Jefferson Academy Kool-Aid

[Anonymous]

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As you seem to be familiar with the acievement gap at Brent you must have heard that the gap correlates with students admitted to Brent at First Grade and above. Brent can't remediate its way out of a situation where students admitted to fill seats via the lottery find themselves unprepared by the schools they left.

I'll fix this for you. Unprepared by ...

... by the prenatal care they didn't get
... by the poverty-driven cortisol that crossed the placenta when they were in utero
... by the relative lack of high-nutrient foods (DHA, EPA) they didn't get ages 0-3 as their brains developed critical neuro pathways
... by the 30 million words they didn't hear by age 3, a result that will follow them at Watkins, SH and for the rest of their entire lives [ http://literacy.rice.edu/thirty-million-word-gap ]
... by the comparatively ad hoc, likely low-quality and unstable child care they received prior to school
... by the books they weren't read, the art classes they didn't have as 2 year olds, the Please Touch Museum they didn't visit at age 4
.... by the slapping around they received throughout early childhood for getting on mama's last nerve

It's really time to reframe "the gap" and stop making "shitty teachers" and "shitty administrators" and "David Grosso" the absolute and only scapegoats.

-- not a teacher or a Grosso staffer

I don't understand how you can detail the systemic, institutionally embedded causes of poverty, and then somehow exempt public schools from that list? Public schools are the next thing in that list that fail kids, in many cases.

the children reach school age far behind their peers, thus the achievement gap. even if schooling helps improve, their higher SES cohorts are also improving and more dramatically at that. You may not see much of a difference in a 3 yr old classroom but by 1st grade the differences are obvious. It happens if in high performing schools with highly effective teachers.

The point is that poor kids don't get to go to high performing schools with highly effective teachers, by and large. https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/Ed%20Trust%20Facts%20on%20Teacher%20Equity.pdf

That's true to some extent, but they also lag behind their more affluent peers even when they do enroll in higher performing schools with highly effective teachers.. That's the bigger issue.

PP ^^ -- sorry I shouldn't say "bigger" issue, just more germane to the achievement gap in integrated school. Every child should have access to higher performing schools and highly effective teachers.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:No doubt, there are many potential reasons kids arrive at schools with below grade level skills. However, for parents considering sending their kids to Jefferson, the question is can Jefferson adequately teach my child given their resources and the cohort of students entering. Jefferson's response is differentiation in the classroom.

Maybe more than differentiation in the classroom. At a Brent PTA meeting several months ago, the Jefferson Academy vice principal did say that they'd be glad to offer "advanced classes," e.g. 7th grade algebra, if they had a cohort of students ready for them.

Henderson, Grosso, Allen and company don't seem to have their heads around the problem of funding pricey if-you-build-it-they-will-come renovations without also funding instructors/resources for honors classes (better than the at-grade level variant you find at Stuart Hobson), creating false narratives. The problem is quite simple: DCPS leaders and politicians aren't providing incentives to middle school principals to allocate funds for the advanced instruction needed to attract and retain cohorts of in-boundary students in gentrifying zones.

OK, so academic tracking along race lines was a serious problem in previous generations. This time around, tracking could be done thoughtfully, with the sort of "flex tracking" with strong after-hours support you see at BASIS and Deal for math.

There is definitely a "chicken and egg" dilemma at work here. Hill parents don't trust DCPS to provide an adequate path for their kids. And after the Eastern debacle, where DCPS moved mountains to reconstitute, renovate and install IB at the "stroller brigade's" request, and they still didn't show up, Hill parents don't have much credibility with downtown either.

Your story has holes. It wasn't the "stroller brigade" pushing for Eastern. If anything the stroller brigade wanted a viable comprehensive neighborhood middle school option that doesn't require lottery luck

That's fair; fixing the high school before the middle schools didn't make much sense to me.

Except they did fix middle schools. Hobson got $40 million. EH and Jefferson got additional $$ in the Ward 6 Middle School Reform Plan. I'm not saying they did it right, but from leadership perspective they kow towed to gentrifiers.

