New opposition petition to the Maury-Miner boundary proposal from DME

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Demographics are (almost always) destiny sadly. Diluting the overall proportion of at-risk kids might in fact make thing easier for current teachers/staff at Miner, and I don’t think that’s an improper metric to consider.

But the impact on the academic outcomes of at-risk kids will likely be nil to negligible, as their problems stem from out-of-school factors that the school - no matter how structured - can’t be expected overcome.

On the other hand, UMC folks might find that things continue pretty much the same for their kids. Sure, maybe less convenient for some and maybe less narrowly “neighborhoody”, but I’m not sure those are factors DCPS should consider at the outset.

At any rate, howl loud enough and it’s probably dead in the water. Congratulations.

This is pretty spot on. I think the fear that many Maury parents seem to have is misplaced.

There are also whole conversations that I think we're sidestepping because they are uncomfortable. People like to fixate on test scores because they are "hard data" and so the conversation gets focused on whether the cluster would improve test scores for at risk kids, or drag down test scores for high-SES kids. I think this PP is likely correct that it would have minimal impact on either, and you'd wind up with a cluster school where the average test scores are lower than Maury and higher than Miner, but where individual outcomes are unchanged.

But there's also the question of culture, and that's what people don't really like to discuss. The truth is that there are nice things about having your kid at a relatively homogeneous school where most of the other families are similar to yours. It makes friendships easier, both between kids and between parents. It makes it easier for the school to set goals and reinforce culture, because people are more likely to be in agreement on what matters. I know I'm about to get people yowling at me about how diverse Maury is, but I'm not talking about racial diversity. I'm talking about life experience diversity. You can have a racially diverse school that is very homogenous, if the families at that school are all above a certain income and have similar educational and family backgrounds. And Maury is that.

The cluster school will be more genuinely diverse, at least if the populations of the separate schools remained in place. It would be a mix of UMC professional families on the Hill and in Hill East, middle class black families from Wards 7 and 8, low income families from housing projects in the current Miner zone as well as some from across the river. It is harder to make all those people happy and they won't all agree on what school is for or how it should be run. That's either a travesty or an opportunity, depending on your politics and your personal preferences (and just your energy levels, tbh -- it is more socially taxing to have kids at a truly diverse school because your personal interactions require more effort).

If we accept all of these things, the cluster makes even less sense, because there are less disruptive mechanisms to increase socio-economic diversity. At-risk set asides, boundary re-drawing, and choice sets could all increase socio-economic diversity with far less disruption to the school communities.

Why would you need those if you had a school with a boundary that is itself very socioeconomically diverse? A combined Miner-Maury cluster would include million dollar homes, more moderately priced homes, multi-family housing at a wide variety of price points, plus Section 8 and public housing. You don't need choice sets and at risk set asides if your in boundary population is already socioeconomically diverse.

You are talking about ways to make Maury more diverse than it currently is, because Maury presently sits on a little island of high cost, single family housing, something that is rare for school boundaries in this part of town. So if you want to make a school with Maury's boundary demographics more diverse, you have to look at redrawing the boundary lines, adding at-risk set asides in the lottery (though I really question how effective that would be at a school with high IB buy in that is already at capacity) or choice sets.

If you just combine the school boundaries, you don't need any of that. Instant diversity. We can argue over whether that's good or bad, or whether the implementation makes sense, or whether the resulting school cluster will be so large as to be unwieldy or bad for kids. But I think it's hard to argue that the cluster would result in LESS diversity than moving some boundary lines and adding at-risk set asides and choice sets. I think it's fairly obvious that the people suggesting those as an alternative like them specifically because they will not create as much socioeconomic diversity as a cluster would.

Hey, we could put more multifamily housing in the Maury zone but thay would mean repealing the Kingman Park historical designation, which the so-called progressives fought for.

No one is arguing in favor of putting more multifamily housing in the Maury zone. No one is upset that people live in single family houses. This conversation is just about how to allocate public school students within the city's public schools. Try to stay on topic.

The reason housing segregation exists is lack of affordable housing, in large part due to zoning restrictions.

Sure, generally. We are talking about a specific case, where one neighborhood actually has a decent amount of affordable housing (including low income and Section 8 housing) and a variety of zoning, including plenty of zoning for multifamily housing units.

The issue is not that affordable housing doesn't exist in the neighborhood, it's that the boundary for the elementary schools in the neighborhood neatly divides all the affordable housing away from Maury. Thus we are not talking about affordable housing, we are talking about school boundaries.

Again, try to keep up.

No, you try to keep up. We’re talking about progressive policies that are based on “vibes” and slogans rather than actually improving the basics. Kingman Park and other parts of the Maury zone is blocked from developing more affordable housing because of misguided progressive policies. Now similarly vapid thinking is going to disrupt the schools.

This is not the subject of this thread and is not at issue in the boundary study or in the DME's proposals. So no, we are not talking about it.

“we” can talk about whatever we want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in-bound for Miner and wholeheartedly support the proposal to pair the schools. I get why Maury parents would oppose it - you paid a premium for your rowhomes with a specific understanding that you could send your children to a majority-white and high-SES elementary school and here comes DME wanting to essentially reverse the gentrifying effects that made Maury the school it is today and throw open the gates to the grandkids of the starburst crowd. I'd be gnashing my teeth too, but that doesn't mean this doesn't make sense for the neighborhood as a whole, or for the children in our little pocket of Northeast as a whole, which is where DME's greatest duty lies.

