Want to start a charter school with me?

[Anonymous]

I applaud your enthusiasm, OP? I suggest you talk to Washington Latin about its trials and tribulations with finding a home. It's a real drawback. good luck!

[Anonymous]

This is the eternal DC challenge. People have always moved, gone private or have gotten OOB spots, but there are so many more kids (at least on the blocks around us) that the demand is really starting to outstrip the supply.

If starting a school seems too overwhelming you could always look at Hearst or Eaton, plenty of folks driving across the park. Murch also has a fair number of OOB kids who get in over the summer and in the fall, the zeros reported just reflect the OOB lottery itself. It all depends on the grade and luck but you never know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP is right, we get to make the decisions if we start a charter school. If we merely try to fix the local school we are fighting Rhee, the Union, etc. plus trying to overcome the inertia of a lot of parents who don't really care. A charter school automatically selects for parent who care (regardless of race, economic class, etc, etc).

Not exactly. Kids who have major special needs, have been kicked out of other schools or may not even have parents could apply and you'd have to take them. Many decisions, like where to operate, need to be cleared by the charter school board which is under increasing pressure (from no less than the Obama admin) to close or deny charters that aren't viable.

General caveat. The charter world is vastly different now than 10 years ago when some of the now-popular ones started. The major challenge is competing for enrollment. Basically every child has a $10K bounty on their head. Almost every year there is a charter that closes because it can't keep numbers up. The competition is fierce and DCPS is stepping up, with or without Rhee. It's no coincidence that Eaton is rolling out a Chinese "world cultures" theme (with extra budget) just as Yu Ying is showing momentum. There is also growing competition for teaching and administration talent. (TFAers line up to get into KIPP.)

This is not meant to discourage anyone from exploring education choices. But take it from someone who has BTDT, starting a charter these days may not be the most effective or expedient way to get the best for your child. Stongly encourage visiting many of the existing charters before you pursue further. You may also want to consider homeschooling for a year or two, seriously, to get some more perspective.

HTH

Look, unlike at Yu Ying, kids at Eaton aren't going to graduate fluent or literate in Chinese, but at least they'll have a little exposure and learn more about the culture so it's good to see DCPS responding to Charter initiatives. The only downside I see to Eaton's program is that the funding and designation really should have gone to Thomson which already has a Chinese class. (However, Thomson is downtown and Eaton is in Cleveland Park and it's pretty clear the only schools Rhee wants to focus on are in Ward 3.) There just aren't enough good choices, especially in neighborhoods in the middle of the city. Opening a charter is too much work for one person to do, but it's not too much for a small group. Capital City, Two Rivers and Yu Ying were all started by parents who were designing the school they wanted to send their children to.

The competition in charter schools is fiercer than it used to be, but that is a good thing. Programs that aren't well-designed and well-managed shouldn't have taxpayer support. Popular and innovative programs should be emulated. The only unfortunate thing here is that DCPS schools that can't compete do tend to stay open long past their shelf life. The truth remains that there aren't nearly enough seats in the popular charter programs and Ward 1 and other neighborhoods near the middle of the city could certainly use more. Almost 40% of DC public school students are now in charters, and yet if you've gone to the open houses and filled out applications you know how long the odds are to get into one that you want.

I can't see why or how homeschooling for a year would in any way help the OP. She doesn't want to be a teacher, she wants better choices for her child's education. There are grants and funding that people apply for to start up their schools, and there are organizations to help. Check out the information at the Charter Schools Development Corporation. There's also FOCUS (Friends of Choice in Urban Schools) and the PCSB (Public Charter School Board).

According to the Chancellor's own notes 2/3 of DC public school students are in a school of choice. 38% are in charters and 31% attend an OOB school. Only 31% choose their neighborhood school, and high percentage of those must be JKLM on the other side of the park. Just this month the PCSB received 21 applications and accepted 13 of them! There's still a need for more and better choices.

[Anonymous]

Why is the list serve always so anti Eaton. My child goes there and it is an amazing school. What I love about it is there is no attitude and no one cares if you are OOB or not. It is just a great caring community. Eaton worked very hard to receive the $ from DCPS to be a World Cultures School. Eaton has been offering Chinese for many years and now with this $ they expanded it to every grade level. Plus Eaton feeds in to Hardy and Deal and Deal offers Chinese as a language so it makes perfect sense that Eaton became a World Cultures School. From my perspective and through my research (I am not an educator) what matters is exposure to language at this age it is not necessary to be bilingual or immersion etc.

[Anonymous]

I think the negative feeling toward Eaton are that it got the funding for the CHinese language instead of Thomson. That does not diminish the fact that Eaton is a great school. The problem is that Thomson should also be given the chance to be a great school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the negative feeling toward Eaton are that it got the funding for the CHinese language instead of Thomson. That does not diminish the fact that Eaton is a great school. The problem is that Thomson should also be given the chance to be a great school.

Exactly. Thomson is already offering some Chinese but they had to go get it on their own. They don't have a wealthy parent base to ask for financial support, they could have really used the extra funding to enhance their program. Instead it goes to Eaton. What's fair about that?

