SWS moving to Prospect LC building?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What is your evidence for asserting this nefarious behavior?

Oh please! -- you're not serious, are you?

PP again--
who said "nefarious" anyway -- good business model exploiting the dysfunctionality of the DC public school system. If I ran a charter where space is at a premium and I wanted to lock in the greatest demand middle school would be the way to go (maybe HS too). I'd want to reach families who are fed up with their traditional public shool options, and I'd want to have enough time to inculcate them to whatever curriculum my charter is introducing.

For the MS+, is there even a single exception to this model?

What you offer is conjecture and not evidence.

do you actually have anything useful to say? sorry if dcum isn't really the go to source of qualitative analysis -- it's a lot of opinion and commentary -- much like your loaded suggestion with the word "nefarious". Perhaps you should consult Brookings or Urban Institute. Do you have a point, or are you just a charter parent booster
looking to troll on a topic that doesn't really relate to you? Let me guess -- Yu Ying?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What a bunch of pessimists. Rather than rooting for SWS or any school to fail, you could also look at SWS as a potential contributor to a revamped Hill middle school feeder pattern. In a few years Van Ness will reopen, and between Brent, Maury, Tyler SI, Watkins and SWS you could have the core of a decent middle school in the not too distant future. ... and if DCPS can't figure it out, most of the families at these schools are pretty resourceful and will find good alternatives, whether that's charters, private, parochial, OOB or moving. DCPS needs to learn the importance of retaining families for continuity, and they also need to do one or more of the following: 1)effectively lobby government against charters poaching their students in 5th grade -- MS charters offer 5th grade and up for this express purpose -- require 5th grade programs to offer PK-5 as well; or 2) offer competitive 5th grade and up middle school options (PK-8, 5-8, etc) -- in other words, level the playing field; 3) provide better guaranteed feeder options to retain students through ES -- uncertainty fuels market volatility.

Anonymous wrote:What is your evidence for asserting this nefarious behavior?

Anonymous wrote:Oh please! -- you're not serious, are you?

Anonymous wrote:PP again-- who said "nefarious" anyway -- good business model exploiting the dysfunctionality of the DC public school system. If I ran a charter where space is at a premium and I wanted to lock in the greatest demand middle school would be the way to go (maybe HS too). I'd want to reach families who are fed up with their traditional public shool options, and I'd want to have enough time to inculcate them to whatever curriculum my charter is introducing. For the MS+, is there even a single exception to this model?

Anonymous wrote:What you offer is conjecture and not evidence.

Anonymous wrote:do you actually have anything useful to say? sorry if dcum isn't really the go to source of qualitative analysis -- it's a lot of opinion and commentary -- much like your loaded suggestion with the word "nefarious". Perhaps you should consult Brookings or Urban Institute. Do you have a point, or are you just a charter parent booster looking to troll on a topic that doesn't really relate to you? Let me guess -- Yu Ying?

East of the Park parents have left their DCPS elementary schools pre-5th grade for decades, and it is still the case today. The only thing different now is that charters are an option unavailable ten years ago. When kids hit 2nd 3rd and 4th their parents want a better school with a more promising feeder pattern, and they look towards schools like Eaton and Murch that feed into Deal. Other parents leave DCPS for privates and some leave DC altogether. This is not a new phenomenon.

There is a lack of historical context to assert that charters, which opened five years ago, unfairly recruit. It is wrong to claim all/most families stay enrolled in East of the Park DCPS elementary schools through 5th - that neither was nor is the case.

The reason I say nefarious is that you used the word poaching. (POACHING – “Illegally hunt or catch (game or fish) on land that is not one's own or is under official protection.”)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
East of the Park parents have left their DCPS elementary schools pre-5th grade for decades, and it is still the case today. The only thing different now is that charters are an option unavailable ten years ago. When kids hit 2nd 3rd and 4th their parents want a better school with a more promising feeder pattern, and they look towards schools like Eaton and Murch that feed into Deal. Other parents leave DCPS for privates and some leave DC altogether. This is not a new phenomenon.

There is a lack of historical context to assert that charters, which opened five years ago, unfairly recruit. It is wrong to claim all/most families stay enrolled in East of the Park DCPS elementary schools through 5th - that neither was nor is the case.

The reason I say nefarious is that you used the word poaching. (POACHING – “Illegally hunt or catch (game or fish) on land that is not one's own or is under official protection.”)

given that "poaching" in this context is obviously slang, you could substitute recruit, advertise, promote, solicit. . . whatever. Nowhere did I say "unfairly" recruit either -- they just exploit a system with weak controls. And they recruit at all levels regardless of years in operation. Families with strong MS feeders are more likely to stay through 5th (ie Deal) than those without (most everyone else)

Charters largely (but not entirely) attract families dissaffected with their public education alternatives, whether that entails offering specialized programs or attracting families away from underperforming public schools. DCPS could counter by offering competing programs, improving the quality of neighborhood schools, etc. Charters are nimble and many are independent, which provides great lattitude in structuring programs to exploit systemic weaknesses (espcecially at MS level). Then again, I don't see a big difference between the very real achievement gap at charters vs traditional public shools.