I've never been one for the "In this house we believe..." signs like many of the folks blowing a gasket over this proposal, but hoo boy y'all's opposition to this (especially in that 140+ page thread, which was locked by the time I finished reading it) has led to a lot of hysterics and bizarre takes.

Imagine my surprise in that first thread to hear that my neighborhood is "controlled by gangs" and "might as well be Baltimore." Yes, the concentrated poverty and crime in Azeeze-Bates and the Pentacle Apartments is unfortunate, but the bottom line is that this proposal is the best option for the neighborhood as a whole. The neighborhood is not scary and the starburst doesn't really intersect with the comings and goings at Miner. It's on the other side of a four lane road and a world away. The schools are not far apart - hearing all this woe-is-me stuff about terrible commutes is comical, as well as these preposterous proposals to do a public housing gerrymander or foist Miner's kids on faraway Ludlow-Taylor instead. Then in desperation y'all say "just throw money at it, just hire a superstar principal, anything but putting my kids in the same building with them.

I believe the ugly truth is that a lot of these low-SES at-risk children are beyond saving. No amount of money spent on smart boards or tutoring or enrichment is going to cure what ails them, because it's bone deep. It's a cyclical tragedy and a Gordian knot I don't pretend to be qualified to dissect. There is, of course, some variation in performance between schools with lots of at-risk kids, but on the whole I'd argue that schools like Maury or LT didn't improve just because the parents just cared so very much more than Miner parents or what have you...it's because the students of yesteryear got body-snatched and replaced with high-SES, Type-A-mommy, white kids.

The biggest benefit of this proposal to me is - unfortunately somewhat dependent on to what degree y'all pack up your yard signs and catch the next D6 to the Palisades - that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened, you get a truly diverse student body that still has a solid percentage of UMC parents and theoretically less OOB students coming in from EOTR. That isn't going to "fix" education for most of the in-bound at-risk kids growing up in Ward 7 without fathers and/or who never get spoken to unless it's a yell or a slap, but it can be a rising tide that lifts all ships and perhaps set a few of those unfortunates on a better path and leads to a student body that isn't just concentrated poverty. Every other idea I've seen proposed here really just boils down to Maury protectionism and keeping Miner's plight out of sight out of mind.

Putting aside the blatant racism running through this post, it is misguided. As the DME has said repeatedly, Miner's IB population mirrors its current population. Increasing IB participation won't change Miner's demographics. Moreover, Miner has pretty good UMC buy-in for the early years. It doesn't for upper grades. Maury also loses some IB kids in the upper grades. Looking to the only other cluster on the Hill, we can expect this IB exodus in the upper grades to increase if the school is spread across two campuses.

Also, it's not "just protectionism" if families are advocating for a boundary redraw knowing they'll likely be zoned out. No one expects the boundary to encompass Azeeze-Bates, but remain otherwise unchanged.

Curious what current data DME has on the demographics of Miner IB? There are a lot of middle class families here, but they generally will avoid Miner at all costs via lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Putting aside the blatant racism running through this post, it is misguided. As the DME has said repeatedly, Miner's IB population mirrors its current population. Increasing IB participation won't change Miner's demographics. Moreover, Miner has pretty good UMC buy-in for the early years. It doesn't for upper grades. Maury also loses some IB kids in the upper grades. Looking to the only other cluster on the Hill, we can expect this IB exodus in the upper grades to increase if the school is spread across two campuses.

Also, it's not "just protectionism" if families are advocating for a boundary redraw knowing they'll likely be zoned out. No one expects the boundary to encompass Azeeze-Bates, but remain otherwise unchanged.

There's no blatant racism here. I'm just speaking plainly on the uncomfortable (and inextricably intertwined) issues of race and class that are at the root of this whole proposal and the resulting controversy. In any event, approximately 64% of Miner students are at-risk versus 60% of the in-bound student population, so very close, yes, but Miner's boundary is 73% black while the school is 80% black. A mere 26% of in-bound Miner students actually attend, and it's common knowledge that many higher-SES parents lottery out of the school. Under the proposal, the at-risk population at both schools levels out at about 40%. Surely you see that increased buy-in from those 74% (not all of whom are UMC of course, but I suppose do care enough to lottery their kids elsewhere) could conceivably change the school's demographics and result in a school not suffering from a critical mass of at-risk students. Either way, with the lottery it is going to be an uphill battle to retain students into middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Demographics are (almost always) destiny sadly. Diluting the overall proportion of at-risk kids might in fact make thing easier for current teachers/staff at Miner, and I don’t think that’s an improper metric to consider.

But the impact on the academic outcomes of at-risk kids will likely be nil to negligible, as their problems stem from out-of-school factors that the school - no matter how structured - can’t be expected overcome.

On the other hand, UMC folks might find that things continue pretty much the same for their kids. Sure, maybe less convenient for some and maybe less narrowly “neighborhoody”, but I’m not sure those are factors DCPS should consider at the outset.

At any rate, howl loud enough and it’s probably dead in the water. Congratulations.

Agree on your first two paragraphs. You don’t really have any support for the 3rd one.

