I am confused between Stuart Hobson Middle School vs. Deal Middle School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SH is well like by two of my friends who have kids there. They were academic superstars themselves so I doubt they'll compromise if they weren't satisfied. From what I've heard they are watching Eastern and inclined towards International Baccalaureate but they have means to go private if needed. From my own experience, not with these schools but with commuting for schools, its not worth it. It makes life difficult for students and parents in many ways.

Give us a break. Hobson no longer offers "honors" (grade level) English post pandemic. The only advanced class offered is math. Most students work below grade level. Eastern's IB Diploma program is far and away the lowest performing into this entire Metro area. What a BS post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SH is well like by two of my friends who have kids there. They were academic superstars themselves so I doubt they'll compromise if they weren't satisfied. From what I've heard they are watching Eastern and inclined towards International Baccalaureate but they have means to go private if needed. From my own experience, not with these schools but with commuting for schools, its not worth it. It makes life difficult for students and parents in many ways.

Give us a break. Hobson no longer offers "honors" (grade level) English post pandemic. The only advanced class offered is math. Most students work below grade level. Eastern's IB Diploma program is far and away the lowest performing into this entire Metro area. What a BS post.

It is BS. Every educated parent who claims to be considering Eastern also "has the means to go private if needed." They don't mean it, at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SH is well like by two of my friends who have kids there. They were academic superstars themselves so I doubt they'll compromise if they weren't satisfied. From what I've heard they are watching Eastern and inclined towards International Baccalaureate but they have means to go private if needed. From my own experience, not with these schools but with commuting for schools, its not worth it. It makes life difficult for students and parents in many ways.

Give us a break. Hobson no longer offers "honors" (grade level) English post pandemic. The only advanced class offered is math. Most students work below grade level. Eastern's IB Diploma program is far and away the lowest performing into this entire Metro area. What a BS post.

It is BS. Every educated parent who claims to be considering Eastern also "has the means to go private if needed." They don't mean it, at all.

We do not have the "means to go private" and there is no way on God's green earth our kid is going to Eastern. It's not even an option. We looked at it, we dismissed it. It would need to be a totally different school to change our minds, and that's not happening within the next 6-8 years, which is the timeline for most people currently thinking about HS.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The reality is that the commute from the Hill to MacArthur is a real drag during rush hour. The future campus is nowhere near near a Metro stop or a bus route that goes from the Hill. I live near Union Station but used to work near the future campus, where free parking was available to me. Many mornings, it took me nearly an hour to get to work through traffic. Also, Walls is not the safe bet for strong Hill students it once was, now that the entrance exam and PARCC scores have both been dropped in the admissions process. Think twice about a DCPS middle school EotP. Might be better to move.

When was Walls ever a safe bet with waitlist of 100+ kids?

Pre Covid, Walls was quite a safe bet for the strongest 8th graders EotP, coming out of both public and private schools. Before Bowser began pressuring DCPS to admit more low-SES minority students from over the River, and to ditch the entrance exam and standardized test scores requirements (DC-CAS, then PARCC or PSAT or SAT score) the academically able would get in. I've lived on the Hill for 30 years and saw this phenomenon play out over and over, particularly for teens who were very good at math, regardless of race. The Walls entrance exams emphasized fairly tough algebra and geometry. No longer. Admission to Walls has essentially become a lottery in the last several years.

That's a false assumption. There may have been intent to attract more diverse students to Walls, including from EotP, but the school remains overwhelmingly white and/or higher SES and enrolls an extremely small number of students from EotP. Dropping the entrance exam had no impact on the demographics

Dropping the entrance exam has in fact had a small impact on demographics and a larger impact on rigor. Now Walls admits plenty of white kids who are B students, along with those of other races. Sad.

This is anecdotally true from where I sit. I also don't think this helps with the city's goal of equity in the end. The new rules make SWW look more like one of the "HRCS" -- a school that doesn't necessarily offer a better education but will ensure your kid is mostly attending classes with more UMC kids than they would at their IB. If you assume that the key to a good education is going to school with other students from UMC families who have educated parents, you will be satisfied with that.

But what set SWW apart previously was that it was actually based on merit. Yes, as is always the case, well-resourced kids had an edge because their parents were more likely to be able to get them a higher quality elementary and MS education, supplement when needed, and provide a home environment that nurtured academics more. That is always true. But at the end of the day, if you could do well on the entrance exam and other standardized tests, you could earn a spot no matter what. That's not true anymore. Other than a fairly low floor to weed out a lot of kids who were unlikely to be interested in SWW (or any applications school) in the first place, it's just a lottery against lots of students with a wide variety of academic backgrounds.

I do think it's a shame for the truly academically exceptional kids of all backgrounds who previously would have benefitted from attending college with "the best of the best." It make SWW somewhat indistinguishable from a lottery-based program like Latin or regular DCPS like Wilson. It used to offer something unique.