[Anonymous]

But Eaton also was offering Chinese --it is not new to the school. I have no idea why Thomson did not receive the funding but Eaton is a school that serves over 68% of the kids as OOB and there are students from all 8 wards represented which is pretty amazing for a DCPS....

[Anonymous]

Thomson has been offering Chinese since 2005. Over half of Thomson students are OOB, all 8 wards are represented.

Why didn't Thomson get the funding?

Could it be that half of the students are ELL and 3/4 are low-income?

Only the Chancellor can answer that one.

[Anonymous]

Folks this thread is not about Eaton of Thomson. I'm going to start a new Thomson thread b/c I'm actually interested to hear what people think about it. TIA

[Anonymous]

I'm a parent with kids at Cooke, and I take issue with your declaration that HD Cooke is "riddled with crime." There were some outdated links from 2007 (three years before the school moved back into its renovated building) in another thread, but you can't use 3 year old links to prove that there's a problem TODAY. The school is not "riddled with crime." The kids are well-behaved and respectful. Heck, they don't even run in the hallways. I think your use of language is incredibly irresponsible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a parent with kids at Cooke, and I take issue with your declaration that HD Cooke is "riddled with crime." There were some outdated links from 2007 (three years before the school moved back into its renovated building) in another thread, but you can't use 3 year old links to prove that there's a problem TODAY. The school is not "riddled with crime." The kids are well-behaved and respectful. Heck, they don't even run in the hallways. I think your use of language is incredibly irresponsible.

OP Here. Sorry PP. That was a poor attempt to mock the "crime scare" on the HD Cooke thread. I don't believe HD Cooke is riddled with crime and it was a stupid thing to say. I was writing right after reading all the other threads on crime, cooke, bancroft, and Rhee but obviously someone coming on the next day would not get the connection. Part of my frustration and lack of hope about Cooke, Bancroft, etc. is that middle class parents in our neighborhoods are never going to go to those schools if they read these boards. And, if those middle class parents just keep leaving one-by-one for OOB, Charter, private, we'll never get good schools here in the 'hood because no one is lobbying for them and forcing downtown to fix our schools, so the only hope we have it either form our own charter or compete with each other for those few OOB/Charter slots. So, creating a new charter seemed like an option if these was enough interest.

[Anonymous]

The problem with "turning around" a school is that every individual family has available to it many options. A school is what it is right now. I had an experience with a committed group of parents trying to change a DCPS school. There were all kinds of reasons why it failed, . . . DCPS budget, lack of strong principal leadership, resistance from entrenched teachers.

I think one of the major reasons that changing the course of the course of the school did not succeed was that everyone has options -- lots and lots of options. When each individual family weighs the option of a current school with potential against a school that is already providing the program you want for your children, families start to leave. It was depressing to see the families leaving, then we left and I feel much better. . . .

I hope the folks working to improve Cooke have a great success story in a few years. Sounds like a great facility, really good principal. But one by one, as the involved parents get the late September phone call from a desirable charter school, as OOB slots are more available for 3rd graders, school loss momentum. . . . it is really hard. . . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem with "turning around" a school is that every individual family has available to it many options. A school is what it is right now. I had an experience with a committed group of parents trying to change a DCPS school. There were all kinds of reasons why it failed, . . . DCPS budget, lack of strong principal leadership, resistance from entrenched teachers.

I think one of the major reasons that changing the course of the course of the school did not succeed was that everyone has options -- lots and lots of options. When each individual family weighs the option of a current school with potential against a school that is already providing the program you want for your children, families start to leave. It was depressing to see the families leaving, then we left and I feel much better. . . .

I hope the folks working to improve Cooke have a great success story in a few years. Sounds like a great facility, really good principal. But one by one, as the involved parents get the late September phone call from a desirable charter school, as OOB slots are more available for 3rd graders, school loss momentum. . . . it is really hard. . . .

Yikes! Hope you're not suggesting that options are a bad thing! The wealthy always have options ($30K per year private school). For the rest of us? Charter schools and OOB are options - and options are a good thing. Individual children are more important than flailing schools. As was posted above, 31% of DC public school students actually attend their neighborhood school. That means over 2/3 of us are opting out. Suggesting there's something wrong with all of those individual decisions is down right delusional.

[Anonymous]

17:44 back. Personally, I love having options, and as a result of the many options, our family has landed somewhere very good for us. What I'm suggesting is that if/when a group of families in a neighborhood organize and try to change the culture of a neighborhood school, one of the things that I have seen happen, at least 2x, is the initial group does not stay with critical mass for long enough for that neighborhood school to change course.

One goes parochial, one gets into Two Rivers, OOB JKLM for another, and pretty soon, the neighborhood school is only incrementally better. The options make it very difficult to sustain a change, and especially to sustain it beyond 2nd / 3rd grade. Each individual decision makes sense (my family's did), the overall effect is a version of "tragedy of the commons" for the "flailing schools."

[Anonymous]

OK, so were JKLMO always successful schools, or did parents at some point decide to stay put? I know that the school on Capitol Hill that rallied parents together is having success. It can happen. I'm not willing to give up yet.