If this did dead in the water, it’s entirely DME’s fault. They needed to come to the community showing they did their homework and thought this through. They didn’t. Instead, they came with vibes, trying to appeal to the “woke” among us and hoping that the Maury parents who hated it would be too scared of being called racists to say anything. A bit of a miscalculation on that one!

Yep, pretty much. In all of this, I’ve been constantly asking and seeking for evidence and projections and data about educational outcomes. These are, after all, schools we are talking about. DME is silent, and the community proponents can only do hand-waving divorced from data.

Personally, there’s nothing inherent about this proposal that I would oppose if presented with a compelling case. But it’s nowhere to be seen. DME’s atrocious process has made clear that they don’t want a conversation,, they want to steam-roll, and then leave all the hard problems of implementation on someone else’s doorstep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Putting aside the blatant racism running through this post, it is misguided. As the DME has said repeatedly, Miner's IB population mirrors its current population. Increasing IB participation won't change Miner's demographics. Moreover, Miner has pretty good UMC buy-in for the early years. It doesn't for upper grades. Maury also loses some IB kids in the upper grades. Looking to the only other cluster on the Hill, we can expect this IB exodus in the upper grades to increase if the school is spread across two campuses.

Also, it's not "just protectionism" if families are advocating for a boundary redraw knowing they'll likely be zoned out. No one expects the boundary to encompass Azeeze-Bates, but remain otherwise unchanged.

There's no blatant racism here. I'm just speaking plainly on the uncomfortable (and inextricably intertwined) issues of race and class that are at the root of this whole proposal and the resulting controversy. In any event, approximately 64% of Miner students are at-risk versus 60% of the in-bound student population, so very close, yes, but Miner's boundary is 73% black while the school is 80% black. A mere 26% of in-bound Miner students actually attend, and it's common knowledge that many higher-SES parents lottery out of the school. Under the proposal, the at-risk population at both schools levels out at about 40%. Surely you see that increased buy-in from those 74% (not all of whom are UMC of course, but I suppose do care enough to lottery their kids elsewhere) could conceivably change the school's demographics and result in a school not suffering from a critical mass of at-risk students. Either way, with the lottery it is going to be an uphill battle to retain students into middle school.

All I can say is that I’ve attended nearly all of the community meetings, and spoken to tons of parents, and I have never, ever, heard anyone mention race as something relevant to their support or opposition of this misguided proposal. Only under the cloak of anonymity on this forum do some oracles seem to be aware of supposedly obvious racism on the part of *checks notes* NE DC residents who send their kids to a public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm in-bound for Miner and wholeheartedly support the proposal to pair the schools. I get why Maury parents would oppose it - you paid a premium for your rowhomes with a specific understanding that you could send your children to a majority-white and high-SES elementary school and here comes DME wanting to essentially reverse the gentrifying effects that made Maury the school it is today and throw open the gates to the grandkids of the starburst crowd. I'd be gnashing my teeth too, but that doesn't mean this doesn't make sense for the neighborhood as a whole, or for the children in our little pocket of Northeast as a whole, which is where DME's greatest duty lies.

I've never been one for the "In this house we believe..." signs like many of the folks blowing a gasket over this proposal, but hoo boy y'all's opposition to this (especially in that 140+ page thread, which was locked by the time I finished reading it) has led to a lot of hysterics and bizarre takes.

Imagine my surprise in that first thread to hear that my neighborhood is "controlled by gangs" and "might as well be Baltimore." Yes, the concentrated poverty and crime in Azeeze-Bates and the Pentacle Apartments is unfortunate, but the bottom line is that this proposal is the best option for the neighborhood as a whole. The neighborhood is not scary and the starburst doesn't really intersect with the comings and goings at Miner. It's on the other side of a four lane road and a world away. The schools are not far apart - hearing all this woe-is-me stuff about terrible commutes is comical, as well as these preposterous proposals to do a public housing gerrymander or foist Miner's kids on faraway Ludlow-Taylor instead. Then in desperation y'all say "just throw money at it, just hire a superstar principal, anything but putting my kids in the same building with them.

I believe the ugly truth is that a lot of these low-SES at-risk children are beyond saving. No amount of money spent on smart boards or tutoring or enrichment is going to cure what ails them, because it's bone deep. It's a cyclical tragedy and a Gordian knot I don't pretend to be qualified to dissect. There is, of course, some variation in performance between schools with lots of at-risk kids, but on the whole I'd argue that schools like Maury or LT didn't improve just because the parents just cared so very much more than Miner parents or what have you...it's because the students of yesteryear got body-snatched and replaced with high-SES, Type-A-mommy, white kids.

The biggest benefit of this proposal to me is - unfortunately somewhat dependent on to what degree y'all pack up your yard signs and catch the next D6 to the Palisades - that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened, you get a truly diverse student body that still has a solid percentage of UMC parents and theoretically less OOB students coming in from EOTR. That isn't going to "fix" education for most of the in-bound at-risk kids growing up in Ward 7 without fathers and/or who never get spoken to unless it's a yell or a slap, but it can be a rising tide that lifts all ships and perhaps set a few of those unfortunates on a better path and leads to a student body that isn't just concentrated poverty. Every other idea I've seen proposed here really just boils down to Maury protectionism and keeping Miner's plight out of sight out of mind.

"that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened....."

Big IF!

