Brent vs. Maury vs. Ludlow-Taylor

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Please get back to us when have specific answers about when DCPS will stop dropping Brent grads who read one or two years above grade level into Jefferson ELA classes where most students read and write below grade level. PARCC data tells me that many of these kids read and write not just a little below grade level, but 2-4 years below.

You seem to be assuming that Jefferson kids are just randomly assigned to classes without any consideration of individual aptitude/ability. From our experience so far, that does not at all appear to be the case -- at least not for the core (non-elective) classes.

OK, so what is the transparent process for testing into core honors/advanced classes at Jefferson where all student work at or above grade level?

[Anonymous]

It’s my understanding that placement in advanced math at Jefferson is based on testing.

As to the other core classes, I don’t know the process. But anecdotally (based solely on my child’s experience so far) I can tell you that there does seem to be an effort to place kids with similar aptitudes/abilities together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody did this:

“ Dude. You guys are the ones insisting that a parent who wrote here that they are happy at Jefferson must be wrong”

They offered what’s known as an additional perspective. Are you all incapable of rational thought?

This exquisite sensitivity has to end. Lordy.

yeah no, that’s not what happened. clearly you have no actual interest in these schools except as a foil for your own choices. so please just step away.

Again—fall in line or step away. There’s no room for questions.

Nobody seems to have asked any bona fide questions. Just random rumors and claiming the people who say they are satisfied are wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The half dozen IB Brent families who went on to to Jefferson this year can be thrilled with their choice without that changing the fact that more than 85% of the 4th grade families rejected the program, like they've done for years.

There are definitely more than half a dozen Brent families with kids in this year's sixth grade class at Jefferson. I know this, because my family is one of them. (And for what's it's worth, Jefferson also has kids from Van Ness this year, as Van Ness gradated its first fifth-grade class last year.)

I understand your larger point, but please try to make it without hyperbole.

Brent families, yes, in-boundary families, no.

And herein lies the rub… Vanishingly few Brent IB families go to Jefferson. The same is true for Maury/EH. At least 10 LT IB families go to SH each year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody did this:

“ Dude. You guys are the ones insisting that a parent who wrote here that they are happy at Jefferson must be wrong”

They offered what’s known as an additional perspective. Are you all incapable of rational thought?

This exquisite sensitivity has to end. Lordy.

yeah no, that’s not what happened. clearly you have no actual interest in these schools except as a foil for your own choices. so please just step away.

Again—fall in line or step away. There’s no room for questions.

Nobody seems to have asked any bona fide questions. Just random rumors and claiming the people who say they are satisfied are wrong.

Questions asked and brushed off:
“That is a worthwhile thing to do. Three questions 1) how many Brent to Jefferson to Walls/Banneker students are we talking about? 2) How many non-Brent Jefferson students have moved to Walls/Banneker and can we also talk to them? 3) Why did these Jefferson students not attend Eastern HS which is the feeder High school? “

[Anonymous]

I don’t believe that those are bona fide questions. I think you already generally know the answers to them, and you’re just posing them in an attempt to make a point.

Meanwhile, a few posts above, I answered a potentially legitimate question about how kids and Jefferson are placed into a particular classes, include advanced math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t believe that those are bona fide questions. I think you already generally know the answers to them, and you’re just posing them in an attempt to make a point.

Meanwhile, a few posts above, I answered a potentially legitimate question about how kids and Jefferson are placed into a particular classes, include advanced math.

I truly don’t know the answers to these questions and they are of interest to people considering a charter that goes through high school vs. a choice that will require them to possibly test into a public or private high school in three short years.

As I’m sure you know, many DC. Middle schools don’t even offer a course of study that would set up a student to successfully apply to say Walls or Banneker—so knowing how many Jefferson graduates ( Brent feeders or not ) that take that path is completely the point.

Discounting genuine interest as some sort of evil agenda and deciding which questions are Bona fide or legitimate based on prejudice and assumptions of malice is exactly the kind of unhelpful arrogance that alienated people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t believe that those are bona fide questions. I think you already generally know the answers to them, and you’re just posing them in an attempt to make a point.

Meanwhile, a few posts above, I answered a potentially legitimate question about how kids and Jefferson are placed into a particular classes, include advanced math.

Well the data says there are 372 kids at Jefferson and 1% are above grade level in math. So you are basically saying 3 kids make up a class in advance math??

I suspect the advance math course is in name only and not really rigorous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The half dozen IB Brent families who went on to to Jefferson this year can be thrilled with their choice without that changing the fact that more than 85% of the 4th grade families rejected the program, like they've done for years.

There are definitely more than half a dozen Brent families with kids in this year's sixth grade class at Jefferson. I know this, because my family is one of them. (And for what's it's worth, Jefferson also has kids from Van Ness this year, as Van Ness gradated its first fifth-grade class last year.)

I understand your larger point, but please try to make it without hyperbole.

Brent families, yes, in-boundary families, no.

And herein lies the rub… Vanishingly few Brent IB families go to Jefferson. The same is true for Maury/EH. At least 10 LT IB families go to SH each year.

