and Math, and even those classes are too large because DCPS can't fund another teacher for an extra class. Then you've got general social studies and history classes, among others that all the students take, that would flat-out suck for an advanced kid. And, as another poster mentioned, advanced 9th graders at Wilson have to suffer through a lost year until they get their advanced classes starting in 10th grade. There seems no real fix for the problem of supporting advanced (which in DC means "performing at grade level") students' needs when 85% of the student body is performing under grade level and DCPS has limited funds.

What public school is offering advanced classes for all middle school students in every subject?

Not Deal. Not Latin. Not BASIS. Not DCI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read the article. Agree with PP that it sounds so much like DC. Whenever someone has invested in a community by consciously buying a home in a particular school boundary and it gets changed, that represents a broken promise and most families with means will not accept the lower quality alternative offered. There is study upon study and we hear the same reasonable arguments with the data behind it again and again, but at the end of the day, you want to provide for your child the best way you can so families of means will always refuse a less ideal solution if they have alternatives. It's not rocket science. As someone said above, if you really want to force integration (whether its racial or socio economic) you'll have to force it...and even when you force it, people will still refuse by going private or moving.

And solutions like "controlled-choice" would just be new opportunities to work the system in DC.

i think people are willing to accept some compromise for the common good, or at least for the good of their neighborhood friends with younger children who would benefit. But the quality gap and problems are just too great. DCPS, unfortunately, is not meeting us as a partner in our efforts, and in some ways is actively adversarial. And the bottom line is without adequate funding, it just won't work. Quality isn't cheap and calling people racist won't change that.

After 7 years in DCPS (as a parent) and following all the issues (including attending every boundary meeting during the DME process 3-4 years ago) I truly believe that DCPS secretly wants to farm out where it's failing to charters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Same. I don't need a separate program for its own sake, but it seems like the only way to get DD adrquately challenged. If DCPS and the mayor were willing to spend an adequate amount of money on schools overall, we might not have this problem. But they will not retain high SES families and have enough integration until that happens.

DCPS is clearly willing to adjust its course offerings in MS and HS to challenge kids appropriately. Elementary school is less about challenge and more about learning the basics. If you would just send your kid to your local schools, the schools would adjust.

Deal is the only middle with advanced classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For example, I believe Hardy only has advanced classes for English and Math, and even those classes are too large because DCPS can't fund another teacher for an extra class. Then you've got general social studies and history classes, among others that all the students take, that would flat-out suck for an advanced kid. And, as another poster mentioned, advanced 9th graders at Wilson have to suffer through a lost year until they get their advanced classes starting in 10th grade. There seems no real fix for the problem of supporting advanced (which in DC means "performing at grade level") students' needs when 85% of the student body is performing under grade level and DCPS has limited funds.

What public school is offering advanced classes for all middle school students in every subject?

Not Deal. Not Latin. Not BASIS. Not DCI.

And you point is...?

Deal, Latin, and BASIS arguably don't need advanced classes for all, because their respective student bodies as a whole are performing at or near grade level anyway (DCI, not so much).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Same. I don't need a separate program for its own sake, but it seems like the only way to get DD adrquately challenged. If DCPS and the mayor were willing to spend an adequate amount of money on schools overall, we might not have this problem. But they will not retain high SES families and have enough integration until that happens.

DCPS is clearly willing to adjust its course offerings in MS and HS to challenge kids appropriately. Elementary school is less about challenge and more about learning the basics. If you would just send your kid to your local schools, the schools would adjust.

Deal is the only middle with advanced classes.

Deal and Hardy offer the same math classes.

Deal allows for advanced foreign language.

What other advanced classes can you take at Deal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read the article. Agree with PP that it sounds so much like DC. Whenever someone has invested in a community by consciously buying a home in a particular school boundary and it gets changed, that represents a broken promise and most families with means will not accept the lower quality alternative offered. There is study upon study and we hear the same reasonable arguments with the data behind it again and again, but at the end of the day, you want to provide for your child the best way you can so families of means will always refuse a less ideal solution if they have alternatives. It's not rocket science. As someone said above, if you really want to force integration (whether its racial or socio economic) you'll have to force it...and even when you force it, people will still refuse by going private or moving.

And solutions like "controlled-choice" would just be new opportunities to work the system in DC.

i think people are willing to accept some compromise for the common good, or at least for the good of their neighborhood friends with younger children who would benefit. But the quality gap and problems are just too great. DCPS, unfortunately, is not meeting us as a partner in our efforts, and in some ways is actively adversarial. And the bottom line is without adequate funding, it just won't work. Quality isn't cheap and calling people racist won't change that.

After 7 years in DCPS (as a parent) and following all the issues (including attending every boundary meeting during the DME process 3-4 years ago) I truly believe that DCPS secretly wants to farm out where it's failing to charters.

"farm out to charters" what do you mean? Seems like actually a good idea. Charters should take over where DCPS has failed...IF they can do better, that is...

[Anonymous]

one of the messages of pieces like this, even if it isn't a direct point, is that choice isn't really an effective outlet for poor families, who have residential and transportation mobility problems that richer parents can get past. and ultimately there is no choice-based solution for the segregated, majority-shunned location-tied schools (and their non-choosing populations) other than closure, perhaps with a new school entering the same building.

I leave it to smarter people than me to say whether taking the same non-choice population and giving them to a charter operator generates better results. My sense is no.