Does the DME have any data to support this proposed pipe dream? Because we have another Cluster school ON THE HILL (not in North Carolina) where the Cluster model drastically decreased IB participation in the upper grades. It needs to be more than DME Vibes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t now anything about these schools, but why people do not support this? Is it because it will increase the at risk % at their school?

Why have one bad school when you can have two and split your children between both of them for an even worse drop off pickup schedule?

Yes better to have one good school and one absolutely terrible school, as long as your kid attends the good school.

There are ways to make it less terrible

1) Good principal who isn't slapping the kids or sleeping with anyone who works there.
2) More money

I know it sounds crazy.

And adjust the boundaries to fix the > 50 percentage point difference in SES between the two?

This. Money and a good principal are not going to address the huge disparities in SES between the two schools. Money in particular is a silly suggestion because why would you continue to throw more money at a school that is dysfunctional, failing to retain IB families, and producing such awful test scores. What is the money for??

I also think people really overestimate what a single principal can do. Even at Maury, the shift that started moving the school in a positive direction did not start with the principal. It's just that the principal did not stand in the way. That's it. The principal didn't actually make anything happen -- change has to come from within the community. And not just parents, teachers and all staff too. Miner has shown that even when you have dedicated families who really want the school to succeed and stick with it through tough years, it doesn't change anything if the teaching staff and a significant number of families want things to stay as they are.

The idea is having a principal who isn't engaged in any sort of misconduct that gets them fired. So there would be continuity. That's what I'm saying-- they need a principal who won't stand in the way.

Money is not a silly suggestion, it can pay for tutoring or additional staff. A bad leader will spend money badly, a good leader will spend it well. Changing the demographics of Miner will mean LESS money. How will that help?

The recent situation with the last principal is more complicated than you might have heard. It was rumored he had an improper relationship with someone on staff, but then later I heard this rumor was spread by teachers and staff who were unhappy with him. Then fact that he was quickly moved to an AP role at a well-regarded DCPS middle school indicates that there was not obvious evidence of misconduct. I don't know the truth, but the assumption that he was just a bad egg might be false -- Miner has some seriously dysfunctional issues in their teaching staff that are longstanding. One reason the school has cycled through principals is that there is a lot of resistance to change among the teaching staff, especially in the upper grades (i.e. the PARCC grades).

I also think DCPS is now at a point where it struggles to place principals at Miner because of the dysfunction in the staff there.

Miner's problems go deeper than who is sitting in the principal chair.

This information is just false. In the PARCC grades there is only 1 teacher who has been at Miner more than 2 years. There is high teacher turn over at Miner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t now anything about these schools, but why people do not support this? Is it because it will increase the at risk % at their school?

Why have one bad school when you can have two and split your children between both of them for an even worse drop off pickup schedule?

Yes better to have one good school and one absolutely terrible school, as long as your kid attends the good school.

There are ways to make it less terrible

1) Good principal who isn't slapping the kids or sleeping with anyone who works there.
2) More money

I know it sounds crazy.

And adjust the boundaries to fix the > 50 percentage point difference in SES between the two?

This. Money and a good principal are not going to address the huge disparities in SES between the two schools. Money in particular is a silly suggestion because why would you continue to throw more money at a school that is dysfunctional, failing to retain IB families, and producing such awful test scores. What is the money for??

I also think people really overestimate what a single principal can do. Even at Maury, the shift that started moving the school in a positive direction did not start with the principal. It's just that the principal did not stand in the way. That's it. The principal didn't actually make anything happen -- change has to come from within the community. And not just parents, teachers and all staff too. Miner has shown that even when you have dedicated families who really want the school to succeed and stick with it through tough years, it doesn't change anything if the teaching staff and a significant number of families want things to stay as they are.

The idea is having a principal who isn't engaged in any sort of misconduct that gets them fired. So there would be continuity. That's what I'm saying-- they need a principal who won't stand in the way.

Money is not a silly suggestion, it can pay for tutoring or additional staff. A bad leader will spend money badly, a good leader will spend it well. Changing the demographics of Miner will mean LESS money. How will that help?

The recent situation with the last principal is more complicated than you might have heard. It was rumored he had an improper relationship with someone on staff, but then later I heard this rumor was spread by teachers and staff who were unhappy with him. Then fact that he was quickly moved to an AP role at a well-regarded DCPS middle school indicates that there was not obvious evidence of misconduct. I don't know the truth, but the assumption that he was just a bad egg might be false -- Miner has some seriously dysfunctional issues in their teaching staff that are longstanding. One reason the school has cycled through principals is that there is a lot of resistance to change among the teaching staff, especially in the upper grades (i.e. the PARCC grades).

I also think DCPS is now at a point where it struggles to place principals at Miner because of the dysfunction in the staff there.

Miner's problems go deeper than who is sitting in the principal chair.

This information is just false. In the PARCC grades there is only 1 teacher who has been at Miner more than 2 years. There is high teacher turn over at Miner.

Where do you get that info? Asking because I want to find that out for our own school.

[Anonymous]

You’d need to talk to the staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t now anything about these schools, but why people do not support this? Is it because it will increase the at risk % at their school?

Why have one bad school when you can have two and split your children between both of them for an even worse drop off pickup schedule?

Yes better to have one good school and one absolutely terrible school, as long as your kid attends the good school.

