Duke Ellington to Relocate for New High School in Ward 2?

[Anonymous]

Duke Ellington is a treasure, but given that very few of its students come from Ward 2, it makes sense to move it to a more central location.

I feel the same way about UDC. I lie awake at night wishing that UDC would up and move to where its students live, or at least downtown.

[Anonymous]

Speaking as a white chick, I abhor this transparent and vigorous effort by Rhee to get the black folk outta Georgetown and Glover Park, while ironically playing step-and-fetch-it for those neighborhoods and getting them anything they want, ASAP.

[Anonymous]

Ouch! (but funny, white chick) Reality is nobody would WANT to send their kid OOB if they had great school up the street. Unless of course they were talented enough to thrive in a specialized school like Ellington or SWW. Changed my mind and now agree with pp who said it's better to keep Ellington where it is unless it gets MUCH better facilities. If there is a huge need for ward 2 high school in Gtown, put up some trailers.

[Anonymous]

Ouch! (but funny, white chick) Reality is nobody would WANT to send their kid OOB if they had great school up the street. Unless of course they were talented enough to thrive in a specialized school like Ellington or SWW. Changed my mind and now agree with pp who said it's better to keep Ellington where it is unless it gets MUCH better facilities. If there is a huge need for ward 2 high school in Gtown, put up some trailers.

[Anonymous]

PP, Ellington is not in Glover Park, it's in Burleith.

[Anonymous]

Since when do the HS boundaries get drawn by Wards? Lafayette Elementary is in Ward 4, feed in to Deal and Wilson. Neighborhoods all over DC feed into Wilson

[Anonymous]

Ellington is a mere 2.5 miles from Wilson and 2.1 miles from Walls. Most days it would take about 10 minutes to travel from Ellington to either of these other schools. Ward boundaries aside, it seems this move wouldn't be saving anyone huge amounts of time in their commute.

I have a suspicion that Rhee's ulterior motive here is to create more buy-in to the DCPS system among the city's affluent residents. If Georgetown has a "neighborhood" high school with "neighborhood" kids attending it (not the Ellington students from "other" parts of the city), it might get more of the rich Ward 2 parents to actually consider public school as an option. This would likely improve the system's average overall test scores and might keep some wealthy folks from moving out to Fairfax or Montgomery to take advantage of the public schools.

Not a sinister goal, really. But I don't buy the notion that this move is to alleviate the burden on Ward 2 residents who currently have difficulty getting to Wilson or Walls. The strategy is to create a high-quality public HS by filling it with students from rich neighborhoods who would otherwise bolt for private school or other jurisdictions. This creates a "better" school system, in a sense, but it doesn't really provide any student with a better education than he or she would have gotten otherwise. The low-performing schools in poor neighborhoods remain so, and the rich kids in Ward 2 are still testing high and taking APs, only they're doing it at a DC public school rather than a private or MD/VA school.

[Anonymous]

If Rhee wants to lure the children of more affluent residents, there are alternative strategies she could pursue, such as improving the curriculum city-wide.

I wouldn't send my child to DCPS for the bread and water, test-prep driven educational program she now provides, even if it meant my child could walk to school.

Instead of closing or moving thriving schools such as Hardy and Ellington, she could convince the city to add more rigor to the program by adopting Core Knowledge for K-8, and a more classical curriculum for high school.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the PP who stated that the goal is more buy in from affluent city residents. I think that is a worthy goal. Right now there is no buy in from the majority of affluent residents, and it hurts the system.

To the PP who threw out the resegregation comment--come'on. I think that is a cheap shot. The city currently IS segregated educationly, absent a few charters and a few public schools. It is also segregated by neighborhoods. So to claim that Rhee is someone aiming to drive out black people from the system or "nice neighborhoods" is crazy--if anything she seems to be trying to draw white people back into the system which would make it less segregated.

Now if you view the arrival as white people as a 0 sum game or as a pejorative problem for the schools then I don't know what to say.....