Only symbolically. They completely ignored the aspect of few high performing students flowing into a middle school that is set up o serve much higher numbers of struggling students coming from elementary schools that were failing to educate those kids. They preferred to ignore or browbeat parents over that rather than face it head on. "Differentiation" is not an adequate response. Not nearly. Parents want to hear from their education and political leaders " We understand this is a very real concern with merit. These are the 5 things we are going to so to address that problem. We base these measures on successes we have researched in middle schools X and Y where there are similar demographics. Please join us in a tour of middle school X so you can observe for yourself how this works.

No one has the brains or cojones to do this because it is politically fraught, and frankly, there are possibly NO successful models in exisence

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No doubt, there are many potential reasons kids arrive at schools with below grade level skills. However, for parents considering sending their kids to Jefferson, the question is can Jefferson adequately teach my child given their resources and the cohort of students entering. Jefferson's response is differentiation in the classroom.

Maybe more than differentiation in the classroom. At a Brent PTA meeting several months ago, the Jefferson Academy vice principal did say that they'd be glad to offer "advanced classes," e.g. 7th grade algebra, if they had a cohort of students ready for them.

Henderson, Grosso, Allen and company don't seem to have their heads around the problem of funding pricey if-you-build-it-they-will-come renovations without also funding instructors/resources for honors classes (better than the at-grade level variant you find at Stuart Hobson), creating false narratives. The problem is quite simple: DCPS leaders and politicians aren't providing incentives to middle school principals to allocate funds for the advanced instruction needed to attract and retain cohorts of in-boundary students in gentrifying zones.

OK, so academic tracking along race lines was a serious problem in previous generations. This time around, tracking could be done thoughtfully, with the sort of "flex tracking" with strong after-hours support you see at BASIS and Deal for math.

There is definitely a "chicken and egg" dilemma at work here. Hill parents don't trust DCPS to provide an adequate path for their kids. And after the Eastern debacle, where DCPS moved mountains to reconstitute, renovate and install IB at the "stroller brigade's" request, and they still didn't show up, Hill parents don't have much credibility with downtown either.

Eastern is a fully articulated high school that was renovated for the students who attend and who will attend. It was the right thing to do and the renovation is beautiful.

Is it fully enrolled yet?

It's projected to have almost 1000 students next year. What's the "fully enrolled" number supposed to be?

[Anonymous]

Eastern is a fully articulated high school that was renovated for the students who attend and who will attend. It was the right thing to do and the renovation is beautiful.


How uplifting. So where are Capitol Hill residents who can't afford private school supposed to send their teens to HS if they lack lottery luck at high SES friendly charters? Gleaming Eastern, which supports an International Baccalaureate Diploma program where no student achieves a pass point total higher than the mid 20s (on a points scale of 24-45, the equivalent of a D+)? Meanwhile, at a dozen suburban IBD programs in this metro area, average pass points totals are in the high 30s (the equivalent of an A-).

What's the right thing to do for in-boundary families? Pretend that our children can accrue the benefit of an Eastern IBD education, call us names when they don't attend, and leave it at that, with no hell to pay on election day? Great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Eastern is a fully articulated high school that was renovated for the students who attend and who will attend. It was the right thing to do and the renovation is beautiful.


How uplifting. So where are Capitol Hill residents who can't afford private school supposed to send their teens to HS if they lack lottery luck at high SES friendly charters? Gleaming Eastern, which supports an International Baccalaureate Diploma program where no student achieves a pass point total higher than the mid 20s (on a points scale of 24-45, the equivalent of a D+)? Meanwhile, at a dozen suburban IBD programs in this metro area, average pass points totals are in the high 30s (the equivalent of an A-).

What's the right thing to do for in-boundary families? Pretend that our children can accrue the benefit of an Eastern IBD education, call us names when they don't attend, and leave it at that, with no hell to pay on election day? Great.

Nobody, be it the Mayor, the Deputy Mayor for Education, the Chancellor or the Council, care enough about gentrifying families and their children beyond getting them enrolled in DCPS and pumping up PARCC scores for press releases and patting themselves on the back for a job well done The sooner you accept this the less likely you will find yourself disappointed, frustrated and then angry.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Why not set up a comprehensive middle school on Capitol Hill spread out on two campuses? 6th grade at Stuart-Hobson and 7th and 8th grade at Elliott-Hine. Feeders would be JO Wilson, LT, Watkins, Brent, Maury, Tyler, SWS, Payne, Miner, Van Ness, and Amidon-Bowen. There could be a Spanish immersion track to support students from Tyler Bilingual as well as Hill families from LAMB and Mundo Verde looking for a neighborhood school for the MS years. Turn Jefferson into a test-in STEM MS.