There are ways to make it less terrible

1) Good principal who isn't slapping the kids or sleeping with anyone who works there.
2) More money

I know it sounds crazy.

And adjust the boundaries to fix the > 50 percentage point difference in SES between the two?

This. Money and a good principal are not going to address the huge disparities in SES between the two schools. Money in particular is a silly suggestion because why would you continue to throw more money at a school that is dysfunctional, failing to retain IB families, and producing such awful test scores. What is the money for??

I also think people really overestimate what a single principal can do. Even at Maury, the shift that started moving the school in a positive direction did not start with the principal. It's just that the principal did not stand in the way. That's it. The principal didn't actually make anything happen -- change has to come from within the community. And not just parents, teachers and all staff too. Miner has shown that even when you have dedicated families who really want the school to succeed and stick with it through tough years, it doesn't change anything if the teaching staff and a significant number of families want things to stay as they are.

The idea is having a principal who isn't engaged in any sort of misconduct that gets them fired. So there would be continuity. That's what I'm saying-- they need a principal who won't stand in the way.

Money is not a silly suggestion, it can pay for tutoring or additional staff. A bad leader will spend money badly, a good leader will spend it well. Changing the demographics of Miner will mean LESS money. How will that help?

The recent situation with the last principal is more complicated than you might have heard. It was rumored he had an improper relationship with someone on staff, but then later I heard this rumor was spread by teachers and staff who were unhappy with him. Then fact that he was quickly moved to an AP role at a well-regarded DCPS middle school indicates that there was not obvious evidence of misconduct. I don't know the truth, but the assumption that he was just a bad egg might be false -- Miner has some seriously dysfunctional issues in their teaching staff that are longstanding. One reason the school has cycled through principals is that there is a lot of resistance to change among the teaching staff, especially in the upper grades (i.e. the PARCC grades).

I also think DCPS is now at a point where it struggles to place principals at Miner because of the dysfunction in the staff there.

Miner's problems go deeper than who is sitting in the principal chair.

This information is just false. In the PARCC grades there is only 1 teacher who has been at Miner more than 2 years. There is high teacher turn over at Miner.

Where do you get that info? Asking because I want to find that out for our own school.

A school you currently attend? Can't you just ask someone? Parents of kids with 3rd-5th graders probably know. I could certainly tell you how long every teacher at our school has been there (or, at least, before my time vs. specific year of arrival).

That is an insane stat though and a sign of major issues. (Although it absolutely does contradict the toxic long-term teachers claim previously.) Our neighboring Hill school doesn't have any 3rd-5th teachers that have been there 2 years or less, although one used to teach something else and has taught their current class for less than 2 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in-bound for Miner and wholeheartedly support the proposal to pair the schools. I get why Maury parents would oppose it - you paid a premium for your rowhomes with a specific understanding that you could send your children to a majority-white and high-SES elementary school and here comes DME wanting to essentially reverse the gentrifying effects that made Maury the school it is today and throw open the gates to the grandkids of the starburst crowd. I'd be gnashing my teeth too, but that doesn't mean this doesn't make sense for the neighborhood as a whole, or for the children in our little pocket of Northeast as a whole, which is where DME's greatest duty lies.

I've never been one for the "In this house we believe..." signs like many of the folks blowing a gasket over this proposal, but hoo boy y'all's opposition to this (especially in that 140+ page thread, which was locked by the time I finished reading it) has led to a lot of hysterics and bizarre takes.

Imagine my surprise in that first thread to hear that my neighborhood is "controlled by gangs" and "might as well be Baltimore." Yes, the concentrated poverty and crime in Azeeze-Bates and the Pentacle Apartments is unfortunate, but the bottom line is that this proposal is the best option for the neighborhood as a whole. The neighborhood is not scary and the starburst doesn't really intersect with the comings and goings at Miner. It's on the other side of a four lane road and a world away. The schools are not far apart - hearing all this woe-is-me stuff about terrible commutes is comical, as well as these preposterous proposals to do a public housing gerrymander or foist Miner's kids on faraway Ludlow-Taylor instead. Then in desperation y'all say "just throw money at it, just hire a superstar principal, anything but putting my kids in the same building with them.

I believe the ugly truth is that a lot of these low-SES at-risk children are beyond saving. No amount of money spent on smart boards or tutoring or enrichment is going to cure what ails them, because it's bone deep. It's a cyclical tragedy and a Gordian knot I don't pretend to be qualified to dissect. There is, of course, some variation in performance between schools with lots of at-risk kids, but on the whole I'd argue that schools like Maury or LT didn't improve just because the parents just cared so very much more than Miner parents or what have you...it's because the students of yesteryear got body-snatched and replaced with high-SES, Type-A-mommy, white kids.

The biggest benefit of this proposal to me is - unfortunately somewhat dependent on to what degree y'all pack up your yard signs and catch the next D6 to the Palisades - that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened, you get a truly diverse student body that still has a solid percentage of UMC parents and theoretically less OOB students coming in from EOTR. That isn't going to "fix" education for most of the in-bound at-risk kids growing up in Ward 7 without fathers and/or who never get spoken to unless it's a yell or a slap, but it can be a rising tide that lifts all ships and perhaps set a few of those unfortunates on a better path and leads to a student body that isn't just concentrated poverty. Every other idea I've seen proposed here really just boils down to Maury protectionism and keeping Miner's plight out of sight out of mind.