This. Now it just offers a UMC cohort and is not any better academically than comparable JR cohort. It may never have been much better than the top 1/3 of JR students anyway. It's the same pool of students

Well I guess applications should be down going forward.

No they won't. Now B students EotP might have access to Walls, a big step up from their failing IB high schools. I see applications increasing.

How will that happen when it's the top GPAs, period.

You realize that the rigor of curriculums at different schools is vastly different right? The top GPA of a school where more than 75% of the kids are performing below grade level vs where more than 75% of the kids performing at or above grade level does not mean both students have the same knowledge base or depth.

True but that's not factored into the process. It's like saying one Algebra teacher is harder than another at the same school. The grade is the grade...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The winners here are BASIS, the Latins, JR, privates and the burbs. More UMC families will jump on their bandwagons with Walls is drifting into the realm of mediocrity.

A new mayor could get Walls back on track for the highest-performing students, like Eric Adams has done with NYC's application middle school programs this fall. Magnet middle schools ran as open admissions programs during the pandemic and would have stayed that way if the mayor hadn't changed.

Problem is there's no new mayor in sight in the District.

This X1000000000. BASIS and Latin should send greeting cards to Bowser and Co. All those kids (especially at BASIS) who used to peel off for Walls are going to stay. The BASIS HS classes are about to grow dramatically.

[Anonymous]

Last year, BASIS had under 50 9th graders. This year they have 86.

[Anonymous]

Walls is DONE.

Put a fork in it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Walls is DONE.

Put a fork in it.

Nope...far from it...I suspect few of these commenters have kids in HS or at Walls now. Just the usual dcum "I think, I heard, etc."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last year, BASIS had under 50 9th graders. This year they have 86.

This is good for BASIS. That's way too small

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SH is well like by two of my friends who have kids there. They were academic superstars themselves so I doubt they'll compromise if they weren't satisfied. From what I've heard they are watching Eastern and inclined towards International Baccalaureate but they have means to go private if needed. From my own experience, not with these schools but with commuting for schools, its not worth it. It makes life difficult for students and parents in many ways.

Give us a break. Hobson no longer offers "honors" (grade level) English post pandemic. The only advanced class offered is math. Most students work below grade level. Eastern's IB Diploma program is far and away the lowest performing into this entire Metro area. What a BS post.

We did not eve consider SH precisely because it is clear as mud whether or not they offer honors classes. The fact that there is no formal answer or information disseminated is part of the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last year, BASIS had under 50 9th graders. This year they have 86.

That seems about right.

On count day last year, Basis DC had 53 9th graders and 92 8th graders. Only a small number of 8th graders moved or otherwise left for other schools, so the current 9th grade class at Basis DC is almost as big as last year's 8th grade class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SH is well like by two of my friends who have kids there. They were academic superstars themselves so I doubt they'll compromise if they weren't satisfied. From what I've heard they are watching Eastern and inclined towards International Baccalaureate but they have means to go private if needed. From my own experience, not with these schools but with commuting for schools, its not worth it. It makes life difficult for students and parents in many ways.

Give us a break. Hobson no longer offers "honors" (grade level) English post pandemic. The only advanced class offered is math. Most students work below grade level. Eastern's IB Diploma program is far and away the lowest performing into this entire Metro area. What a BS post.

It is BS. Every educated parent who claims to be considering Eastern also "has the means to go private if needed." They don't mean it, at all.

We do not have the "means to go private" and there is no way on God's green earth our kid is going to Eastern. It's not even an option. We looked at it, we dismissed it. It would need to be a totally different school to change our minds, and that's not happening within the next 6-8 years, which is the timeline for most people currently thinking about HS.

Right - and you are not claiming to be considering Eastern! My point was, claims of considering Eastern (and sometimes the MS) are usually fake/wishful thinking/trying to fit in, especially when parents basically are planning on private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reality is that the commute from the Hill to MacArthur is a real drag during rush hour. The future campus is nowhere near near a Metro stop or a bus route that goes from the Hill. I live near Union Station but used to work near the future campus, where free parking was available to me. Many mornings, it took me nearly an hour to get to work through traffic. Also, Walls is not the safe bet for strong Hill students it once was, now that the entrance exam and PARCC scores have both been dropped in the admissions process. Think twice about a DCPS middle school EotP. Might be better to move.

When was Walls ever a safe bet with waitlist of 100+ kids?