Great question for Henderson, Grosso and Allen.

This idea has merit. Seriously. Something a politician can ( and should ) get behind. And it could be done in the spirit of "uniting ward 6 on the road to Eastern". It would eliminate these funding and feeder squabbles and create incentives for everyone to work together and share resources-- The school would be the size of Deal and have the per-pupiil funding to run robust programs in academics, remediation, sports, arts and drama. I feel like if we can get our neighborhood together in a middle school, amazing things could happen.

I agree that this is the first proposal I have read on one of these threads about the Hill middle school situation that didn't just make me feel more hopeless because it was so obviously not a workable solution. It is a good idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Eastern is a fully articulated high school that was renovated for the students who attend and who will attend. It was the right thing to do and the renovation is beautiful.


How uplifting. So where are Capitol Hill residents who can't afford private school supposed to send their teens to HS if they lack lottery luck at high SES friendly charters? Gleaming Eastern, which supports an International Baccalaureate Diploma program where no student achieves a pass point total higher than the mid 20s (on a points scale of 24-45, the equivalent of a D+)? Meanwhile, at a dozen suburban IBD programs in this metro area, average pass points totals are in the high 30s (the equivalent of an A-).

What's the right thing to do for in-boundary families? Pretend that our children can accrue the benefit of an Eastern IBD education, call us names when they don't attend, and leave it at that, with no hell to pay on election day? Great.

You sell your house and move to one of dozen suburban schools which have stellar IB scores. If you value your kids' education so much, why the heck are you sending them to public school in Ward 6 of DC? Cap Hill is great for free PK. Then you move if you really care about education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eastern is a fully articulated high school that was renovated for the students who attend and who will attend. It was the right thing to do and the renovation is beautiful.


How uplifting. So where are Capitol Hill residents who can't afford private school supposed to send their teens to HS if they lack lottery luck at high SES friendly charters? Gleaming Eastern, which supports an International Baccalaureate Diploma program where no student achieves a pass point total higher than the mid 20s (on a points scale of 24-45, the equivalent of a D+)? Meanwhile, at a dozen suburban IBD programs in this metro area, average pass points totals are in the high 30s (the equivalent of an A-).

What's the right thing to do for in-boundary families? Pretend that our children can accrue the benefit of an Eastern IBD education, call us names when they don't attend, and leave it at that, with no hell to pay on election day? Great.

Nobody, be it the Mayor, the Deputy Mayor for Education, the Chancellor or the Council, care enough about gentrifying families and their children beyond getting them enrolled in DCPS and pumping up PARCC scores for press releases and patting themselves on the back for a job well done The sooner you accept this the less likely you will find yourself disappointed, frustrated and then angry.

Sorry to say, I think you're right. We will need a new Mayor, new DME, new Chancellor, and mostly new Council members for our needs to be served. We'll get them eventually of course if we stay, but too late for most of high SES children already in DCPS and DCPC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eastern is a fully articulated high school that was renovated for the students who attend and who will attend. It was the right thing to do and the renovation is beautiful.


How uplifting. So where are Capitol Hill residents who can't afford private school supposed to send their teens to HS if they lack lottery luck at high SES friendly charters? Gleaming Eastern, which supports an International Baccalaureate Diploma program where no student achieves a pass point total higher than the mid 20s (on a points scale of 24-45, the equivalent of a D+)? Meanwhile, at a dozen suburban IBD programs in this metro area, average pass points totals are in the high 30s (the equivalent of an A-).

What's the right thing to do for in-boundary families? Pretend that our children can accrue the benefit of an Eastern IBD education, call us names when they don't attend, and leave it at that, with no hell to pay on election day? Great.

You sell your house and move to one of dozen suburban schools which have stellar IB scores. If you value your kids' education so much, why the heck are you sending them to public school in Ward 6 of DC? Cap Hill is great for free PK. Then you move if you really care about education.