"that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened....."

Big IF!

Does the DME have any data to support this proposed pipe dream? Because we have another Cluster school ON THE HILL (not in North Carolina) where the Cluster model drastically decreased IB participation in the upper grades. It needs to be more than DME Vibes.

Agree. This is an overall misguided proposal based on wishful-thinking.

More likely than not, more Maury parents will (a) move their kids to better schools, (b) move out of the neighborhood, which will cause two bad schools - not “two good schools” as DME’s Jennifer Comey seem to believe. The IB/OOB Peabody-Watkins cluster shows this well as you say - most parents will choose what’s best for their child over some broader societal goal. Good schools in DC seem to be created by groups of resourceful parents that decide to invest in a school (primarily by having their kids attend the local school) and who knows when this will be the time again when the current group that made Maury what it is feels betrayed. (Also, the area around Miner is not safe – DC should deal with that first before putting more kids in harms way).

Two questions:

- Why does it matter that a failing school is in proximity (0.5m) to a good one? Should not each failing school be equally addressed, and if they want to shuffle things around, shouldn’t the impact of at risk students be equally distributed through DCPS?

- How binding will DME's recommendations be, and how can political pressure be put on the Mayor to reject this potential proposal beyond the petition? I don’t believe Maury is being punished as some suggest (why?) but clearly some schools are being protected because of political pressure/cost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in-bound for Miner and wholeheartedly support the proposal to pair the schools. I get why Maury parents would oppose it - you paid a premium for your rowhomes with a specific understanding that you could send your children to a majority-white and high-SES elementary school and here comes DME wanting to essentially reverse the gentrifying effects that made Maury the school it is today and throw open the gates to the grandkids of the starburst crowd. I'd be gnashing my teeth too, but that doesn't mean this doesn't make sense for the neighborhood as a whole, or for the children in our little pocket of Northeast as a whole, which is where DME's greatest duty lies.

I've never been one for the "In this house we believe..." signs like many of the folks blowing a gasket over this proposal, but hoo boy y'all's opposition to this (especially in that 140+ page thread, which was locked by the time I finished reading it) has led to a lot of hysterics and bizarre takes.

Imagine my surprise in that first thread to hear that my neighborhood is "controlled by gangs" and "might as well be Baltimore." Yes, the concentrated poverty and crime in Azeeze-Bates and the Pentacle Apartments is unfortunate, but the bottom line is that this proposal is the best option for the neighborhood as a whole. The neighborhood is not scary and the starburst doesn't really intersect with the comings and goings at Miner. It's on the other side of a four lane road and a world away. The schools are not far apart - hearing all this woe-is-me stuff about terrible commutes is comical, as well as these preposterous proposals to do a public housing gerrymander or foist Miner's kids on faraway Ludlow-Taylor instead. Then in desperation y'all say "just throw money at it, just hire a superstar principal, anything but putting my kids in the same building with them.

I believe the ugly truth is that a lot of these low-SES at-risk children are beyond saving. No amount of money spent on smart boards or tutoring or enrichment is going to cure what ails them, because it's bone deep. It's a cyclical tragedy and a Gordian knot I don't pretend to be qualified to dissect. There is, of course, some variation in performance between schools with lots of at-risk kids, but on the whole I'd argue that schools like Maury or LT didn't improve just because the parents just cared so very much more than Miner parents or what have you...it's because the students of yesteryear got body-snatched and replaced with high-SES, Type-A-mommy, white kids.

The biggest benefit of this proposal to me is - unfortunately somewhat dependent on to what degree y'all pack up your yard signs and catch the next D6 to the Palisades - that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened, you get a truly diverse student body that still has a solid percentage of UMC parents and theoretically less OOB students coming in from EOTR. That isn't going to "fix" education for most of the in-bound at-risk kids growing up in Ward 7 without fathers and/or who never get spoken to unless it's a yell or a slap, but it can be a rising tide that lifts all ships and perhaps set a few of those unfortunates on a better path and leads to a student body that isn't just concentrated poverty. Every other idea I've seen proposed here really just boils down to Maury protectionism and keeping Miner's plight out of sight out of mind.

"that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened....."

Big IF!

Does the DME have any data to support this proposed pipe dream? Because we have another Cluster school ON THE HILL (not in North Carolina) where the Cluster model drastically decreased IB participation in the upper grades. It needs to be more than DME Vibes.

Agree. This is an overall misguided proposal based on wishful-thinking.

More likely than not, more Maury parents will (a) move their kids to better schools, (b) move out of the neighborhood, which will cause two bad schools - not “two good schools” as DME’s Jennifer Comey seem to believe. The IB/OOB Peabody-Watkins cluster shows this well as you say - most parents will choose what’s best for their child over some broader societal goal. Good schools in DC seem to be created by groups of resourceful parents that decide to invest in a school (primarily by having their kids attend the local school) and who knows when this will be the time again when the current group that made Maury what it is feels betrayed. (Also, the area around Miner is not safe – DC should deal with that first before putting more kids in harms way).

Two questions:

- Why does it matter that a failing school is in proximity (0.5m) to a good one? Should not each failing school be equally addressed, and if they want to shuffle things around, shouldn’t the impact of at risk students be equally distributed through DCPS?