It's like any successfull investor who exploits market weakness. The public education system is essentially a free-for-all, and DCPS is a bloated beauracracy. Charters just have an advantageous market position. I have no fundamental issues with (most) charters, but many parents would prefer quality neighborhood schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: What a bunch of pessimists. Rather than rooting for SWS or any school to fail, you could also look at SWS as a potential contributor to a revamped Hill middle school feeder pattern. In a few years Van Ness will reopen, and between Brent, Maury, Tyler SI, Watkins and SWS you could have the core of a decent middle school in the not too distant future.

Bunch of realists. How long have you lived in the LT district? I've been here a decade, and have spoken to Wells about the concerns of IB parents at his office hours several times. He dismisses our concerns out of hand, tooting LT's horn for "impressive" test scores and "long waiting lists." Playing the charter lottery sounds like an easy out, but it's not: the neighborhoood ES deficit takes its toll. Many aren't OK with the commute to Yu Ying or Inpsired Teaching or wherever and want to live in a more stable community for little kids, so they give up after a year or two on the charter scene. We're moving to a smaller place in another Hill school district. The real winners are go-getting real estate agents.

So as long as Wells is in, we're out, in the cold. Wells is going to back a new MS program catering to upper-middle-class families? Dream on. He doesn't give a hoot that three-quarters of the Brent 4th graders, including almost every white kid, hit the road, mainly for Latin or Basis, over the summer. And he doesn't care that Stuart Hobson is 80% OOB. He cares that Trinidad and Bladensburg Rd. folk vote for him in the next election. I don't doubt that pressure on him to act will rise, or that he'll resist it.

[Anonymous]

+1.

The thing about playing the charter lottery is that you need LUCK to win.

We never seem to have any.

We strike out left and right, at Peabody, SWS, Logan Montessori, Maury, Brent, 2 Rivers, Inspired Teaching, you name it.

We already use two languages at home (one not taught at any DC school, immersion or otherwise) and don't care to add one.

We complain to Wells and the Chancellor.

We're calling the Smith Team.

Hint: Do not buy in the LT District if you don't ooze luckiness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
So as long as Wells is in, we're out, in the cold. Wells is going to back a new MS program catering to upper-middle-class families? Dream on. He doesn't give a hoot that three-quarters of the Brent 4th graders, including almost every white kid, hit the road, mainly for Latin or Basis, over the summer. And he doesn't care that Stuart Hobson is 80% OOB. He cares that Trinidad and Bladensburg Rd. folk vote for him in the next election. I don't doubt that pressure on him to act will rise, or that he'll resist it.

Wells is useless on this front, but he's not the one who gets things done. He's not even positioned on the Council to do so if he wanted to have an impact. SWS expanded despite Wells, not because of him. Wells lives in a fantasy world where Eliot-Hine is the answer for his constituents.

Well organized parents can have an impact. Parents need to organize and make the case directly to DCPS. The looming boundary fight is the place to start.

[Anonymous]

I agree, make the case to DCPS - Wells maybe be useless on education in Ward 6, but he wouldn't stand in our way.

What can the LT parents do in regard to the looming boundary fight? Fight to be IB for SWS - it's not set in stone that the school will have a city-wide draw?? Fight for proximity preference? Fight to switch the city-wide draw to LT? Fight to shift LT's boundaries north, away from Stanton Park perhaps with F St as the southern border (many of us live between F and the park). What?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree, make the case to DCPS - Wells maybe be useless on education in Ward 6, but he wouldn't stand in our way.

What can the LT parents do in regard to the looming boundary fight? Fight to be IB for SWS - it's not set in stone that the school will have a city-wide draw?? Fight for proximity preference? Fight to switch the city-wide draw to LT? Fight to shift LT's boundaries north, away from Stanton Park perhaps with F St as the southern border (many of us live between F and the park). What?

It's set in stone for this year -- the lottery opened yesterday. DCPS has already said they'll include SWS in future boundary discussions schedule to begin this spring.

[Anonymous]

I just hope that IB LT families with babies (and fetuses!) are paying attention. The LT PTA is unlikely to make any constructive moves on the boundary changing front - a new pressure group would have to form to be effective. At a minimum, this would mean getting up a neighborhood petition pushing to change boundaries and/or get neighborhood preference for SWS. It's too late past K at LT for those of us with 3-5 year olds, other than half a dozen unusually committed families who battle on against bad odds. A few say they don't mind the ghetto school environment, given the high quality of instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree, make the case to DCPS - Wells maybe be useless on education in Ward 6, but he wouldn't stand in our way.