We know plenty of families living in N. Arlington, McLean and Montgomery County and our experience at Brent is at least equal to theirs, if not significantly better in many aspects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Eastern is a fully articulated high school that was renovated for the students who attend and who will attend. It was the right thing to do and the renovation is beautiful.


How uplifting. So where are Capitol Hill residents who can't afford private school supposed to send their teens to HS if they lack lottery luck at high SES friendly charters? Gleaming Eastern, which supports an International Baccalaureate Diploma program where no student achieves a pass point total higher than the mid 20s (on a points scale of 24-45, the equivalent of a D+)? Meanwhile, at a dozen suburban IBD programs in this metro area, average pass points totals are in the high 30s (the equivalent of an A-).

What's the right thing to do for in-boundary families? Pretend that our children can accrue the benefit of an Eastern IBD education, call us names when they don't attend, and leave it at that, with no hell to pay on election day? Great.

Don't you get it? It's called poverty and income inequality. By a quirk of gentrification you are getting a taste of the public institutions that you would normally be insulated from.

[Anonymous]

If gentrification's just a quirk, why are real estate values shooting up all over the city, even east of the River?

I agree with PP's who make the case that a good many DC public elementary schools on the Hill offer an education on a par with good ones in the burbs, partly because instructor: kid ratios are much better. Our friends who've hit the road from SWS, Maury, Brent and Ludlow-Taylor to MoCo and NoVa sound unhappy with nearly 30 kids in a room and no teachers aide. We've also got decent public options at Walls, Banneker and Ellington. By-right middle schools outside the Deal district are the missing link.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eastern is a fully articulated high school that was renovated for the students who attend and who will attend. It was the right thing to do and the renovation is beautiful.


How uplifting. So where are Capitol Hill residents who can't afford private school supposed to send their teens to HS if they lack lottery luck at high SES friendly charters? Gleaming Eastern, which supports an International Baccalaureate Diploma program where no student achieves a pass point total higher than the mid 20s (on a points scale of 24-45, the equivalent of a D+)? Meanwhile, at a dozen suburban IBD programs in this metro area, average pass points totals are in the high 30s (the equivalent of an A-).

What's the right thing to do for in-boundary families? Pretend that our children can accrue the benefit of an Eastern IBD education, call us names when they don't attend, and leave it at that, with no hell to pay on election day? Great.

Don't you get it? It's called poverty and income inequality. By a quirk of gentrification you are getting a taste of the public institutions that you would normally be insulated from.

Really wish I were insulated from the DMV, normally, abnormally, however that could work. Spent several hours there yesterday to get the new fangled drivers license. No way out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eastern is a fully articulated high school that was renovated for the students who attend and who will attend. It was the right thing to do and the renovation is beautiful.


How uplifting. So where are Capitol Hill residents who can't afford private school supposed to send their teens to HS if they lack lottery luck at high SES friendly charters? Gleaming Eastern, which supports an International Baccalaureate Diploma program where no student achieves a pass point total higher than the mid 20s (on a points scale of 24-45, the equivalent of a D+)? Meanwhile, at a dozen suburban IBD programs in this metro area, average pass points totals are in the high 30s (the equivalent of an A-).

What's the right thing to do for in-boundary families? Pretend that our children can accrue the benefit of an Eastern IBD education, call us names when they don't attend, and leave it at that, with no hell to pay on election day? Great.

Don't you get it? It's called poverty and income inequality. By a quirk of gentrification you are getting a taste of the public institutions that you would normally be insulated from.

Really wish I were insulated from the DMV, normally, abnormally, however that could work. Spent several hours there yesterday to get the new fangled drivers license. No way out.

Sell your car. Problem solved.

[Anonymous]

Blame the new fangled drivers license on Congress - the "REAL ID" thing is a pain the first time through everywhere, not just DC.

[Anonymous]

Anyone on who owns a house on the Hill is rich by DC and regional standards.

I get it, you don't want to move, but you have resources.

Thank you! I didn't know I was rich. We own a house on the Hill. Paid $240K for it years ago when our particular corner of the Hill was not sought after. Our HHI is around $115K/year. Yes, by world and US standards we are rich. By DC standards?