- How binding will DME's recommendations be, and how can political pressure be put on the Mayor to reject this potential proposal beyond the petition? I don’t believe Maury is being punished as some suggest (why?) but clearly some schools are being protected because of political pressure/cost.

The answer is too many white kids attend the successful school, and the mayor cannot abide the optics of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in-bound for Miner and wholeheartedly support the proposal to pair the schools. I get why Maury parents would oppose it - you paid a premium for your rowhomes with a specific understanding that you could send your children to a majority-white and high-SES elementary school and here comes DME wanting to essentially reverse the gentrifying effects that made Maury the school it is today and throw open the gates to the grandkids of the starburst crowd. I'd be gnashing my teeth too, but that doesn't mean this doesn't make sense for the neighborhood as a whole, or for the children in our little pocket of Northeast as a whole, which is where DME's greatest duty lies.

I've never been one for the "In this house we believe..." signs like many of the folks blowing a gasket over this proposal, but hoo boy y'all's opposition to this (especially in that 140+ page thread, which was locked by the time I finished reading it) has led to a lot of hysterics and bizarre takes.

Imagine my surprise in that first thread to hear that my neighborhood is "controlled by gangs" and "might as well be Baltimore." Yes, the concentrated poverty and crime in Azeeze-Bates and the Pentacle Apartments is unfortunate, but the bottom line is that this proposal is the best option for the neighborhood as a whole. The neighborhood is not scary and the starburst doesn't really intersect with the comings and goings at Miner. It's on the other side of a four lane road and a world away. The schools are not far apart - hearing all this woe-is-me stuff about terrible commutes is comical, as well as these preposterous proposals to do a public housing gerrymander or foist Miner's kids on faraway Ludlow-Taylor instead. Then in desperation y'all say "just throw money at it, just hire a superstar principal, anything but putting my kids in the same building with them.

I believe the ugly truth is that a lot of these low-SES at-risk children are beyond saving. No amount of money spent on smart boards or tutoring or enrichment is going to cure what ails them, because it's bone deep. It's a cyclical tragedy and a Gordian knot I don't pretend to be qualified to dissect. There is, of course, some variation in performance between schools with lots of at-risk kids, but on the whole I'd argue that schools like Maury or LT didn't improve just because the parents just cared so very much more than Miner parents or what have you...it's because the students of yesteryear got body-snatched and replaced with high-SES, Type-A-mommy, white kids.

The biggest benefit of this proposal to me is - unfortunately somewhat dependent on to what degree y'all pack up your yard signs and catch the next D6 to the Palisades - that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened, you get a truly diverse student body that still has a solid percentage of UMC parents and theoretically less OOB students coming in from EOTR. That isn't going to "fix" education for most of the in-bound at-risk kids growing up in Ward 7 without fathers and/or who never get spoken to unless it's a yell or a slap, but it can be a rising tide that lifts all ships and perhaps set a few of those unfortunates on a better path and leads to a student body that isn't just concentrated poverty. Every other idea I've seen proposed here really just boils down to Maury protectionism and keeping Miner's plight out of sight out of mind.

"that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened....."

Big IF!

Does the DME have any data to support this proposed pipe dream? Because we have another Cluster school ON THE HILL (not in North Carolina) where the Cluster model drastically decreased IB participation in the upper grades. It needs to be more than DME Vibes.

Agree. This is an overall misguided proposal based on wishful-thinking.

More likely than not, more Maury parents will (a) move their kids to better schools, (b) move out of the neighborhood, which will cause two bad schools - not “two good schools” as DME’s Jennifer Comey seem to believe. The IB/OOB Peabody-Watkins cluster shows this well as you say - most parents will choose what’s best for their child over some broader societal goal. Good schools in DC seem to be created by groups of resourceful parents that decide to invest in a school (primarily by having their kids attend the local school) and who knows when this will be the time again when the current group that made Maury what it is feels betrayed. (Also, the area around Miner is not safe – DC should deal with that first before putting more kids in harms way).

Two questions:

- Why does it matter that a failing school is in proximity (0.5m) to a good one? Should not each failing school be equally addressed, and if they want to shuffle things around, shouldn’t the impact of at risk students be equally distributed through DCPS?

- How binding will DME's recommendations be, and how can political pressure be put on the Mayor to reject this potential proposal beyond the petition? I don’t believe Maury is being punished as some suggest (why?) but clearly some schools are being protected because of political pressure/cost.

+1. Maury families will move their kids and you will end up with 2 poor schools.

There is absolutely no plan on supporting the at risk kids more. Just moving some of them to another school will do nothing. Then OSSE will put pressure on Maury to close the achievement gap by not raising the bottom but lowering the top and watch and see how many more Maury parents will be fleeing the ship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Putting aside the blatant racism running through this post, it is misguided. As the DME has said repeatedly, Miner's IB population mirrors its current population. Increasing IB participation won't change Miner's demographics. Moreover, Miner has pretty good UMC buy-in for the early years. It doesn't for upper grades. Maury also loses some IB kids in the upper grades. Looking to the only other cluster on the Hill, we can expect this IB exodus in the upper grades to increase if the school is spread across two campuses.

Also, it's not "just protectionism" if families are advocating for a boundary redraw knowing they'll likely be zoned out. No one expects the boundary to encompass Azeeze-Bates, but remain otherwise unchanged.