What can the LT parents do in regard to the looming boundary fight? Fight to be IB for SWS - it's not set in stone that the school will have a city-wide draw?? Fight for proximity preference? Fight to switch the city-wide draw to LT? Fight to shift LT's boundaries North, away from Stanton Park perhaps with F St as the southern border (many of us live between F and the park). What?

Here is one way to make it happen: all Ward Six ES schools feed into one middle school. There are not enough middle class families within the catchment areas for the three middle schools to reach the tipping point and become a viable option. Try to do three at once and get nowhere. Send everyone to one school and suddenly you have the ties that bind and a common sense of purpose. One school at Eliot Hine with 600 - 900 students is one answer. The tag line should be “All Roads Lead to EH & Eastern.”

Having a single middle school creates a huge incentive for families to jump into LT, JO Wilson, Payne, Amidon, Miner and Tyler. It also keeps middle class families at Watkins, Maury and Brent. And it keeps families away from Yu Ying, Two Rivers, Cap City, LAMB, EL Haynes and others.

Use a map and diagram all of the schools and the feeder patterns. It makes no sense. The Cluster bisects the Hill, Brent feeds into two MS schools, Jefferson is not Hill-centric, Eliot Hine attracts most of its students from beyond Ward Six, and Ward Six has lots of poverty and a history of families leaving for greener pastures. The current reform plan recipe is little more than warmed over status quo with a few middle class kids and a dash of IB. Promises from DCPS that “we know how to do this,” and the perception of an overwhelming wave of middle class kids creating change (al la Maury and Brent, and the Cluster in the 90s) will likely not cut it.

Further, Stuart Hobson gets a modernized school making it the “it” school to some degree, but with an enrollment cap that boxes out families, and the gains of SH pushing Eliot Hine and Jefferson’s modernization beyond the event horizon for current families, and the lure of SH’s middling appeal eroding efforts to attract middle class families to Eliot Hine, there is no forward momentum. There is a zero sum game at play with regard to money and middle class families, we can’t simply hold hands and hope for the best. There are real constraints, and a hornets’ nest of political realities that cannot simply be wished away.

The current set-up pits everyone against one another. Stuart Hobson, Eliot Hine and Jefferson cannibalize each other trying to become viable options. Throw in Hardy, Deal feeders, Latin and BASIS, plus Cap Hill Day, GDS, Saint Anselm's, other privates, mobility of affluent families, and what you have is a situation lacking momentum and fraught with infighting. This affects the elementary schools directly, eliminating incentives to jump in and fix them up.

Or you could make Stuart Hobson a selective admission school and perhaps give it some sort of Ward Six preference. Or you could add an admission only academy to Eliot Hine, or make Jefferson a magnet school. But all of these go against the grain too much for the DC body politic to accept. And they don’t help as much to create the ties that bind.

Tommy could take a bolder stand and try his darndest to get everyone marching to the same tune, but that is easier said than done. Why blame Tommy for being ineffective – who should he listen to? Cluster folks, gentrifiers, pro-Eliot Hine advocates, pro-Jefferson people, pro-charter families, econ-disadvantaged, DCPS three school solution people . . . What exactly do his constituents want? I suggest that there is no majority approved plan. The reality is that there are a few small groups of highly motivated and vocal advocates holding sway, and for the uninvolved it is confusing and off-putting. It’s easy to say we want good schools, but beyond that there is absolutely no consensus amongst voters. There’s nothing politicians run away from faster than a strongly divided and emotional community, especially when an essential ingredient for success is having confidence that our numbers are many and we are all in this together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree, make the case to DCPS - Wells maybe be useless on education in Ward 6, but he wouldn't stand in our way.

What can the LT parents do in regard to the looming boundary fight? Fight to be IB for SWS - it's not set in stone that the school will have a city-wide draw?? Fight for proximity preference? Fight to switch the city-wide draw to LT? Fight to shift LT's boundaries North, away from Stanton Park perhaps with F St as the southern border (many of us live between F and the park). What?

Here is one way to make it happen: all Ward Six ES schools feed into one middle school. There are not enough middle class families within the catchment areas for the three middle schools to reach the tipping point and become a viable option. Try to do three at once and get nowhere. Send everyone to one school and suddenly you have the ties that bind and a common sense of purpose. One school at Eliot Hine with 600 - 900 students is one answer. The tag line should be “All Roads Lead to EH & Eastern.”

Having a single middle school creates a huge incentive for families to jump into LT, JO Wilson, Payne, Amidon, Miner and Tyler. It also keeps middle class families at Watkins, Maury and Brent. And it keeps families away from Yu Ying, Two Rivers, Cap City, LAMB, EL Haynes and others.