[Anonymous]

8:49, very well put. This whole thread has many thoughtful posts that this new-ish mom really appreciates. My (technically affluent but not white) kids are prek- and K and inboundary for high performing NW DCPS. But we're already concerned about middle and high schools. Other than the competitive specialized high schools, we're not even thinking DCPS. But the good charter schools are increasingly appealing. When our kids are older, I'd be happy to put them on the bus/metro to Petworth or Capitol Hill for high-peforming AND socio-economically integrated school instead of Wilson. I suspect other "affluent" people would consider the same. Rhee's real competition in terms of enrollment numbers (and funding) are charters, not private. What are thoughts on potential for more high school level charters?

[Anonymous]

I agree with the PP who stated that the goal is more buy in from affluent city residents. I think that is a worthy goal. Right now there is no buy in from the majority of affluent residents, and it hurts the system.

How will more buy-in from affluent DC residents help the system? How? What are the specifics of what they bring to the mix? I do not think it will in the least. This idea will take millions of dollars away from other parts of the systeml. As a parent whose child attended one of the top DCPS elementary schools for eight years (pre-K - 6) I saw firsthand a little island of excellence in action and it was completely disconnected from the system. Completely! This idea is the height of arrogance, it's why so many people hate affluent white people. Again, if Wilson were overcrowded this idea would make sense. But there is no need here. None!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jack Evans has been talking this idea up for a while. Theoretically, I have no problem with moving Ellington to a state of the art, metro accessible facility, but there is NO MONEY to do this! Logan ES is not an acceptable facility for Ellington. Unless they come up with something better, Ellington needs to stay put. Evans and Fenty are trying to placate voters that "might" send their kids to a DCPS high school in Ward 2.

Exactly, pp. When my daughter attended Ellington, it was a schlep to get over there (but not as hard as some might think -- it's on the 30s busline after all and there are also 3 different buses (D-2, D-6, and G-2) that go over from Dupont Circle), so in principle I wouldn't be opposed to moving it to a more central location closer to a metro stop. But that building is apparently inadequate for an arts school.

Here's where I find Rhee to be strikingly incompetent -- she doesn't seem to operate in a world where she thinks it's her responsibility to build political support for her decisions. You could figure out ahead of time that there would be a firestorm over this and you could set up a plan to somehow pay for the changes needed at a building like Logan and then go to the Ellington community (Peggy Cooper Cafritz, a founder and a major funder, by the way was never asked about this and is not happy about it) and present it as a move forward that would be taken in consultation with the Ellington community. Instead news leaks out and there's no response from the administration. Rhee appears to be in cahoots with rich white people in Georgetown/Burleith/Glover Park and while I have no idea whether this is true or not there is certainly no evidence showing that she is not. And she certainly doesn't think she has to prove anything to anyone, which only deepens people's suspicion that this move is based on race.

And of course they can say that nothing has been decided. But they told Jonetta Rose Barras that there had been no decision to move Patrick Pope out of Hardy when apparently the decision to oust him had already been made. So who is now going to believe them if they say they haven't decided what to do yet?

Rhee and Fenty could have avoided some of these political battles by just thinking ahead. They will get away with it for awhile -- because I'm guessing that no one credible is going to run against Fenty. But why do nothing to change public perception about this move? It doesn't help the school system move forward. It just looks arrogant and will bite them in the ass eventually.

[Anonymous]

Right let's ignore Peggy Cooper Cafritz. Like she doesn't have enough trouble! (Her house burned down last summer.)

[Anonymous]

I'm tired of Fenty and Rhee acting like DCPS is theirs, not ours. It's OURS, Mr. Mayor and Ms. Chancellor!

[Anonymous]

Neighborhood schools -- such a quaint idea. Nice for elementary. Come on, MS and HS students commute. That's what you do when you live in a city.

The neighborhood school idea was pretty much demolished by NCLB, with its "sending" and "receiving" schools and the phonomena of school closings, school choice and "marquee schools". That last concept was a favorite of our last superintendent. Now MR wants to dismantle the marquee schools or push them out of their longtime buildings. She wasn't here when Williams tried to move Ellington and UDC to Southeast. This is going to be fun to watch!