There's no blatant racism here. I'm just speaking plainly on the uncomfortable (and inextricably intertwined) issues of race and class that are at the root of this whole proposal and the resulting controversy. In any event, approximately 64% of Miner students are at-risk versus 60% of the in-bound student population, so very close, yes, but Miner's boundary is 73% black while the school is 80% black. A mere 26% of in-bound Miner students actually attend, and it's common knowledge that many higher-SES parents lottery out of the school. Under the proposal, the at-risk population at both schools levels out at about 40%. Surely you see that increased buy-in from those 74% (not all of whom are UMC of course, but I suppose do care enough to lottery their kids elsewhere) could conceivably change the school's demographics and result in a school not suffering from a critical mass of at-risk students. Either way, with the lottery it is going to be an uphill battle to retain students into middle school.

I think you're absolutely right, and your original post was accurate.

High SES white families on the Hill do not want to talk about race and class. Even less so in the context of local schools, where they expect diversity in thought, programming, and curricula -- but never actual diversity.

It's a tale as old as time in this country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in-bound for Miner and wholeheartedly support the proposal to pair the schools. I get why Maury parents would oppose it - you paid a premium for your rowhomes with a specific understanding that you could send your children to a majority-white and high-SES elementary school and here comes DME wanting to essentially reverse the gentrifying effects that made Maury the school it is today and throw open the gates to the grandkids of the starburst crowd. I'd be gnashing my teeth too, but that doesn't mean this doesn't make sense for the neighborhood as a whole, or for the children in our little pocket of Northeast as a whole, which is where DME's greatest duty lies.

I've never been one for the "In this house we believe..." signs like many of the folks blowing a gasket over this proposal, but hoo boy y'all's opposition to this (especially in that 140+ page thread, which was locked by the time I finished reading it) has led to a lot of hysterics and bizarre takes.

Imagine my surprise in that first thread to hear that my neighborhood is "controlled by gangs" and "might as well be Baltimore." Yes, the concentrated poverty and crime in Azeeze-Bates and the Pentacle Apartments is unfortunate, but the bottom line is that this proposal is the best option for the neighborhood as a whole. The neighborhood is not scary and the starburst doesn't really intersect with the comings and goings at Miner. It's on the other side of a four lane road and a world away. The schools are not far apart - hearing all this woe-is-me stuff about terrible commutes is comical, as well as these preposterous proposals to do a public housing gerrymander or foist Miner's kids on faraway Ludlow-Taylor instead. Then in desperation y'all say "just throw money at it, just hire a superstar principal, anything but putting my kids in the same building with them.

I believe the ugly truth is that a lot of these low-SES at-risk children are beyond saving. No amount of money spent on smart boards or tutoring or enrichment is going to cure what ails them, because it's bone deep. It's a cyclical tragedy and a Gordian knot I don't pretend to be qualified to dissect. There is, of course, some variation in performance between schools with lots of at-risk kids, but on the whole I'd argue that schools like Maury or LT didn't improve just because the parents just cared so very much more than Miner parents or what have you...it's because the students of yesteryear got body-snatched and replaced with high-SES, Type-A-mommy, white kids.

The biggest benefit of this proposal to me is - unfortunately somewhat dependent on to what degree y'all pack up your yard signs and catch the next D6 to the Palisades - that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened, you get a truly diverse student body that still has a solid percentage of UMC parents and theoretically less OOB students coming in from EOTR. That isn't going to "fix" education for most of the in-bound at-risk kids growing up in Ward 7 without fathers and/or who never get spoken to unless it's a yell or a slap, but it can be a rising tide that lifts all ships and perhaps set a few of those unfortunates on a better path and leads to a student body that isn't just concentrated poverty. Every other idea I've seen proposed here really just boils down to Maury protectionism and keeping Miner's plight out of sight out of mind.

"that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened....."

Big IF!

Does the DME have any data to support this proposed pipe dream? Because we have another Cluster school ON THE HILL (not in North Carolina) where the Cluster model drastically decreased IB participation in the upper grades. It needs to be more than DME Vibes.

Agree. This is an overall misguided proposal based on wishful-thinking.

More likely than not, more Maury parents will (a) move their kids to better schools, (b) move out of the neighborhood, which will cause two bad schools - not “two good schools” as DME’s Jennifer Comey seem to believe. The IB/OOB Peabody-Watkins cluster shows this well as you say - most parents will choose what’s best for their child over some broader societal goal. Good schools in DC seem to be created by groups of resourceful parents that decide to invest in a school (primarily by having their kids attend the local school) and who knows when this will be the time again when the current group that made Maury what it is feels betrayed. (Also, the area around Miner is not safe – DC should deal with that first before putting more kids in harms way).

Two questions:

- Why does it matter that a failing school is in proximity (0.5m) to a good one? Should not each failing school be equally addressed, and if they want to shuffle things around, shouldn’t the impact of at risk students be equally distributed through DCPS?

- How binding will DME's recommendations be, and how can political pressure be put on the Mayor to reject this potential proposal beyond the petition? I don’t believe Maury is being punished as some suggest (why?) but clearly some schools are being protected because of political pressure/cost.

Agree on your first point. When I saw just how bad the Miner data was, I thought a better solution would be closing the school and splitting the zone between Maury, LT, SWS, and Payne.