No, that’s not true about EH. buyer beware, the info you get on dcum is worth what you pay for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t believe that those are bona fide questions. I think you already generally know the answers to them, and you’re just posing them in an attempt to make a point.

Meanwhile, a few posts above, I answered a potentially legitimate question about how kids and Jefferson are placed into a particular classes, include advanced math.

I truly don’t know the answers to these questions and they are of interest to people considering a charter that goes through high school vs. a choice that will require them to possibly test into a public or private high school in three short years.

As I’m sure you know, many DC. Middle schools don’t even offer a course of study that would set up a student to successfully apply to say Walls or Banneker—so knowing how many Jefferson graduates ( Brent feeders or not ) that take that path is completely the point.

Discounting genuine interest as some sort of evil agenda and deciding which questions are Bona fide or legitimate based on prejudice and assumptions of malice is exactly the kind of unhelpful arrogance that alienated people.

Despite not having a kid at Jefferson, you apparently think you know enough about the school to make an informed contribution to the conversation, as evidenced by the fact that you keep posting about it. I therefore find it difficult to believe that you don’t have even a general idea about how many kids have gone from Brent to Jefferson to Walls/Banneker. I don’t know the exact number either, but I assume it’s relatively small, as the total number of kids who have gone from Brent to Jefferson in recent years is small. I also don’t know how many non-Brent kids have gone from Jefferson to Walls/Banneker, and I already told you that days ago.

If your actual question is whether Jefferson offers a course of study that can set up a student to successfully apply to Walls or Banneker, then the answer is clearly yes, as kids have gone from Jefferson to both.

Other questions?

[Anonymous]

I went to a Jefferson open house pre Covid, and tuned into Zoom sessions for Brent families about Jefferson in the spring. I posited some of the questions asked on this thread at these events, as did fellow Brent parents. What we got in response were the vaguest of statements about "leveled classrooms" and nebulous sounding advanced math instruction at Jefferson. We were told of "a significance presence" of Jefferson graduates at Banneker and Walls,. I left unconvinced of definite rigor, or a path to a competitive DCPS high school, helping explain why we went with a charter.

If DCPS isn't going to be straight up with in-boundary parents of high-achieving 4th and 5th graders about what constitutes advanced course work at Jefferson, why should Brent parents trust Jefferson admins and teachers to provide the "appropriate rigor and challenge" I heard so much about in the presentations? My kid was a bit bored at Brent, although I pushed for more rigor in the upper grades. It didn't worth the risk to have them seriously bored at Jefferson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Well the data says there are 372 kids at Jefferson and 1% are above grade level in math. So you are basically saying 3 kids make up a class in advance math??

No. The kids in sixth grade who are in the advanced math track at Jefferson take seventh-grade math with mostly seventh graders (instead of sixth-grade math), and so on. They take algebra in eighth grade. I don't know how many kids are in current the eight-grade algebra class. (I realize this track is not advanced by some people's standards, but it is advanced in comparison to the regular DCPS track. I've also heard that geometry might be added to the Jefferson curriculum sometime in the next couple of years.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The half dozen IB Brent families who went on to to Jefferson this year can be thrilled with their choice without that changing the fact that more than 85% of the 4th grade families rejected the program, like they've done for years.

There are definitely more than half a dozen Brent families with kids in this year's sixth grade class at Jefferson. I know this, because my family is one of them. (And for what's it's worth, Jefferson also has kids from Van Ness this year, as Van Ness gradated its first fifth-grade class last year.)

I understand your larger point, but please try to make it without hyperbole.

Brent families, yes, in-boundary families, no.

And herein lies the rub… Vanishingly few Brent IB families go to Jefferson. The same is true for Maury/EH. At least 10 LT IB families go to SH each year.

Vanishing isn't wrong. I remember a parent at an open house asking why admins thought fewer Brent graduates were enrolled at Jefferson in 2020 than in 2019, when there were fewer still than in 2018. Admins blamed the enrollment slide on chaos related to major renovations and pandemic school closures. It sounds like there's been an uptick in enrollment from Brent this year, but it's not as though Jefferson has taken off for Brent in recent years. DCI and Stuart Hobson appear to be attracting most of the families who fail to get off the BASIS and Latin wait lists. Yet causes of lagging enrollment don't seem to have been researched by any quarter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well the data says there are 372 kids at Jefferson and 1% are above grade level in math. So you are basically saying 3 kids make up a class in advance math??

No. The kids in sixth grade who are in the advanced math track at Jefferson take seventh-grade math with mostly seventh graders (instead of sixth-grade math), and so on. They take algebra in eighth grade. I don't know how many kids are in current the eight-grade algebra class. (I realize this track is not advanced by some people's standards, but it is advanced in comparison to the regular DCPS track. I've also heard that geometry might be added to the Jefferson curriculum sometime in the next couple of years.)

Great, if it happens. Another example of vague promises from on high, not sufficient to promote confidence on the part of parents of 4th and 5th graders in feeder schools.

[Anonymous]

I directly answered the specific question that was asked. Then you ignored my answer and zeroed in on the parenthetical.

Jefferson currently has algebra for eighth grade, which is advanced as compared with the regular DCPS track.

I’m done. At least for tonight. Rest well.