Pre Covid, Walls was quite a safe bet for the strongest 8th graders EotP, coming out of both public and private schools. Before Bowser began pressuring DCPS to admit more low-SES minority students from over the River, and to ditch the entrance exam and standardized test scores requirements (DC-CAS, then PARCC or PSAT or SAT score) the academically able would get in. I've lived on the Hill for 30 years and saw this phenomenon play out over and over, particularly for teens who were very good at math, regardless of race. The Walls entrance exams emphasized fairly tough algebra and geometry. No longer. Admission to Walls has essentially become a lottery in the last several years.

That's a false assumption. There may have been intent to attract more diverse students to Walls, including from EotP, but the school remains overwhelmingly white and/or higher SES and enrolls an extremely small number of students from EotP. Dropping the entrance exam had no impact on the demographics

Exactly, at the end of the day SWW is just difficult to get to from parts of the city. Maintaining a GPA requires a level of consistency and is a better indicator of the caliber of student than test scores. This is even true with all the grade inflation everywhere. None of it is perfect but the thought process seems to be that "my kid is a great test taker" so they deserve to be at Walls.

The really messed up, ugly thing is that when Walls had the entrance test, it wasn't that it admitted the "strongest" students in the city. It admitted the students who were both serious AND attended a middle school that even offered the level of math course they needed to have been exposed to to even place on the Walls test. Guess how many middle schools in DCPS even offered those courses? TWO. Deal and Stuart Hobson.

So the absolute farce is that a student had to a) live in those boundaries $ b) go to a private school $$ c) pay tutors $$$$ or d) come from a charter school--luck, invested parent. So no. That test was not finding the smartest, most deserving students. DCPS, by limiting its math curriculum at most middle schools, and certainly those EOTR, was absolutely limiting the pool of applicants. Whoever got in there in the past--my kid included---got in on the absolute inequity of the DC Public School system. The test was flawed, the current free for all is flawed. So what now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reality is that the commute from the Hill to MacArthur is a real drag during rush hour. The future campus is nowhere near near a Metro stop or a bus route that goes from the Hill. I live near Union Station but used to work near the future campus, where free parking was available to me. Many mornings, it took me nearly an hour to get to work through traffic. Also, Walls is not the safe bet for strong Hill students it once was, now that the entrance exam and PARCC scores have both been dropped in the admissions process. Think twice about a DCPS middle school EotP. Might be better to move.

When was Walls ever a safe bet with waitlist of 100+ kids?

Pre Covid, Walls was quite a safe bet for the strongest 8th graders EotP, coming out of both public and private schools. Before Bowser began pressuring DCPS to admit more low-SES minority students from over the River, and to ditch the entrance exam and standardized test scores requirements (DC-CAS, then PARCC or PSAT or SAT score) the academically able would get in. I've lived on the Hill for 30 years and saw this phenomenon play out over and over, particularly for teens who were very good at math, regardless of race. The Walls entrance exams emphasized fairly tough algebra and geometry. No longer. Admission to Walls has essentially become a lottery in the last several years.

That's a false assumption. There may have been intent to attract more diverse students to Walls, including from EotP, but the school remains overwhelmingly white and/or higher SES and enrolls an extremely small number of students from EotP. Dropping the entrance exam had no impact on the demographics

Exactly, at the end of the day SWW is just difficult to get to from parts of the city. Maintaining a GPA requires a level of consistency and is a better indicator of the caliber of student than test scores. This is even true with all the grade inflation everywhere. None of it is perfect but the thought process seems to be that "my kid is a great test taker" so they deserve to be at Walls.

The really messed up, ugly thing is that when Walls had the entrance test, it wasn't that it admitted the "strongest" students in the city. It admitted the students who were both serious AND attended a middle school that even offered the level of math course they needed to have been exposed to to even place on the Walls test. Guess how many middle schools in DCPS even offered those courses? TWO. Deal and Stuart Hobson.

So the absolute farce is that a student had to a) live in those boundaries $ b) go to a private school $$ c) pay tutors $$$$ or d) come from a charter school--luck, invested parent. So no. That test was not finding the smartest, most deserving students. DCPS, by limiting its math curriculum at most middle schools, and certainly those EOTR, was absolutely limiting the pool of applicants. Whoever got in there in the past--my kid included---got in on the absolute inequity of the DC Public School system. The test was flawed, the current free for all is flawed. So what now?

I think it would be great if all DCPS middle schools committed to giving their students the math options available at Deal, but in the absence of that, I'd much rather teach my kids more advanced math, see how they're doing, and be able to plan for whether they're likely to get in or not rather than have it be essentially random, where whether they get in has no relationship to their performance. There are lots of parents EOTR who can manage to connect their kid with a math curriculum beyond what's in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year, BASIS had under 50 9th graders. This year they have 86.

This is good for BASIS. That's way too small

Maybe more of a challenge than they're ready to handle. Space is already super tight, and more kids staying through HS will have to occupy space somewhere. Doesn't that mean smaller incoming classes going forward? It's not like DC approved their expansion request