Use a map and diagram all of the schools and the feeder patterns. It makes no sense. The Cluster bisects the Hill, Brent feeds into two MS schools, Jefferson is not Hill-centric, Eliot Hine attracts most of its students from beyond Ward Six, and Ward Six has lots of poverty and a history of families leaving for greener pastures. The current reform plan recipe is little more than warmed over status quo with a few middle class kids and a dash of IB. Promises from DCPS that “we know how to do this,” and the perception of an overwhelming wave of middle class kids creating change (al la Maury and Brent, and the Cluster in the 90s) will likely not cut it.

Further, Stuart Hobson gets a modernized school making it the “it” school to some degree, but with an enrollment cap that boxes out families, and the gains of SH pushing Eliot Hine and Jefferson’s modernization beyond the event horizon for current families, and the lure of SH’s middling appeal eroding efforts to attract middle class families to Eliot Hine, there is no forward momentum. There is a zero sum game at play with regard to money and middle class families, we can’t simply hold hands and hope for the best. There are real constraints, and a hornets’ nest of political realities that cannot simply be wished away.

The current set-up pits everyone against one another. Stuart Hobson, Eliot Hine and Jefferson cannibalize each other trying to become viable options. Throw in Hardy, Deal feeders, Latin and BASIS, plus Cap Hill Day, GDS, Saint Anselm's, other privates, mobility of affluent families, and what you have is a situation lacking momentum and fraught with infighting. This affects the elementary schools directly, eliminating incentives to jump in and fix them up.

Or you could make Stuart Hobson a selective admission school and perhaps give it some sort of Ward Six preference. Or you could add an admission only academy to Eliot Hine, or make Jefferson a magnet school. But all of these go against the grain too much for the DC body politic to accept. And they don’t help as much to create the ties that bind.

Tommy could take a bolder stand and try his darndest to get everyone marching to the same tune, but that is easier said than done. Why blame Tommy for being ineffective – who should he listen to? Cluster folks, gentrifiers, pro-Eliot Hine advocates, pro-Jefferson people, pro-charter families, econ-disadvantaged, DCPS three school solution people . . . What exactly do his constituents want? I suggest that there is no majority approved plan. The reality is that there are a few small groups of highly motivated and vocal advocates holding sway, and for the uninvolved it is confusing and off-putting. It’s easy to say we want good schools, but beyond that there is absolutely no consensus amongst voters. There’s nothing politicians run away from faster than a strongly divided and emotional community, especially when an essential ingredient for success is having confidence that our numbers are many and we are all in this together.

NP here. Tommy certainly isn't listening to the Cluster in terms of getting the monies to finalize SH modernization. I think the problem is that Tommy doesn't properly listen to any one constituency, because he knows there is no way for him to whip up wider support from such fragmented support. Plus, I think he was involved in Eliot Hine renovations, and probably feels like he has done his part. I simply think he can't or won't be bothered with the frustrated SES and middle-class parents anymore. Not when he sights are set elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

^ Nice try but no dice. The only way to make a neighborhood MS school work would be to for DCPS to drop the ES feeder right Rhee instituted in 2009. Get rid of it and return to residence as the preference, making SH the feeder for all kids who reside on the Hill itself. The kids in the Hill elementary schools who don't reside on the Hill only get a preference for unused MS spots, like before. Use the MOTH membership borders, south of Florida, north of the Highway, west of the Capitol, east of RFK.

Unless Hill kids get to attend SH before those who don't live here, no hope of the school drawing in most of the upper-middle-class cohort. Eliot-Hine can't work as long as SH stays open and SH won't close for several reasons: it's facilites/plant are about to dramatically improve, most gentrifiers don't want to send their kids to the East Hill next to Eastern (a gentrifier free zone), and the Cluster has political clout built since the early 90s. Close LT and re-open it as a SH annex, creating a lot of extra space.

The other missing link is honors classes at SH, in every academic subject, with algebra starting not in 8th grade for some as now, not in 7th grade as at Deal, but in 6th grade for those who can test in, to compete with BASIS. Everybody else takes it in 7th or 8th, as in most suburban schools. SH should also offer really advanced language classes for Spanish and Chinese, to keep Tyler SI kids and to win back some of the Yu Ying kids, rather than seeing them run off to the future DCI.

[Anonymous]

Would work. Won't happen.

[Anonymous]

Right on 17:05! Making SH even Ward 6 only would improve things dramatically.

[Anonymous]

1705 is on to something here. Would Cluster parents go for that? Watkins must be a huge majority of kids from off the Hill and would no longer have rights to SH after 5th at Watkins. Would it cripple the Cluster School?